The Pecan Park Eagle

The NFL and NBA seem to change their basic governing rules in football and basketball on a fairly regular basis. Should we see more openness to rules change in baseball?

Do you have some favorite thoughts on rules changes that could either help or seriously harm baseball? If so, what are they? What are the rules in baseball that have evolved into the pillars of the game? Would changing any single one of them alter the ebb and flow of the game into something that hurt our love of baseball?

Once you dig through 4 balls and three strikes per batter, 3 outs per each team time at bat, 9 innings per game, 3 bases and home plate in a diamond-shaped configuration at 90 feet long right angles and a pitching rubber that is 60 feet 6 inches from home plate, and all the other rules prescriptions for how a batter either negotiates his way around the bases or, otherwise, is declared out before scoring, or even reaching first, can you think of any fundamental rule that now exist that would, if it were changed, either stand as a big improvement or a major disaster to the game we now know and love as baseball?

If you  are the type who enjoys the more detailed approach to this same subject, here is a link to the official rules book for Major League Baseball play in 2015.

Click to access official_baseball_rules.pdf

Perhaps some of you will find something in there that you strongly support or oppose. Even if you are not so detail-minded, it is still OK to respond to the question intuitively, based upon your personal experience as either a player or devoted spectator. And don’t take the easy way out and simply keep your thoughts to yourself. Please post a long or brief statement of your thoughts in the comment section that follows this column in The Pecan Park Eagle.

And, if that works for you, how do you Astros fans feel about the “DH” rule, now that Houston has had some short-time full season experience as an American League club?

Have fun!

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