MLB has made permanent the dumb rule that puts a runner on second base to begin the 10th inning, adding to the list of reasons to not care about baseball.
The Manfred Man, named for MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, who has yet to come across a facet of the one-time national pastime that he can’t turn into a parody of itself, was first instituted as having had something to do with the pandemic, though even the reasoning back then made little sense.
Apparently, Manfred and the other stewards of the game in charge of making such decisions are worried about the scourge of long games and their impact on the product.
According to USA Today, there were 216 extra-inning games last year, 8.8 percent of the 2,430 scheduled games across all of MLB for the season, and of that subset, 37 – 1.5 percent of the overall total – went 13 or more innings.
For literally one game in nearly 100, MLB is ending its games with the equivalent of a penalty-kick shootout.
But it’s all for the good of the game, to hear Manfred tell it.
“Clubs have gotten used to the extra-innings rule,” Manfred said last week. “I think it’s generally well-liked by players.”
It’s universally mocked by the fans, but what does that matter?
Well, I mean, aside from “fans” being what other industries call “customers,” and “customers” being what those other industries recognize as “the people who pay our bills for us,” obviously, not much.
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Chris Graham
