Please Eliminate Two

I don't like clutter, throws to first, or symbolic safety regulations. It's time to get rid of base coaches. Both of them.

The idea occurred to me as I watched some Brave get awesomely thrown out on his way to home plate. It was great! Very exciting, and exactly the kind of thing I want more of. It was then that I realized that these damn base coaches are getting in the way.

Consider the first base coach. He's there to help a baserunner decide how far to lead off, when and if to steal second, etc. And that's good, right? We all know a steal attempt is the most exciting play in baseball.

Wrong! Sure, the actual attempt is fun, but consider all the garbage leading up to it. Throws to first. Fake throws to first. Fake throws to third followed by a throw to first. Talmudic arguments about balks.

Less of this

These people are wasting our precious time. Even a fractional decrease in throws to first base is worth putting 30 former ballplayers out of work, as far as I'm concerned.

What of the third base coach? Just think how many plays at the plate those bastards prevent us from enjoying. The guy is there to make sure baserunners have information, particularly about batted balls that are outside their field of vision. Teams obviously want batters to have that information, but I don't.

Ill-informed baserunners are funner baserunners. The more action on the basepaths the better, and the third base coach is there specifically to prevent action on the basepaths.

More of this

Furthermore, the info provided by a third base coach serves as a crutch for dummies. I think ballplayers with the ability to read the situation and take a base at the right time should be rewarded. Canning all these coaches makes baseball a purer meritocracy.

What we have here is a divide between the desires of the team and the desires of the fan. The teams want their players to have as much information and guidance as possible, and if the trajectory of game times has shown us anything, it's that baseball teams are willing to test fans' patience to the utmost in the pursuit of a tactical advantage.

There's no reason that we should have to put up with this. I'm not suggesting regulating coaching staffs per se — they can hire all the batting coaches, nutritionists, life coaches, and acupuncturists they want. But there's no reason we have to let any of these people stand on the field. Players get to stand there. So do umpires. We don't need to let anyone else out there.

Plus, if it weren't dangerous, they wouldn't make them wear those stupid little helmets, right? I'm trying to save lives.