1/30/2024 0 Comments Robo clockerEven fans who hated the DH rule liked the fact that the two leagues disagreed about it. Maybe most striking, the designated hitter rule was adopted by the American League in 1973 and by the National League this year. The ball has been rendered undead (1920), the pitcher’s mound was lowered (1969), intentional walks were made automatic (2017) and teams are now allowed to conjure a scoring-position runner in extra innings by hitless fiat. Rule changes have been made before, of course, and the game has endured. of the Toronto Blue Jays argues with umpire Shane Livensparger at a game this past August. But these cricket-like defensive tactics kill hits, and maybe hitters – you can’t hit ‘em where they ain’t when they’re everywhere. It’s exciting to have the third baseman playing behind first base, say, leaving wide real estate open left of second, or to send four guys into the outfield like in sandlot games. Personally I liked seeing the crazy shifts some teams adopted for predictable pull hitters, the Blue Jays prominent among them. True, the coming rule changes are being made to foster more offence and so, presumably, attract a wider, younger and apparently more easily bored audience. It’s Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times, body tangled into the gears of leisure-time production and consumption. This is not baseball, the glorious loose summer pastime. A clock! In the game that, alone among major team sports, disdains parcelled-out time! Now the game will soon tell a player how fast he must play, where he may stand and how far to run. Next year there will be bigger bases, no fielding shifts and a clock to discipline fussy pitchers. Enjoy the halcyon playoff days of October as the beloved old game dies a mediated death. Mark Kingwell is a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto whose latest book is Singular Creatures: Robots, Rights, and the Politics of Posthumanism.īy now, even casual fans of the game realize that baseball as we know it – or knew it for half a century – is over.
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