This week’s second edition of The Editors finds our intrepid host, Rich Lowry, locked in disagreement with his three colleagues over recent rule changes pushed on baseball by the powers that be.
As Dominic put it, “Major League Baseball announced that they are making permanent their supposedly temporary extra-innings rule, taking after the federal government, I guess, in that there is nothing more permanent than a temporary rule change. And what they did is to say that extra innings now will start with a runner on second base. They tried this during the pandemic, and now they are making it permanent. I don’t like it because it’s un-American, and I like America.”
Un-American seems strong, but as Dominic goes on to say, “It’s a good thing to have baseball be based on personal responsibility in merit, and that means that up until this point, every base runner is accounted for. There’s a set number of ways to reach base. Each way is based on something that the batter did to earn his spot there, and something that the defense or the pitcher did to allow him to reach. But now we have a situation where magical runners appear on second base with no cause, and we must write a lie into the score book in order to reflect that.”
Rich is supportive of this rule change, and he “suspect[s] it’s here to stay, because I believe there’s a lot of false consciousness and people not wanting to admit they actually enjoy it. . . . It’s okay to be entertained by sports. . . . Extra innings is not the main thing, the pitch clock is — to try to get the ridiculous time of play at least down some.”
MBD and Dan also have plenty to say about these developments, and you can hear that and more by listening below.