4/5/23
There have been several significant rule changes in MLB over the last few years. But not even those changes which mess with the feeling of timelessness are as concerning as a change that has carried over from the 2020 pandemic season.
It made sense during the shortened and delayed season to limit the extra innings and so the rule which put an automatic runner on 2nd to start any inning after the 9th was reasonable at the time. I'm not hearing any complaints about this change which has now become a regular part of the game, but I find it troubling.
While other sports have surpassed baseball in popularity, baseball will always be America's pastime because of what it uniquely reflects about the American ideal---it is a team sport which also allows for the individual to lead at any point if the individual is skilled enough. Any distinction an individual possesses which is of value to the goal of the whole team will be welcomed. Not since Babe Ruth has baseball had such a figure which can lead a team on both sides of the ball the way Shohei Ohtani can. His tremendous talent as both a pitcher and a hitter could singlehandedly defeat the opposing team. Yet the rule change disregards the possibilities of the individual, even if only to a small degree, by homogenizing through the use of the automatic runner on 2nd rule. A runner Ohtani (or any other pitcher) might have struck out to end the previous inning, could now advance and score through errors made by Ohtani's teammates. The scenario might be unlikely, but it is not impossible. And it is only one of the possible scenarios.
This plays out more and more in society where the stakes are greater than a game of baseball but with no voices of dissent regarding this change in baseball I fear it mirrors our inability to see how the individual is being lost to the whole and that is very dangerous, the individual can bring variation and this can bring adaptation and survival.
The systems that interferes with the individual's potential, interferes with the potential of the whole.
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