A New Rule for Baseball

May 8th, 2008 Posted in Invention, Sports

I propose a change in the rules of baseball, namely the elimination of the automatic home run. The outfield fence over which the home run is hit is an artifact of the enclosed baseball field that was invented to encourage spectators to pay an admission fee. Before the enclosed field the outfield was an expanding open space that went on and on without conceptual end. The home run then was the result of swiftly running the bases before the ball could be retrieved and the runner tagged.

The home run powered by brute strength by a muscular lumbering man must initially have been an anomaly, a game popularized by Babe Ruth to supersede the fast paced Texas League game. If the ball hit on the fly over the fence is treated as a foul ball (that is it doesn’t count and the automatic home run is banned) the game will revert to its fast, youthful style and it will again be for skilled, physically normal athletes.

I can not claim any inventiveness here. I am simply calling up one of the original conditions in which the game was played. The strong men whose employment will be threatened could be hired to put on demonstrations of long ball hitting before the game or during the seventh inning stretch. They do this now in batting practice before the game. They can be recognized and honored for their strength without having it interfere with a proper sport.

For those in countries where baseball is unknown a similar effect (a change in the form of a sport) can be achieved by changing one or more rules of your local popular game. Children in their street games are constantly inventing variations to adapt their games to local conditions or simply for the fun of it.

All that would be required to activate this revision would be a game in an enclosed stadium under the new rule. I would buy a ticket to become a witness to an idea, a concept, being transformed into a social reality. The theory alone is not enough. Idea into action is called praxis and it is one of the keys, but not the only one, to social change.

^^^^^

Another suggestion that I know has been around: in basketball, at least in the formal professional game, set size ranges for players and match teams by height (small, medium, large, and extra large like men’s shirts) the way boxers are matched for weight. It will spread access to the fairly played game to a much larger playing group.

If in doubt, slide.