Current Problems In Baseball And The Way To Fix Them
Baseball is played with problems. In today’s society there are too many problems in baseball. From on the field to off the field, these problems can ruin baseball forever. The problems range to salaries for minor league players to umpires not calling enough strikes. “Too often umpires don't call the high end of the strike zone consistently” (“What is Wrong with Baseball and 18 Ways to Fix it” [1]). If people do not take a stand to end these problems, baseball will never be the same. Problems in baseball are ruining the game, but fixing the home plate collisions, pace of the game, and adjusting to the players being too good will save the love of the game.
The players are getting too good in baseball. The defensive shift is one of the biggest moves in baseball for a fantastic hitter. When a player will get a base hit, he is robbed of it because the infielders can move to the ball faster in the shift. The standard batting average in baseball, this year was the lowest it has been in over forty years. “The league-wide strikeout rate has been climbing into unprecedented heights for more than a decade now and has surged ever higher over the past three seasons”(Berg [3]). These players are getting so good the baseball league has to add on to their normal salaries. Also, the players are stealing to many bases because the players are too fast. The way we can fix this problem is by making two rules. There should be no shift allowed in the infield and there should be a delay when the runner can steal. By implementing these two rules the games would be faster and more intense.
The home plate collisions in baseball is a huge hurt factor in the game. There are so many injuries that happen at home plate every year. Buster Posey is a huge player in the MLB and he suffered a serious injury that almost ended his career. Buster broke his left leg and tore three ligaments and missed the rest of his season. He was lucky that he recovered from this and is now a better catcher than he ever was before. A rule was instituted on February 24, 2014 that stated when a player is going home him and the catcher should avoid a collision and the catcher was not allowed to block home plate. “Catchers are no longer allowed to block home plate without the baseball and they must always give the runner a clear lane to the plate”(“A Simple Solution for Baseballs Home Plate Collision Problem” [4] ). This rule made baseball way safer and the game got quicker, and this rule helped change how they played the game for the better. It also helped with players not having to worry about getting injured.
Baseball is getting to slow. The MLB wants less downtime during games because it is taking to long to warmup between innings. “Boredom is the whole point of baseball, an antidote to the accelerated hysteria of modern life” (O’Donnel [8]). There are many Americans that believe baseball is the most boring sport. The way we can fix this problem is by making the time between inning shorter. If the players cut the time down to a minute the game would be increasingly quicker. “Also the commercials between innings take to long and make the time between innings longer. If the baseball league will play two thirty second commercials it would have to make the innings one minute long and make the game quicker. If the producers of baseball made this happen there would be a massive increase of fans. ” (“Baseball’s Too Slow. Here’s How You Fix It”[8]).
There are many problems with baseball at the moment. Umpires aren’t calling enough strikes and it is making the game to slow. This problem does not need a rule to be changed. The people in charge of the umpires need to make them enforce the strike zone more often, and this will also make the hitters adjust more and make it harder for them. The reason umpires have a very tight strike zone is because the umpires know the pitcher is capable of hitting their spots against the batter. Also the strike zone is made to where if the baseball is in that range, the hitter is able to hit it. The strike zone is from the chest to the knees, which is very small especially for college and high school players. When the batters know the strike zone is bigger than usual then those players will adjust and swing more often which causes more hits and faster innings. Another reason is there are to many relief pitchers. Teams are allowed to have as many pitchers as the teams would like. If the rules changed and it limited the teams to only have 10 or 11 pictures only there would be less timeouts and mound visits which would result in faster innings.
There are to many Americans that think baseball is to slow and boring. That is why the rules need to be adjusted. Instant replay is not fast enough. It is called instant replay for a reason. It usually takes around two minutes to see the instant replay if they made it faster and speed it up to at least a minute than there would be more time cut out of the game. The time between innings are around three minutes and if it was reduced to around two and a half minutes the length of the game would save around eight minutes per game. You might think the ads between innings make the money and that is true, but if the games were shorter more people would be watching and would make the ads more valuable. Another huge problem is minor leaguers barely make a livable wage. The minor league is the baseball league right before the majors. There should be no reason that the minor leaguers are not making as much as the major leaguers. Because those players are playing baseball, it is very hard to work a job. This means the only way of making money is baseball. Most of the players that do not make it to the pros do not live well after baseball, or if the players get drafted out of high school and did not get a degree from college. The minor leaguers need to be making a livable wage because it is putting everything on the line to play baseball for the rest of those players lives.
There are a lot of mound visits in baseball. A mound visit is when the coach can go on the field and talk to the pitcher and the infielders. The coach usually talks about a play that the players are going to run or the coach goes out to calm the pitcher down if he is doing bad. The league has limited every team to six mound visits a game, and the teams have adjusted to it very well. Although it still takes up to much time. There should only be three to four mound visits a game and if the league can change this rule it will be another factor that will help the speed of the game.
A lot of the time the coaches go out for mound visits to slow the game down, and it causes players muscles to get cold and tight. This can be a major key to a lot of errors throughout the game that will make it even slower. This is just another simple fix that would slow the game down and make baseball fun to watch again.
Chewing tobacco was a huge revolution that happened in baseball. If people watched baseball they would realize that more than half the team uses chewing tobacco and there is many things that this can cause. The biggest problem is that chewing tobacco can cause mouth cancer which is very dangerous. Chewing tobacco was one of the biggest products used in baseball and it was allowed.
The batters would even hit with it in there mouth which could be dangerous because the players could swallow and choke on it. Even in the field players would use it. The league has made a rule which banned chewing tobacco on the field and it was a very good rule that was implemented. It even causes underage kids to start using it. Kids would watch baseball and think it was very cool and start doing it themselves. This would lead to them using it for years and the kids would end up having mouth cancer at a young age and it is awful. It was very hard for players to cope with not having it in game, the players would even use it to get over there nervousness in games. It was a substance that made you calm down and focus more on what was happening in the game. This rule even caused an uproar in baseball. Players were arguing that it had changed the game forever because when baseball started chewing tobacco was involved in the game.
The league has even let the players eat seeds and gum in the games which would help them cope from not having it. Seeds are a huge deal in baseball today and even caused the uproar to slow down. Also when kids are playing it is allowed to eat seeds and be just like the major league players. This rule has changed the game in a very good way. If the league could make changes like this to other problems in baseball the game would be spectacular just like in the old days were baseball was one of the most respected sports in America.
There are to many problems in baseball that are ruining the game. Baseball can be fixed if the league will fix the home plate collisions problem, when it is fixed it will not only make the game better, but also reduce the risk of injury. “Also when the pace of the game speeds up there will be a lot of more viewers of the game”(Baseball’s Too Slow. Here’s How You Fix It”[8]). It will make the baseball league more money and even more to play. Finally, when the players are even in skill level and are not too good it will make the games more intense and fun to watch. Once these problems are fixed baseball will be the most popular sport in America. Americans will love the game again, just like how it was when the game first started.
