Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred

Manfred is making proposals to team owners that will "help" speed up the game again.

The main one? Start calling balls lower than the knees "balls" again. He said the rule never changed, but over time it's been established by umps and players that lower pitches are now considered strikes, and that they shouldn't be. He says a higher strike zone would add more offense and excitement to the game.

IF the low balls are called strikes, and they shouldn't be, AND more offense results, wouldn't that make the games longer?

I'm not opposed to calling pitches like the rules define. In fact I kind of agree with him. BUT the games would get even longer. Perhaps much longer.

His other rules changes? No more pitching the ball on intentional walks. I can't think this would do much at all, for one thing, intentional walks have become very rare. AND nothing adds excitement to a game like the pitcher accidentally throwing one of those pitches away.

The dumbest? Starting with a runner on second base when extra innings begin. Just plop him out there. Wouldn't ties make more sense than that? You have 162 game schedule, what's wrong with a few ties? Eliminating extra inning games would bring down average game time considerably, and would be less taxing on bullpens and players alike.

Baseball is played without a time clock. That's the main reason games last so long. Fixing the game artificially isn't going to help anything. All those throws over to first base drive me crazy, too. But that's the game. A good, speedy base stealer versus a pitcher with a good pick-off  move is one of the finer points of the game. Nobody is suggesting they fix that.

Yet.