5D687F7F744D7F7F74737F1A0 wrote: This probably won't help, but I'll toss it out there:
Fifty years from now, when I'm 113, I don't want to be that old guy who goes around talking about how great things used to be back in the 1970s.
Fifty years from today, kids who will be 53, 54 years old will think baseball played with these changes is just fine. They won't know any other way.
If worst comes to worst, even Racquel Welch and Dolly Parton know when they need a little sprucing up. They're still Racquel Welch and Dolly Parton.
MLB, Racquel Welch, and Dolly Parton. Life's pretty damned good!
I get it. I don't want to be that guy, either. I'm 40, and I like the game they way it is now. The way it's been played for my entire life. The kids you mentioned will be having this same argument 50 years from now when they are implementing the fifth DH and courtesy runners. (Honestly, I suspect courtesy runners will be here rather soon. I doubt it takes that long.)
I don't know why, but I don't mind rules changes in the NFL and NHL. Maybe because they've always sort of been part of the culture there. I'm not an NBA fan, so I have no strong feelings either way as to what that league does. But for me, baseball is different. Maybe it's the history. Maybe it's the nostalgia. Maybe it's knowing that for all time, there have been a lot of constants in the game...the mound is 60 feet, 6 inches from home plate, not one quarter inch more or less. The base paths are 90 feet, not one inch more or less. Outfield dimensions vary by ball park.
I was at a game at PNC once, 2006 against the Astros. It was a college graduation gift to myself. Game went 18 innings, and I loved it! Craig Wilson, Jeromy Burnitz, Jose Castillo, and Jason Bay all homered. Bucs won in a walk-off in the bottom of the 18th. A key play was getting the runner (I think it was Bay) to second on a wild pitch, on an intentional walk.
Burnitz's homer came on a pinch hit in the bottom of the ninth, I believe, for the pitcher. It was one of the greatest games I've ever seen, anywhere, and I saw it live from just above the first base dugout.
Now, a game like that will almost never happen. No chance of a WP on an IBB...just hold up four fingers and take your base. No PH homers for a pitcher who otherwise would have been an automatic out. No marathon games. All of that is gone and never coming back.
I just don't want to support what MLB is doing to the game. This is to say nothing of what I've already lamented regarding being able to view games, but I've beaten that dead horse for years, and nothing ever changes. Well, I guess one thing changes...they make it harder to watch games, rather than easier. Regardless, MLB has changed, and I believe for the worse. Will it ruin the game? No. Will there be a new generation of fans who never knew the game the way it used to be played? Yes. Will they continue to go to the ballpark, buy hot dogs, buy jerseys, and tune in on Peacock? Yes. But the game won't be the same. And that to me, is a travesty.