Note: This article was written for the New York Times’s 10th Annual Student Editorial Contest. The contest was to “make an argument in 450 words or fewer about something that matters to you, and persuade us that we should care, too.” This entry is from Nicholas Zuppe, a rising Senior at Don Bosco Prep.
What makes this upcoming 2023 Major League Baseball season different from the others? For any unaware, the MLB has implemented a new rule that forces pitchers to pitch the ball within a certain amount of time. On MLB.com, “between pitches, a 15-second timer will be in place with the bases empty and a 20-second timer with runners on base”, and “batters must be in the box and alert the pitcher by the 8-second mark or else be charged with an automatic strike.”
There was a need for this rule and its purpose is to speed up baseball games; so far, the new rule is a big hit. The first 40 spring training games in 2022 “ranged from 2:13 to 3:41 [in duration]. Games thus far in 2023 have ranged from 2:07 to 3:06,” wrote Jimmy Traina for Sports Illustrated. If these times continue into the regular season, this would be the quickest pace of play in the MLB since 1979. That would eliminate almost a half hour of just dead time in between the action as well. Many people love to watch baseball, including myself. However, in recent years, fans have found themselves needing a phone or another distraction while watching a game on television. Personally, without my phone, I simply get bored of watching the pitcher step off the mound three times or shake off the catcher four times before throwing a pitch. With this new pitch clock rule, there will be more interest in baseball from a fan perspective since there will be less time in between pitches. This could result in fans wanting to be more locked into the games, as opposed to simply having the game in the background.
Despite baseball’s pace-of-play debates over the years, it is still a game that many people love to play and even more love to watch. Some players or fans say it is not like baseball to have a clock. However, the world constantly changes, and in the words of Brooklyn Dodger shortstop Pee Wee Reese, when his new and first African American teammate Jackie Robinson joined the Dodgers, “Sometimes, you have to live with the change.”