KidDude123

I'm just being a philosophical jackass, but I've been thinking about just how near perfect the inventors of baseball designed the game.  Ninety feet between the bases is just right.  On most groundouts and infield singles you'll find the batter is just out or safe by a step or two.  How often do you see a baserunner thrown out stealing by more than 5 feet?  Hardly ever.  If the bases were only 80-85 feet apart, there wouldn't be much motivation to hit line drives and fly balls, folks would just get fast slap hitters, scoring would be too high and the game would need to be shortened by a few innings.  The distance between the pitching rubber of 60'6" is ideal as well.  Any closer and it would be too much for a batter to get a swing at a 90 MPH fastball and any further back would create too much of a hitters game.  Having 9 players on defense is ideal as well.  Only 2 outfielders would create too much room for each outfielder to cover and 4 outfielders would take away gaps for the hitters to find.  Three outs per inning is just about perfect.  Any fewer outs and players would get tired from running from the field to the dugout more than playing the game and 5 outs could keep a team out in the field for 30 minute stints in a given inning.  I couldn't see more than 4 balls for a walk and 3 strikes for a strike out, but I don't think it would hurt the game all that much if it were 3 and 2.  Maybe too many walks and strikeouts in that sort of a game though.  The inventors didn't come up with the extra innings idea, that rule was put in place later and was necessary.  Who wants to watch a game for 2-4 hours only to have no decision?  I guess if you were to change any thing about baseball, the only thing worth considering would be the number of innings.  To me, 9 innings is ideal, but it does get a little long when you see alot of middle of the inning pitching changes.  In the early years of baseball, the starter usually finished what he started and the games were averaging just a little over 2 hours.  Modern day games average just a little under 3 hours.  Two to three hours is just about right to me, so I say keep it at 9. 

One thing that makes baseball different than any other professional team sport is the size of the field.  Each stadium has its own distances between home plate and the fence.  If a team wants to they can construct their team to fit their park.  I like it because it gives each park its own charm.  Fortunately the difference between the hitter parks and pitcher parks is rather limited.   What team could land good power hitters if the shortest dimension is 390' or a good pitcher if the longest dimension was only 390' with 280' foul lines? 

The only imperfect thing I can find about the game is not in its design but in the numerous interpretations of the strike zone by the umpires.  The strike zone I learned when I played was the knees to the armpits or knees to the letters.   Its really hard for a human to call balls and strikes with more than 90% effectiveness when pitches are coming in at 90+ MPH with some break on it.  I guess to make the game perfect, you'ld have to let technology to call the balls and strikes.  This isn't my cry out for electronic home plate umpires, but I wouldn't cry out to hold back it from taking place either, because it would make the game...um, well....more perfect!