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Mary Kay Moriarty's avatar

Love your enthusiasm for every game and mostly love your loyalty to our White Sox🤗 I know I just learned about the 2nd base runner starting extra innings🥹 Can you explain the reasoning behind that rule🤷🏻‍♀️

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Mike Wittmann's avatar

Thanks Mary Kay. I wish I could give you an explanation that makes sense, but...

Their reasoning is to present a scoring opportunity immediately so the game already in extra innings doesn't go much longer. It is the new tread to appease casual fans to watch by watering down the product and shortening the length of the games. NOT A FAN OF THIS TREND.

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John Hankes's avatar

Good post and I appreciate your opinion and insight. I’m accepting of the new rules that shorten a game because I believe it will help viewership. Batters and pitchers dicking around before pitching or stepping in the box is unnecessary. Also pitchers throwing to one or two batters is also nonsense.

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Mike Wittmann's avatar

Thanks, John, for the kind words and your readership. While I truly agree your statement that the game has "wasted time", I'm against changing the nature of the game. These "artificial offense" rules drive me crazy. Umpires could have enforced a "speed up" and didn't so they put the pitch clock in, rushing the pitchers, making their outings shorter (perhaps contributing to arm issues) and making a bullpen even more depleted. The throw over rule to the base favours the base runner (as well as the slightly larger bases), if you don't pick him off, he gains the advantage and if you miss picking him off after three throws, he gets a free stolen base. I have additional comments on these which will be in a future blog which I hope you will read and comment on. Thanks.

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Sue Wittmann's avatar

Very nice post! You covered everything there was to cover! Keep up the good work!

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Mike Wittmann's avatar

Thanks - I try!

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