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Baffoe: More Baseball Rule Changes Rob Manfred Should Consider

By Tim Baffoe-

(CBS) New MLB commissioner Rob Manfred argues that scoring in baseball being down is a bad development. Apparently there are general managers who agree.

"Casual fan" means "person who finds thinking and concentrating too laborious and likes flashy colors and loud noises." If casual fans aren't watching, money isn't being made. Thus, baseball is saying the game is better when MLB has more money. Cool.

So go hard or go home, commish. If the first time the baseball world hears from you it is regarding changing the game's rules, then you have to dive in, not wade. Let the game become truly American — lazy and with a flittering attention span.

I'm just spitballing here — not literally, though, because that would be cheating, though not the kind that would keep me out of the Hall of Fame — but how's this for making what used to be a Norman Rockwell piece in the viewing equivalent of a Snuggie?

Obamaball

To each according to his performance. What the casual fan hates most about the game isn't a lack of runs. It's all this money the players make to play a kids' game. Joe and Josephine Q. Crackerjack work hard to pay their ludicrous salaries. In return, besides the players usually being pretty good at what they do and providing an entertainment service, how are the fans repaid? In whiny contract arguments and disloyal free agency.

No more. Every player will be paid by MLB through some sort of mass revenue redistribution instead of individual teams. Make them totally incentive-laden one-year deals, like selling cars but where a Prius becomes a cheap home run just inside Pesky's Pole that any Little Leaguer could smack. (Yeah, this is kind of how baseball was in its Golden Age when players were completely at the mercy of a plutocratic system and racism abounded and everything was great and not like today at all, but this would be better and differenter.) No more guys not living up to contracts then. Now they'd have to play not just for the love of the game but literally for their livelihoods.

Sure, this violates any number of labor laws and is incredibly communist, but Americans are fine with that stuff when it's for the sake of entertainment. Labor unions like baseball's are killing America anyway.

And, yes, you can still choose your team doctor.

This would then segue into…

Annual league-wide fantasy redrafts

Because no players contractually belong to single teams, why should they have to play in the same city year to year? Everybody is into fantasy-izing All-Star Games, but why not make these GMs do some real work a select their respective teams anew every year. Because as much as we get angry at players for opting for free agency instead of our favorite teams, we love that much more when great free agents that left other teams come to our teams.

The draft will kill with TV ratings. Who will get Mike Trout this year? Maybe everyone gets a mandatory Molina. Plus, this would make for greater league parity and screw over the Yankees.

And speaking of the All-Star Game…

Winning All-Star league gets home-field advantage in the World Series

What if the winning team of the All-Star Game netted home-field advantage for that league's representative in the World Series? On the surface, I understand that it sounds incredibly stupid to make an exhibition game have a tangible impact on your league's championship, but we want people to watch the All-Star Game, right? It's about TV money and all. This is probably the most far-fetched of all my proposals, but give it some thought anyway.

(Oh, wait...)

Naps

Baseball is already too long for the casual hummingbird to focus on. More runs means longer games. I myself find myself dozing off on a Saturday afternoon with the Cubs comfortably up 6-1 in the fourth inning and wake up refreshed to them losing 8-7 in the eighth. The seventh-inning stretch is antiquated.

Instead, how about the seventh-inning siesta? So many of the players are Spaniards anyway. It makes too much sense. And then replace "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" with something more sleep-worthy, like a new sponsored Coldplay album or George Will talking about how he finds Yasiel Puig brutish and detrimental and exotic and sinewy. Make money by getting mattress companies to sponsor a special snoozing section on the concourse and over-the-counter sleeping pills sold next to the beer stands. Naps are good.

Or the pitch clock could actually be enforced. That would be a good idea, too.

Pitchers playing the field

Everybody loves when a position player takes the mound because LOL IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THAT WAY. And then social media explodes with alerts to get to your watching device to watch a really bad baseball game with an anomaly. But imagine if ...

(cue network TV you-won't-believe-this-crazy-plot-twist music)

... pitchers took the field.

From now on, any player that takes the mound and faces a batter must at some point in the same game play one of the eight other positions (or maybe DH if we want to get really drunk with this).

"Is that Masahiro Tanaka behind that catcher's mask? How fun!"

"Look at Chris Sale run for that fly ball like a baby giraffe!"

Every time there's a bunt …

… that game's scoreboard flashes to a dank cellar where Ned Yost gets sponged down anew and then cattle-prodded. You know you'd watch that.

Pitchers throwing with opposite hands

For at least one batter. Because MLB clearly doesn't value pitchers as it does hitters, nor does it respect their dignity.

Instituting "The Cardinal Way"

An official rulebook should be composed by the St. Louis Cardinals on how to properly express joy at any successful event during a game. Baseball is supposed to be fun, and fun is at its best when regulated. Spontaneous expressions of pride and satisfaction can make an opponent uncomfortable.

The casual fan appreciates ballplayers being stoic and acting "like they've been there before," just as the class of baseball -- Cardinal fans -- do. Of course, "there" is achieving at the highest level of competition humanly possible in front of potentially millions of viewers who shared the same dream of being in that exact situation of accomplishment. A true pro can check himself like that.

These are just some suggestions that I think really cater to the casual fan. Because after a century and a half of baseball's existence, if the game doesn't change regressively, what the hell will become of the fun?

Tim Baffoe is a columnist for CBSChicago.com. Follow him on Twitter @TimBaffoe.

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