MLB which has used the "ghost runner" (in extra inning put runner on 2nd base) now has approved it as permanent. This Manford Man rule and the not so Wonder Dogs will last until they decide to tinker toy it again. Maybe put bases loaded next time with 2 outs and make it a 3-2 count. In addition, the bases are now larger supposedly to avoid injuries due to sliding runners. Here's my idea, call the guy out if the fielder is within 10 feet of the runner, just put a white chalk circle around each base. Why not? Might as well eliminate tagging a runner even at home plate. Tagging is offensive. Time clock on pitchers. Ok. I get that to a point. But simply change one thing. Time up the home plate ump. Ump calls play ball, batter better be in box and ready and pitcher ready to throw. If batter not in, then automatic strike. If pitcher playing with himself, then simply call a ball (pun intended). I think MLB tinkers too much. Thus my sarcastic comments. They want to adjust the game to the microwave generation, all the while losing many fans.
This one of many reasons I don't watch MLB anymore. The ghost runner is stupid, it basically gives the team at bat a run. I started watching baseball in the 50's and Mickey Mantle was my hero.
MLB has been changed a lot from the purity of the original game. Too bad. I hardly watch at all anymore, although I do watch the post season. My 2 heroes growing up were Mickey Mantle and Johnny Unitas. Oh for the good old days!!
Unitas!!! I got to meet him and talk to him for a while in 1972 when Colts came down for preseason games. My boss had the invite to meet the Colts (as in drink with them), he couldn't go so I went. I was young and kind of nervous to even approach him. But later in the evening I went up to a leaning against the wall John Constantine Unitas and got his autograh. Then I blurted, watched you throw some amazing game winning passes, even the one vs the Lions that ended in a loss when they scored with just a couple of seconds last. He laughed...then I asked, why did you throw to the TE at the end of the OT game vs the Giants in 1958? That opened a door. He pulled me aside and went thru play by play (he called the plays in the huddle) on that drive. He explained that the NY DB (HOFer) Emlen Tunnell (sic) was inching inside to stop Lenny Moore and Alan Amache runs. He said the "safest" play call near the goal line was an out to his TE Jim Muecheller (sic) and he did throw that out. The TE slipped out of bounds due to ice in that corner which resulted in the Ameche up the middle for the winning TD on the next play. I have forever so appreciated a star like him taking the time to sit and talk one on one with a fan and explain it in detail.
I approached Unitas at the restaurant where the team stayed for their exhibition game here. Went there for the sole purpose of the chance to meet him. He and Ted Williams were my two sport's ideals. Saw him walk into the restaurant. Went up to him, reached out my hand to greet him and completely froze. Not a word would come out of my mouth. Talk about embarrassed. Never forgot that. Meeting Ted Williams was another story.
My only true athletic brush with greatness was at a White Sox game and my dad and I had "reserved grandstand" seats not far behind the first base/visitor's dugout. It was a weekday NBC Game of the Week and who should emerge from the dugout but Sandy Koufax. I ran down and politely asked for an autograph. I have no idea if words even came out of my mouth but I am sure that I was polite. I might have just offerred my program to him. I was star struck and got the autograph that my mother threw out when I was in college. My best brush with greatness was sitting next to Bo Diddley on a flight from Atlanta to Gainesville. We talked about music for about half of the flight and then he was recognized and word got out and then he went into his schtick, i.e. "now kids tell your teachers that you know diddley". I wanted to ask him what he thought of Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away, but I didn't. Without Bo that song does not exist.
Why not just use the double base at 1B like you see sometimes in softball. Leave other 2 bases unaffected that way. Assuming this is a safety measure.. Might see more steal attmpts w/ 2nd & 3rd being bigger, which is a good thing(actually a step 'backwards' to real baseball) but highly doubt this entered their minds. Steals can be dangerous and they obviously frown on that. And why was there ever a safety issue at MLB anyways. Guys are paid to play 1B correctly,, do that & shouldnt be any problems. If so the runner is to blame and probably out...good enough. Do like the no shift rule. But I bet vs a lot of LHers, teams will sacrifice LF to stick in that short Rf hole. Handful have zero prayer hitting to LF. so still beats the odds
Part of the underlying issues at the mlb level are teams have completely forgotten to bunt. No one does it anymore because too lazy to do it. If you had committed players up and down the entire lineup who could bunt then in my mind you eliminate almost all of this talk about shifting and ghost runners when getting into trying to end games getting into extra innings. It has been for a while all about the homer ball and completely forgetting about the art of small ball and when to do it at the right time. Putting a pitch clock is fine and I don’t care. Sometimes a long game is a function of the umpires strike zone and nothing to do with the pitchers. You mess with the game too much you will mess with game in negative way.
The executed bunt and the executed hit & run are two of the prettiest plays in the game of baseball IMHO.
This trend of not bunting obviously started in the mid 90s and then moving forward. I honestly do not get it. If you go from mid 90s going backwards to the start of baseball in late 1800s, you literally had at least 2-3 guys in the batting lineup who could at least bunt. Then you had the odd ball teams where the entire lineup could bunt like the Cardinals in the 80s. I swear if I was managing any MLB team I would say you don't hit unless you know how to bunt period. All this shifting crap that is going would literally end if you had 2-3 guys in the lineup who would just bunt the damn ball. I guarantee you if teams started doing this the shifting would stop. Bunting and stealing bases is the strategy to ending shifting and teams just don't do it. If I have a guy in the first 1-2 innings of game who lead off the game with a double with no outs then I would automatically tell the next guy to bunt the guy over. And the get the guy home from third with the hit or sac fly. I have always found getting in the first couple runs by any means completely changes the mindset of the guys in terms of hitting the rest of the game. You are more relaxed with the early lead and you are indirectly putting different pressures on the opposing teams defense by bunting and stealing and hit/running. But now it is all or nothing - get a homerun or hit when you see runners on second with no outs. Even with the putting the guy on second in extra innings, teams still don't want to bunt the guy over just to get the runner on third with one out in order to just get that one run in just to end the damn game in extra innings. It is this mentality of the huge offensive inning. I think of bunting strategy as the chinese water torture method of baseball strategy. If you can get 1 run here and 1 run there to start the game then at some point later in the game you can get that big inning later down the line. But everyone wants the big inning where it be the first inning or any inning now. And playing for the 3 run homer is not a very sound strategy in the long run during the course of an entire season. You give me a team up and down the lineup who can all bunt then I will tell you that is a team that is not going to get into many offensive slumps as a group during the course of a season because good bunters know how to see the ball coming off the bat and those hitters are good contact hitters who will not strike out often.
Not much strategy left in the game. It's the old Earl Weaver philosophy - play for the 3-run homer. And pitching has become so specialized. Starters go 5 innings, then a 2-inning reliever, then a guy for the 8th and a closer for the 9th. There's variation, of course, but that's the basic intent.
Last season, did not a pitcher throw a 6 inning no hitter? Was pulled due to "pitch count". Every pitcher in MLB cant throw over 100 pitches in a game. Maybe they should be forced to play in skorts, wear a pony tail, and shave their legs.
350– My biggest hang up here is the analytics people designating 5 innings as a “quality start”….. I played when a complete 7 innings was considered a quality start.
The ghost runner being placed on 2nd base is because of people who require a fidget spinner that have the attention span of a gnat. Stop “tinkering” with the only real game left, this is pure nonsense. If you really want to speed the game up, make the batter’s stay in the box and stop the pitchers from constantly wandering around the mound kicking dirt, pitch the damn ball.
Why do y’all keep referring to the runner on second as a ghost runner? They do physically put a runner on second. There’s no ghost. We used ghost runners when we didn’t have enough players to field two full teams and the hitting team had all their batters on base. Someone had to go back to the plate to hit, hence leaving a “ghost” at his vacated spot on the basepath. If the batter got a hit and the other runners advanced, the “ghost” was assumed to have advanced too. Are they going to implement this rule during the playoffs still? Last year they didn’t. I don’t really have a problem with it during the regular season. There’s no real reason to drag on a regular season game for 20 innings. If they’re keeping it in place during the playoffs/world series, I’m not a fan of that.
That’s the term being tossed around. Yes, it’s an actual runner, that appears out of no where, like a ghost I guess. MLB ghost runner rule: League makes extra-innings change permanent for regular-season games, per report Pizza box?
Bunting has a place in baseball in close games in the late innings or extra innings. There being able to generate that single run can be the difference. Playing "small ball" in the early innings generates fewer runs over a season for most teams. Fewer runs mean fewer wins. Outlier teams like the 1960's "Go Go" White Sox that were built on speed, defense and pitching would be an example where playing "small ball" made sense. Hit and run is a different animal. It is often employed to avoid the double play and that is a huge rally killer. And I agree with @74nole. When a hit and run is executed correctly it is one of the most beautiful plays in all of baseball.
