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A16 sports
Thursday 2 March 2023
New MLB rules get mixed fan reaction after first live looks

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. with nobody on and 20 honestly," said Murphy, who
(AP) — It took 2 hours, 19 seconds if there is a baser- traveled from Utah to West
minutes for the Miami Mar- unner. Palm Beach for Houston's
lins to beat the Houston As- Less than a week into the exhibition season. "Players
tros 4-3 in a spring training spring training exhibition might think something dif-
game Monday — a game schedule, MLB seems to ferent of it, but for us it's all
so fast that Ryan Murphy, a be getting what it wants, the same.
lifelong Houston fan, found shaving about 20 minutes "How would I know the bas-
himself lingering in the ball- off the average length of es are bigger, honestly? I
park for a while after. games compared to last mean, we see a pitch clock
"I'm a baseball fan," said spring. out here, and we know it's
Murphy, wearing 2022 As- Players have been mostly there, but it doesn't matter
tros World Series gear, "so if pleased with the rollout. to me."
I stay here for four hours, for "The game feels more excit- Some fans like the idea of
two hours, it doesn't matter ing," Washington Nationals being in and out of a game
to me." New York Mets' Tommy Pham stands in the on-deck circle as a left-hander Patrick Corbin in under three hours, which
Faced with criticism of dwin- pitch clock counts down during the sixth inning of a spring train- said. "Even some of the is about how long an aver-
dling cultural relevance ing baseball game against the Washington Nationals Sunday, high-scoring games are un- age nine-inning baseball
Feb. 26, 2023, in Port St. Lucie, Fla.
and a laggardly product Associated Press der three hours." game lasted in 2022.
compared to other major Fans seeing the new-look Others feel a nostalgic pull
sports, Major League Base- improve player safety appearance. And there's sport for the first time this to how the sport has always
ball introduced a set of and may also encourage a new pitch clock that week have had mixed been. "I'm not a big fan of
new rules this year to speed more aggressive baser- gives players 30 seconds reviews. Some, like Mur- the pitch count," said Mark
up games and attract unning. Pitchers can only to resume play between phy, are indifferent to the Mezzatesta, who traveled
younger fans. disengage from the pitch- batters. Between pitches, changes. to Florida from Queens in
The bases are bigger to ing rubber twice per plate pitchers have 15 seconds "It's irrelevant to us as fans, New York. "I feel like that's
rushing the game. I feel
it was fine the way it was.
Pitchers do take a while.
And batters do take a
while, too. Fifteen seconds
with nobody on base and
20 seconds with somebody
on base is too short."
Barbara Schiffman of Rose-
land, New Jersey, said she's
OK with some of the rules
but "they should never let
a game end on either the
pitch clock or the batter
clock."
She was referring to a re-
cent game between Atlan-
ta and Boston that ended
in a tie after Braves pros-
pect Cal Conley was as-
sessed an automatic strike
for a pitch clock violation.
Conley originally thought
he'd won the game with
a two-out, bases-loaded
walk but instead was giv-
en an at-bat-ending strike
after the umpire said he
wasn't set in the box as the
clock wound under 8 sec-
onds.
"When you get to that point
in the game," Schiffman
said, "you've got to let the
game play out without the
clock. That would be my
only concern."
She also had a complaint
about new limits on pitcher
disengagements from the
rubber. Pitchers can only
attempt to pick off a runner
twice — if they try a third
pickoff and are unsuccess-
ful, the runner gets to ad-
vance a base.q