The Pitch Clock Is Stupid, You’re A Fool If You’re Rooting For It
This one feels inevitable. Rob Manfred’s vision to slowly ruin the sport of baseball is close to coming to fruition. The pick clock is coming which sucks for baseball fans everywhere. My hope is that enough intelligent people get together and stop this problem before it happens.
I don’t care what anybody says. The pitch clock is stupid and you’re a fool if you’re rooting for it. There is only one argument that matters for the pitch clock and nobody is really asking the right question. If we implement the pitch clock, are the humans that are alive today able to hold up physically under the new rules? That’s the real question everyone should be asking.
At the end of the day, we should care about the health and safety of the players first and foremost. Implementing a rule to prohibit that shouldn’t be the goal of modern society. How can we make the game as entertaining as possible while protecting the safety of its players? The pitch clock is designed to do the inverse of the latter statement.
WE have to understand that early humans were not designed to throw physical objects. Early humans were designed to underhand toss things. Early humans were not designed to run. They were designed to walk.
You ever look at a guy that runs too frequently and try to figure out why he looks like a dried up raisin with no muscle mass? You ever wonder why it’s called Tommy John surgery and not Tiffany John surgery? Go google softball pitchers that need TJ. It virtually doesn’t exist.
Humans used to walk and walk and walk for hours at a time. We can run but weren’t designed to. Just like we’re not designed to throw objects 100 miles an hour over and over again. If you can’t understand that, you’re ignorant and part of the problem.
Of course, with human evolution things change over time. Arm injuries go up. The number of dudes that can throw 98 MPH also go up. The world requires you to throw that hard to make it today so the kids coming up are adjusting to the new reality of MLB. We’re already accepting the fact that these guys are blowing out their arms at a record pace.
This isn’t a secret. College professors have already picked up on this and they know nothing about baseball. The number of pitchers undergoing Tommy John surgery at the MLB is off the charts. It’s even bigger at younger ages. These pitchers are falling a part. Nobody is durable anymore. The workhorse starters are dead. There is a reason for all of it.
IF we keep those things in mind, adding a clock to a physically activity humans weren’t designed to do seems like maybe the dumbest idea of all-time? We do get that maybe speeding up the process of something that isn’t natural to the human body probably isn’t a good idea, right?
Until we solve the issues of preventing these arm injuries in pitchers, get out of my face with any talk of a pitch clock. It’s a bad idea for several reasons beyond what I just mentioned. We’re talking about a sport where you can die if you get hit in the head with a baseball with too much velocity on it. That day is coming. Tony Conigliaro lost an eye and was never the same. These pitchers throw too hard. Someone is going to get seriously hurt… soon.
As if it wasn’t bad enough that Rob Manfred sabotaged the career of Tyler Glasnow, he now wants to do this to basically every pitcher in the sport. Glasnow underwent TJ surgery because the commissioner changed the baseball’s halfway through the year without telling anyone and also made a rule change removing sticky stuff two months into the season. When is enough, enough?
Baseball was designed to be the sport without a clock. If you’re not intelligent enough to enjoy the minute details within the game of baseball before the ball is delivered to the plate, that’s a you problem. We shouldn’t be catering the sport to those people anyway while alienating the real fans of the game. The pitch clock doesn’t solve those issues.
I had the pleasure to work in a minor league baseball clubhouse during the experimentation of the clock. It does not work. What it does it forces the umpire into a difficult position by forcing him to hand the pitcher a ball when he’s not ready to throw. It creates an ump show element and really doesn’t speed up the game. It’s also hilarious to consider the fact that they’re considering banning the shift which will create more hits and… slow the game down.
Maybe one day things will be different. Maybe humans will adapt and be able to do this no problem while cutting down on the arm injuries. I just don’t see how it’s scientifically possible. I could be wrong. Maybe one day humans won’t be righty or lefty anymore. Maybe they will all be ambidextrous. I don’t have all the answers. What I do know is the pitch clock for today’s society screams ignorance.
They don’t care about the players. If sports owners did, weed would be legal and opioids would be banned. But we know that’s not going to happen. When we live in a world where teenagers aren’t getting TJ surgery anymore, then you can come talk to me about a clock. Until then, you’re dumb, ignorant, and stupid if you think a clock is going to solve the major issues baseball is facing today.
The NFL cares about protecting star quarterbacks. They want them on the field. Baseball doesn’t care about that. Chris Sale, Max Scherzer, and Jacob deGrom are all currently hurt and the sport wants to create a rule that will only lead to more of those injuries. Good luck.
