It's early, but MLB rule changes have reinvigorated the sport
Baseball had moved away from entertainment for the sake of competitive advantages. So far, with their new rules, they've corse corrected in a big way.
Normally, on Lakers game nights (especially home games), my work day will end sometime around 12:30 or 1 am. From there, it takes a little while to calm my brain down and hopefully I’ll be in bed by 1:30 or 2. Baseball season is great for this, as usually, there’s a Dodgers game in the seventh inning that I can catch a little of before my eyes start to get heavy.
Last week, though, after finally wrapping up editing and posting, I went to sit on the couch to tune in to the last vestiges of Opening Day only to catch… Highlights! The game had ended 10 minutes or so ago and the Spectrum SportsNetLA team was recapping a Dodgers win. It was a real-life Good Will Hunting moment.
We know how this ends. (Spoilers, I guess?)
Affleck’s character knew he’d probably miss his best friend, but also understood that in order for Damon’s character to grow, he needed to leave. Affleck’s sacrifice here is the temporary loss of his friend but the long-term gain would be legitimately life-altering for Damon.
I was Affleck that night. Sure, it would’ve been nice to catch a little baseball as the Dodgers opened their season, but guess what, there were still 161 more games to go. Somehow, some way, I think I’ll be able to squeeze in an inning or two over the course of the season.
Professional sports fans find themselves in the middle of a perpetual fight between entertainment and competitive advantage in the sports they follow. What we’ve found out is fans are going to lose in that dispute basically every time, so it’s become the leagues’ jobs to legislate entertainment back into the game.
To MLB’s credit, they recognized games were going far too long, with far too much idle time and the action itself had become stale as plate appearances were resulting in either homers, walks or strikeouts, with very little in-between. So, they implemented the pitch clock and eliminated the shift to address those issues. As of right now (and yes, it’s going to take time to fully analyze the ripple effects of these rule changes), the sport is tangibly improved, from an entertainment standpoint.
Imagine that, a league recognized issues with its presentation and addressed them in ways that immediately made the product better. Compare that with, say, other leagues:
Nobody asked for that, Adam. Not a single person.
Football has also dealt with entertainment concerns over the years. The NFL understands its stars are the quarterbacks. So, as a result, the league has severely limited the ways and places quarterbacks can get hit. Sure, it’s probably become an overcorrection at this point, but the notion behind the rule changes is logical and through that good process, the NFL has a chance at landing on a productive middle ground.
Meanwhile, turn on just about any NBA game and you’re far more likely to see everyone standing around watching a free-throw than just about any other play. The NBA could address those issues — and even started to at the beginning of the season — but are more focused on establishing league-wide mediocrity by punishing owners who are actually willing to spend to make their teams competitive.
Maybe we’ll come to find out MLB actually over-corrected, too. Maybe baseball’s historically stubborn, traditional fan base will push back against all this change in ways that force the league to rethink some stuff. But that’s all part of the process. It’s going to take time and trial to figure such macro-level issues and their solutions out.
What we can definitively say, though, is that MLB grew cognizant of a very real problem with its sport and moved to make it more entertaining. Yes, I was looking forward to enjoying a little baseball right before bed, but it probably wasn’t the best sign that a sport that should exist in part to captivate an audience was serving as a nightlight for me anyway. Turning on the tv only to see highlights was a refreshing change. Sure it caught me off guard at first, but I couldn’t help but smile at the league I grew up with showing its own growth.