Detroit Metro Times: It's about time -- baseball fast-forwards into the past [View all]

Lapointe: It’s about time — baseball fast-forwards into the past
New rules are blowing through the sport like a cool breeze on a hot day

By Joe Lapointe on Mon, Apr 3, 2023 at 8:42 am




Forget, for the moment, that the Tigers’ opened the 2023 season with a wretched three-game losing streak at Tampa Bay. Imagine, instead, balmy days of mid-season, when their home games start at their new weeknight time of 6:40 p.m. under baseball’s brisk, new pace of play.

A Comerica Park game could end in two hours and 14 minutes, the way their season opener did on Thursday; or in 2:48, as the second game did on Saturday; or in 2:10, as the third did on Sunday.

If so, two of them would conclude before 9 p.m. and Detroit fans would head home from a “night” game with the summer sun still setting in the west.

This is but one positive permutation of baseball’s fresh and radical format to pick up its tempo. Despite Detroit’s problematic performance thus far, new rules are blowing through the sport like a cool breeze on a hot day.

....(snip)....



Remember Mark (the Bird) Fidrych, who pitched two-hour complete games while winning 19 for the Tigers in 1976? He threw every eight to 10 seconds. But he was one of a kind. Under new rules, pitchers must deliver in 15 seconds with bases empty or 20 seconds with runners on base. ..............(more)

https://www.metrotimes.com/news/lapointe-its-about-time-baseball-fast-forwards-into-the-past-32772863