“Manfred-Ball” Is (Or May Be) Coming to a Park (or TV Screen) Near You Soon

As part of their continuing effort to screw up baseball, which Commissioner Rob Manfred and player union head Tony Clark are doing a good job at, the owners and players have given up trying to reach an agreement.  After all, they only had three months to talk about one since their “mini agreement” in March, so how could you expect them to agree to anything.  Of course, the fact that Messrs. Manfred and Clark apparently only met in person once during that time may have had something to do with it, though if you really don’t want to agree, because it’s more fun to argue, then not meeting in person is a good idea.  Who knows, if you’re talking in the same room, you might actually reach an agreement by accident.  And it looks like nobody wanted that.  So, Rob Manfred got to decide.

Well, what's "Manfred-Ball" going to look like?  First, there will be 60 games, the fewest since 1878, when they also played 60.  They will not have the “all-in” playoffs the owners wanted.  I think the owners wanted sixteen teams in the playoffs, instead of ten, but the main thing was, I would imagine, that ESPN, et al, wanted to set the bar low enough so they could be sure both the Red Sox and Yankees made it.  (It’s the “Sunday Night Baseball Rule.”)

Second, they will be using a rule from the minor leagues, or is it rec softball, that would have a runner start at second base in extra innings.  They need to do this because the games are too long and people are tired and want to go home and, well, the owners figure they already got their ticket money and the number of people staying around, buying concessions, in extra innings doesn’t cover their costs of keeping the parks open, so why not.

Third, they are not going to have a rule that the players union wanted, which is definitely from rec softball, which would have allowed players to leave the game and then come back in later.  You know, sometimes you want to take a break and rest for a couple of innings because it’s hard to stand around that long.  So why not take a couple of innings off now and then.  Fans at Wrigley Field can go out and stretch their legs in Gallagher Way when the kids get restless.  Why not let the players do something similar?

They are not going to use my idea, which is also from rec softball: Each team has to have a minimum of four, or is it usually three, female players, and they have to play at least three innings of each game.¹  If the game goes into extra innings, they would have to play at least one of every two or three extra innings.  This would fit in with the rule the players union wanted about players going back into the game after they’ve been taken out.  But it’s not happening, though who knows what Rob Manfred might come up with for 2021.

I hope I did not insult anybody with the previous paragraph, but it makes almost as much sense as some of the other ideas that are being suggested, most of which seem to be aimed at people who don’t like baseball (i.e., ties² {not being done}, runners at second in extra innings {being done}, universal DH {fortunately not being done} etc.).  Newsflash to Commissioner Manfred: You’re not going to “save” baseball by doing things to attract people who already don’t like baseball.  If they don’t like real baseball, they’re not going to like the phony, watered-down version you’re trying to come up with.
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¹ Would it be inappropriate to suggest, a la “A League of Their Own,” that the women players be required to wear skirts?  Probably, so I won’t suggest it.
² As Commissioner Manfred should know, “there is no tying in baseball.” (Hat tip to Paul Sullivan.)