Since this is the All Star week for baseball, I thought I’d throw out a few suggestions to tweak the Grand Old Game.  With the exception of the Designated Hitter, I’m a traditionalist but there should be less stupid scoreboard crap and more personable entertainment like the sausage races they have in Milwaukee and the pierogi one in Pittsburgh.  Obviously you would make the running items localized.  For instance maybe have some biscuits and Chik Fil A chicken nuggets and a Coke bottle running around the field in Atlanta.  In Toronto you could have someone dressed as a Labatt’s beer bottle, a Molson beer bottle and a hockey player.  Heck, at Comiskullar Field you could have competing Ligues (people outside of Chicago might not get that one).

I have a separate section for time management.  While part of the beauty of baseball is there is no time clock, games today last a lot longer than they used to.  There are many ways to shave time off and get these games under 3 hours. While then NHL is an afterthought in most parts of the States, they addressed time constraints and it worked wonders.  They reduced the time between faceoffs from 30 to 15 seconds and now no game goes over 2 ½ hours.

The most obvious change is to reduce time between innings.  Baseball makes enough money yet the commercial breaks rival those of the NFL.  Once the pitcher has thrown 8 warmup pitches, it’s time to Play Ball. 

Intentional walks do not need 4 unnecessary pitches. Have a signal for pitchers (or the catcher) to show their intention for an intentional walk.  Maybe have the catcher do what he does now (stand up and stick his arm out to the side).  The home plate umpire will acknowledge the signal and then tell the batter to take his base.

Pitchers get one “step off the rubber” movement per inning. Any more and it’s an automatic ball.

Batters get one “step out of the box” movement per game.  Any more and it’s an automatic strike.

For a catcher who has to catch a knuckleball pitcher, have each passed ball only count as ½.  Either that or give a  ½ wild pitch to the knuckleballer.

Make the maximum amount of throws a pitcher makes to the first baseman to hold a runner be no more than 3 per runner.  Anything more than this is simply a waste of time and serves no purpose but to stall the game.

More ideas/suggestions:

Remove the protective netting behind home plate and make those the cheap seats. Gloves are required.

Give pitchers a leg up on these steroid freaks and raise the mound by an inch.  Will it induce more steroid taking?  I don’t know, but it will buy some time for the pitching profession.

One more note – while I, like a lot of America, am not enthralled with Barry Bonds and his refusal to clear the air about his alleged steroid usage, I like Bud Selig even less.  I’m kind of hoping Barry gets the game MVP award tomorrow for one simple reason – I want to see Bud squirm while presenting the award to him.  I want Bud to give kudos to a man he detests and to a man he doesn’t want to break the most hallowed of baseball’s records.