Tim Benz: MLB mercy rule debate masks greater problem

Give Pittsburgh Pirates play-by-play man Greg Brown credit for self-awareness.

He’s right. No one wants to be “that guy.” The old guy yelling “get off my lawn” at any new idea that comes along.

That’s how an aghast Brown couched his commentary against the suggestion of a Major League Baseball “mercy rule.”

New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone advanced that idea recently, inferring that MLB may be better-served calling games before nine innings are done in blowout contests.

You know, end the game with a 10-run deficit after seven innings or something. Kind of like beer-league softball rules after five.

On 93.7 the Fan Sunday, Brown broached the topic with Pirates general manager Neal Huntington, stating that he “couldn’t believe Boone was serious.”

“When do we stop?” Brown asked incredulously. “When do we take a breath and say, ‘This is the greatest game on earth, and tradition should count for something?’ Shouldn’t we keep the game mostly intact?”

I like Brown. So hopefully, he doesn’t bristle at my characterization of him as a “traditionalist.” But, remember, Brown is a guy who is still battling a 46-year-old war against the designated hitter. Brown has gotten more mileage out of #BanTheDH than President Trump has gotten out of #BuildTheWall.

So I think that description is fair.

Huntington was far more diplomatic on the topic, stating he hadn’t heard Boone say that firsthand. Although I certainly got the impression Huntington agreed with Brown’s tone, frequently stating “we need to keep what makes this game great, but we need to grow, and evolve, and draw fans out.”

The last part is vital, especially since Huntington also acknowledged, “Our attendance is declining. That’s real.”

Wait. I thought “that’s real” was a Hurdle-ism. Doesn’t Clint have “that’s real” trademarked?

Anyway, Huntington is more accurate than he probably wants to admit. A recent USA Today story states that “league-wide attendance is down about 800,000 compared with the same point last year. The final 2018 attendance – 69.7 million – was MLB’s lowest figure since 2003.”

TV ratings were down 4% in the first half of the season, despite some first-place performances from big-market clubs such as the Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, and Yankees.

The average length of a game this year is three hours, eight minutes. That’s a record high.

So fewer people are going. Fewer people are watching. And Major League Baseball is making up for that… by making the games longer than ever?!

Great formula they’ve got going there.

Given those facts, I want to go back to Brown’s quote. First of all, “greatest game on earth”? Based on that data listed above, very few people would agree with that assertion.

Secondly, “When do we stop?”

Actually, the better question is, “Where do we start?”

The warm-up clocks and between-innings clocks clearly aren’t working. Limiting mound visits isn’t working. We’re still battling over batter-minimums for pitchers and pitch clocks. You can’t argue balls and strikes anymore until, well, inevitably somebody does.

Every move that has been made towards speeding up the game has been swatted away by instant replay and deeper pitch-counts to slow the game down again.

Speeding up baseball seems to be a harder task than slowing down global warming. It’s constantly two steps forward and one step back.

The biggest issue is probably the length of those long commercial breaks to bring in all that advertising revenue to pay the players.

You know, on the game broadcasts no one watches anymore.

Yeah. Scratch your head over that one for a while.

If Brown and other traditionalists don’t want a mercy rule, I get it. Why just baseball, right? Every other sport is dealing with the same issues, and no one is talking about stopping NHL games with a five-goal lead or NFL games at a 28-point margin in the fourth quarter.

Plus, those fluky blowout games aren’t the problem. Those tickets have already been bought, or they haven’t. And viewers have already turned on their televisions, or they haven’t.

The issue is, how do you get ticket buyers and viewers to come for the first inning and stay for a close game, not necessarily how do you keep them through the seventh in a runaway.

The funny kicker to this discussion, though? Boone didn’t tackle this topic in regards to fan interest. He did so more in terms of perceived sportsmanship propriety, and ending games early so that bullpen arms could be protected while making sure position players didn’t have to pitch.

Ironically, a few minutes later in his interview with Huntington, Brown found himself asking why a starting pitcher — Trevor Williams — was lifted from a recent game after allowing only three hits in six shutout innings.

Maybe shifts in traditionalism aren’t always about rules that are written down, eh?