If you don’t like the rules of a game that’s been around for 150 years…just change them. That’s what the curiously titled IBAF, which somehow stands for International Baseball Federation, has done.
Each team’s at-bat in the 11th inning and beyond will begin with runners on first and second bases. Teams may start the 11th at any point in their batting order under format changes announced Friday by the IBAF and adopted in time for next month’s Beijing Games.
“The traditionalist in me says, ‘No way.”’ said USA Baseball executive director Paul Seiler. “The IOC is really managing-slash-massaging sports within the Games. We’re one of those few sports that baseball people or traditionalists would say, ‘We do have a tiebreaker—we keep playing until the game’s over.’
“But you know, in the Olympics, where you have (a) finite amount of time to get your program finished (and) the early game goes 15, 16, 17 innings, then what does that do? Television is affected, transportation is affected—a lot of logistical things that we don’t have to worry about…”
Congrats Paul Seiler…you’re officially a douchebag bureaucrat. You should be fighting to keep pure the game you represent, instead of bowing to your new communist masters.
Thank god baseball won’t be included in the 2012 if this is any indication of what might be in store. Let them try to change cricket to make it end more quickly.
