Intentional walks

Well Baseball just keeps slouching toward Gomorrah. Now they are doing away with actually having to throw four pitches to walk a batter. This will allegedly speed up the game by what 10 or 20 seconds? If one or two batters are issued free passes. There were 932 intentional walks (590 NL & 342AL) issued last year, so how much is that going to speed up the game? THATS ONE IBB EVERY 2.6 GAMES. I won't even mention pitchers throwing the ball away allowing runners to advance/score. Which we have all seen. But let me just say that in baseball, as in all sports, you must perform. If you can't throw four pitches to your catcher without throwing the ball away then you don't belong in the Major Leagues. In other words why don't we just get rid of the boring and time consuming process of actually playing games. We could just let SOM play the games up through the playoffs and the players would just play the World Series. This would save tons of time, greatly reduce injuries, and relieve the players and owners of having to cater to us "pain in the ass" fans. Which is what they really want after all. Baseball is building their own gallows and digging their own grave. And it's not just the IBB which is just one more slip down that slippery slope. IMHO

I agree. I will never forget a Dodger game back in the 70's, I forget who the pitcher was but he was trying to issue intentional walk to Joe Ferguson. Ball was getting a little too close to plate, so Fergsuon leaned way out there and slapped an RBI single into right field. One of the coolest memories from my baseball youth. (another,while not relevant to this story but I'll relay it anyway , also involved Ferguson in the 74 WS, who, while playing RF, cut in front of gimp armed CF Jimmy Wynn on a sac fly attempt and gunned Sal Bando down at the plate on the fly)
anyone else remember that?

Who can forget Rollie Fingers fake intentional walk of Johnny Bench. He struck him out, instead.

Who can forget Rollie Fingers fake intentional walk of Johnny Bench. He struck him out, instead.

Yes! Another great example (although really Dick Williams should get most of the credit for that one) Also, Joe Morgan saw it coming (big surprise there, was there anything Morgan didn't see on the field? Nobody I ever saw was better at reading a pitch-out) and tried to warn Bench, albeit too late. Bench deserves part of the blame for not paying attention as well.

Then there was the "Don Drysdale" method. "Why waste 4 pitches when I can put him on first with one"

I agree. I will never forget a Dodger game back in the 70's

Who can forget Rollie Fingers fake intentional walk of Johnny Bench

If you have to go back 40 or 50 years to find reasons this is interesting .........


Me, I consider this a step forward. 99.99% of the time nothing noteworthy happens. Boring to watch but not long enough to make a trip to concession stand and back.

In general though I wish those harping about speeding up the game would become colonists on Mars.

If I were trying to speed up the game I would limit replay challenge decisions to 10 seconds. If the play and call is so close you have to rely on someone watching several minutes of video to tell you whether to challenge move on and keep playing. A manager challenging and failing would get sent to the showers. Ok, maybe that is a bit extreme.

Another thing I would do is allow electronic communications between the bench and the pitcher/catcher. That would eliminate the need for trips to the mound to talk to a pitcher or get signals straight. I would even have encrypted electronic communications between pitcher and catcher to signal what to throw. The door would open for the pitcher to call pitches and just tell the catcher what he is going to throw. No more concern about a guy on second stealing the signs or a batter peeking back at the signs. Time to embrace technology.

]If you have to go back 40 or 50 years to find reasons this is interesting .........

well, in my case I can't remember what happened a year ago or even last month, but can recall in detail things 30 or more years old.

I love baseball, and I can barely watch it on TV these days - way too much dead time. I'm fine with the IBB change and have a couple idealistic thoughts. These should be implemented in college baseball and the minors immediately to accustom young players to the process

- One catcher / infielder trip to the mound per inning
- Call the strikes at the letters as the rules currently exist
- Every pitcher must face a minimum of 2 batters - 3 pitching changes in an inning is excruciating
- Batters one foot in the box, pitchers stay on the dirt - none of this wandering around
- Catchers call the game, not look to the dugout before every single pitch - whether that's through technology, I don't care - that extra 3-4 seconds before every pitch annoys me to no end
- Reduce half inning breaks by 30 seconds

When ML teams carry 12 pitchers, that's a sign to me that the game is broken. Too many pitches per at bat, too many stepoffs/step outs, too many pitching changes, too much specialization. I've tried taking my family to games and explaining all the nuances, but they all hate it - the last two games we attended were 3 1/2 hr + nine inning games. None of them are interested in attending another game, and that's a problem.

I love baseball, and I can barely watch it on TV these days - way too much dead time. I'm fine with the IBB change and have a couple idealistic thoughts. These should be implemented in college baseball and the minors immediately to accustom young players to the process

- One catcher / infielder trip to the mound per inning
- Call the strikes at the letters as the rules currently exist
- Every pitcher must face a minimum of 2 batters - 3 pitching changes in an inning is excruciating
- Batters one foot in the box, pitchers stay on the dirt - none of this wandering around
- Catchers call the game, not look to the dugout before every single pitch - whether that's through technology, I don't care - that extra 3-4 seconds before every pitch annoys me to no end
- Reduce half inning breaks by 30 seconds

When ML teams carry 12 pitchers, that's a sign to me that the game is broken. Too many pitches per at bat, too many stepoffs/step outs, too many pitching changes, too much specialization. I've tried taking my family to games and explaining all the nuances, but they all hate it - the last two games we attended were 3 1/2 hr + nine inning games. None of them are interested in attending another game, and that's a problem.

Amen!

Who can forget Rollie Fingers fake intentional walk of Johnny Bench. He struck him out, instead.

I can't forget it. Bench and Rose were my boyhood heroes. I thought Bench was a very smart catcher but he got chumped.

Generally I consider the new rule meaningless. Peeling 15 secs off the between half inning commercial breaks would knock five times as much off a game. But then I guess it becomes more difficult to pay the elite pitchers $20K to issue the IBB so that won't happen.