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MLB Approves New Rules to Speed Up the Game. Here Are Some Better Ones.

You want a briskly played game? I'll give you a briskly played game.

By RandBall's Stu
Mike Hargrove was called The Human Rain Delay. He will be blacklisted as part of this initiative.
Mike Hargrove was called The Human Rain Delay. He will be blacklisted as part of this initiative.
Andy Lyons/Getty Images

Major League Baseball announced a couple rule changes intended to continue making the games more like Ramones songs than Emerson, Lake, & Palmer wankfests.  (This analogy is good, don't let anyone tell you different.)  There is now a 30-second clock when the manager or pitching coach makes a mound visit, and between-innings breaks have been slashed by a good 20 seconds.

But frankly, that's not good enough.  Here, then, are more suggested changes that the game should adopt to continue thriving:

  • Five inning games. Check the rulebook, buttholes: A game is official after five innings of play. Why are you playing more than that if the game's not tied? "Work smarter, not harder." -John the Baptist
  • Extra innings should just be the dizzy bat contest. You know, when you spin around the bat for a certain amount of rotations, then try to run the bases without falling down like a fuckin' idiot? That one. Try to find a player with a keen sense of balance and plus-plus speed. Don't use a Bills fan. 
  • Dingers have a base value of five runs, then 6, 7, and 10 for a grand slam. Dingers are awesome, and should be worth more baseball points. Harder to have ties and Dizzies (that's what extra innings are called now) when someone hangs a 15-20 run inning. I'm right about this.
  • Change the National Anthem to the Pledge of Allegiance. The Pledge is like a minute shorter, and it'll keep the patriots happy.
  • Eliminate the throw back to the pitcher from the catcher. Just have a bucket of balls at the mound for the pitcher to grab a new one. (The bucket can be branded for merchandising, so this is also a money-making opportunity.) "But what about baserunners," you ask. Simple: If they want to steal a base, they have to reach the base before being tackled by the defense. Once the knee is down, the runner is down. Football is a very popular sport, I am told. "But what if the ball hits the bucket and other balls spill out?" Well...
  • MULTIBALL CHALLENGE! Say a batted ball hits the Ford Fiesta Mound Bucket™ and the remaining baseballs spill onto the field of play. Those balls are now live, and will count as runs or outs, depending on a system I am still workshopping. It'll be great, I promise.  As great as this GIF: 

If you have your own ideas on how to improve the pace of play, feel free to leave them in the comments below.

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