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April 22, 2020 By: Terry Frei

If MLB opens minus fans, mandate should be: GET ON WITH IT!

UPDATE, June 24: MLB is moving on with the 60-game season, played in home stadiums minus fans. So the plan to sequester the teams and play the season in Arizona is off the table. The column below still stands as a proposal for how the games could be played in largely empty facilities, regardless of where that is.

The new hitter takes ball one and then, out of habit, unstraps and restraps his batting gloves.

The umpire signals for and announces a strike.

That should be one of the emergency provisions for 2020 Major League Baseball.

If there is 2020 Major League Baseball.

If there is, the buzzphrase should be: Get on with it!

The most likely scenarios, at least for the outset, are Arizona sites, no spectators and quarantine conditions for the teams away from the ballparks.

Fifteen MLB teams have spring training at 10 Phoenix-area sites — Phoenix, Glendale, Goodyear, Mesa, Peoria, the Salt River Pima–Maricopa Indian Community, Scottsdale, Mesa. Surprise and Tempe.

Plus, the Diamondbacks’ home is 49,033-seat Chase Field in downtown Phoenix, which would seem cavernous with empty seats.

Playing regular-season games there and anywhere else in the Phoenix area would be studio baseball, getting the season started, wedging in games and preserving broadcast contract revenue as much as possible.

Getting MLB going again is way down the list of priorities.

Way, way down.

But if that’s the way The Show returns, let’s use Arizona as a baseball experimental laboratory. For several reasons, try to get the average game time down to closer to two hours than three.

Prove that much of the padding that has stretched games from an average of 2:28 in 1969 to a record-high 3:05 in 2019 can be eliminated, and not just by pushing enforcement of the recently imposed push-the-pace rules — rules that haven’t accomplished much.

Those standards at least recognized that the game’s problem isn’t so much the length of games, but the dead time that sneaked into it over the years. (That’s one reason why I would have guessed that the average time in 2019 was a lot higher than 3:05. It seems like forever.)

The padding has been added second by second, inning by inning, pitch by pitch.

Regardless, in this atmosphere, minus spectators, additionally compress what passes for action.

First off, the conditions would eliminate the need for promotional public-address announcements, silly spinning with foreheads on bat knobs, fans trying to catch flies spit out by a machine, and — yes — president and sausage races.

In Arizona, prove that eliminating the padding can be done with the actual game, too.

Then when MLB returns to home parks, with crowds, try to transfer some of that accelerated pace to the games, at least temporarily with a complete transfer of the provisional 2020 “emergency” rules enacted for this season only.

Look at carrying over all of them to future seasons.

It wouldn’t detract from the Pastime; it would enhance it.

— This is minor and cosmetic, but a symbolic start. No throwing the ball Around the Horn (sorry, Woody) after a strikeout. Get on with it.

— No replays and managers can’t emerge from the dugout to argue calls. At least for a season, we go back to embracing the human element. Plus, when it takes three minutes and repeated slow-motion looks to get it “right,” whether upheld or overturned, isn’t that somewhat an endorsement of the crews? (You can apply that to other sports, too.)

— Enforce and add to the requirement to keep one foot in the box between pitches. Hitters have to keep both feet in the box after called strikes or balls and one foot in the box after swings, whether misses or foul balls. And stepping out after foul balls is only brief.

— As outlined earlier, once a hitter is in the box, his batting gloves are on. They stay strapped and they on the way they are. I realize that to hitters, it’s about creating a routine, a rhythm, not really adjusting the gloves. That’s part of the point. They don’t need to do it.

— No mound visits by anyone other than the catcher. Those are limited in number and time. This rule applies to pitching coaches wanting to suggest that candlesticks are fitting wedding presents or discuss strategy, or managers making a pitching change. In fact, while I’m on this …

— Sacrilege, I know: All pitching changes must be made between innings. No lefties coming in to face one hitter. Not even to face a couple of hitters. No trots in from the bullpen with one out and two on. No warmup pitches from the mound. A pitcher has to make it through an inning even if he’s suddenly lost 6 mph on the fastball or can’t find the strike zone. Injuries? Make it so prohibitive to make a change, even for a legitimate injury, during a half-inning that faking injury isn’t worth it. It would be a challenge for managers to think ahead to all the possibilities in a certain inning. And it would eliminate the most tedious stretches in the games, multiple calls to the bullpen during a half-inning.

— With a pitch clock, enforce the 12-second standard between pitches with the bases empty.

— Seven-inning doubleheaders, when doubleheaders are deemed necessary. As long as all know going in that it’s the standard, it’s the same for everyone. I’d look at it as if the third and fourth innings are being eliminated.

— We’d need to talk to the IT folks about this, but explore the various possibilities of transmitted wireless communication among pitcher, catcher, manager and coaches. (Or just use garbage cans.)

— The DH is universal. Both leagues, every park.

— This might seem obvious, but no walkup music and strutting. No announcement of who’s at the plate. Get in the box and hit.

— No seventh-inning stretch.

Get on with it.

About Terry: Terry Frei is the author of seven books. His novels are Olympic Affair and The Witch’s Season, and among his five non-fiction works are Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming; Third Down and a War to Go; and ’77: Denver, the Broncos, and a Coming of Age. Information is available on his web site, terryfrei.com. His woodypaige.com archive can be found here.