Baseball Should Limit The Dreaded Defensive Shift

 That scourge of baseball, the dreaded "defensive shift" has one again raised it's ugly head.

Today's baseball managers tend to over-use it. The Milwaukee Brewers, for example, employed a shift 44.4% of the time last season, the fourt-highest rate in baseball. That's not likely to change in 2021.

But it's a tactic that's been around for decades.

I was reading "The Big Fella" recently, a great biography on Babe Ruth by Jane Leavy. To quote the passage:

Having created the expectation he (Ruth) understood it was his job to fulfill it. During the 1946 World Series, the St. Louis Cardinals employed a then radical defensive shift to foil Ted Williams, packing the right side of the infield and leaving the left virtually unprotected. "They did that to me in the American League one year," Ruth told Frank Graham. "I coulda hit .600 that year slicing singles to left."

"Why didn't you?" Graham asked.

"That wasn't what the fans came out to see."

Sadly, too many of today's ballplayers ignore what the shift presents.

Fun fact coming from that Babe Ruth book...the Yankees added pin strips to their uniform look -- now a classic -- to make Ruth look svelte!

Major League Baseball is going to test several new rules in the minor leagues this season. MLB wants to limit defensive shifts, change the pickoff rules for pitchers, expand the size of bases and perhaps test automated strike zones.

I'm fine with most those, and perhaps adding the DH to the National League should be a thought as well. But as for automated strike zones, I think we need to skip that. Call me old school, but I still think the human umpire gives spice to the game. Just as long as said umpire is consistent! When the strike zone changes from inning to inning, or from the start of the game to the end, that's a BIG problem.

Got my Opening Day tickets for April 1st! We had tickets for Opening Day 2020, and we all know how THAT worked out, but I rolled the credit over and was given the opportunity to purchase early.

So, our little group (Stevie joins Garrett and I) will be among the "Chosen 12,000" cheering on the Crew against the Minnesota Twins. Nice thing about the smaller crowd -- less traffic, easier parking, less lines. It's all good.