15 Seconds of Fame. 20 With Runners On.

This might sound completely antithetical to the fact that I love baseball, but the truth is that I hate the new pitch clock because it forces me to stay focused on the game. I love living with baseball on, having it drift from foreground to background as the soundtrack to summer nights that, up ‘til now, allowed for the space of life’s other tasks: errands and chores and work could all be taken care of without missing a beat.

I used to love writing with baseball on. I could drift on the river of the game while taking care of a project, allowing the crack of the bat—moreso specific, resounding, cracks of the bat—to tell me when to pay attention. An example of the sound that’d make me drop my pen and look up or stop talking and start watching is this massive dinger from Shohei Ohtani:

That’s what used to be my indicator light when it came to living with baseball on.

Yet, now, I feel like I can’t do anything but watch the game when it’s on. What used to be languid and often flowed in a way antithetical to actual time now has its 25 minutes of breathing room sucked out of it. The other night I walked a friend out to their car during a game. It wasn’t a long trip, maybe half a block, and we timed it with the end of a half-inning. Rather than missing the commercial break and maybe an out or two, we missed three outs of Kershaw, an entire commercial break, and the first out in the bottom half of the inning. It was completely baffling to come back and find out I’d missed so much in such a short span of time.

The pitch clock requires you to stay completely dialed in for the entire now-consistently-two-and-a-half-hour duration of the game because if you even leave the room to fart you miss an entire inning. This should highlight what I mean when I say that it’s forcing me to pay more attention. It’s introducing a shot clock when there’s no play clock. It’s segmenting and demarcating an indeterminate length of time because baseball’s supposed to, used to, take as long as it wanted thank you very much. The entire game now feels like everyone’s racing to get to dinner. This rule change is impacting not so much my enjoyment of the game but rather how the hell I’m supposed to fit two and a half hours of focused time into damn near every night for six months. I’m gonna keep living my life with the game on, but I’m gonna miss a whole lot more now if I keep using this strategy.

But, like, at the same time, I get it. They’re trying to grow the game and all of the league’s research surfaced one big thing: “Get rid of the extra 20 minutes of spittin’ and nut-adjustin’ and maybe we’ll watch more.” There were also pitchers like Pedro Baez who were Human Rain Delays that avoided pitching more than actually pitching. A good example is this video where a split screen shows Baez throwing one pitch against an entire half inning with the pitch clock. Over time, it’d grown egregious and this is only one example:

Part of me only wishes that were was some dissent among players and coaches about it. So far everyone’s okay with it and encouraging it and “loving it.” It’s almost like the league threatened everyone to say this fuckin’ rules even though it’s clearly impacted the performance of certain players as they adjust—and, yes, I know Alex Vesia and his 8-plus ERA would never come out and blame the pitch clock for his struggles but… with a broad gesture, I show you his results from the first month of the season and his recent demotion to Triple-A. That amped-up ball of energy must hate that he can’t prowl around on the mound and psych himself out to get locked in. But he’s also a professional and he’s gonna adjust and he’s never gonna blame it out right so… we as fans have gotta be professional and adjust too.

And be professional and adjust is exactly what I’m gonna do because there is no part of me that wants to stop having baseball in my life. I’ll never lay down this mantle and let the season pass me by. I’m in too deep with this fandom cult. I’ve developed too many strong parasocial relationships with the players on the Dodgers both past and present. I know all the statistical acronyms and I’ve built my entire life & wardrobe around the Dodgers. Even as a corporate entity, even as a vessel for copious advertising, they are a part of my identity because from February to hopefully-October the team is more consistently around and available than even my closest friends which harkens back to why I fell in love with the game in the first place: it was something to look forward to every single day for the better part of the year.

Someone on r/baseball recently asked what it’d take for baseball to make us turn our back on the game. The only answer I could come up with was “A whole fuckin’ lot.” And by a lot, I mean nothing. There’s really nothing the league could do to alienate me. The Dodgers came close with all that Trevor Bauer horseshit that went down, but they still did right in the end at least. They’ve tinkered and adjusted and deadened and livened the baseball, and I stuck around. They implemented the Manfred Man, the ghost runner in extras which I hate upon hate upon hate, and I stuck around. They diluted the playoffs by adding wild, wilder, and wildest cards, and I stuck around. Like how when they lowered the mound in the 60’s people stuck around and adjusted. Like how when they changed the home run rules in the 20’s and 30’s people stuck around and adjusted. Replay didn’t suck the soul out of the game. These rule changes didn’t suck the soul out of the game. The pitch clock won’t suck the soul out of the game. But I’m still allowed to be cantankerous and crotchety as I adjust.

I’ll sit up and pay attention. I’ll foreground the game in my life far more. It’ll eventually become commonplace because the league’s gonna continue to fuck around and we as fans will take part in the finding out. But there’s no way in hell I’m giving up on following the game and checking the box scores and reading the coverage and checking the standings and living, absolutely living for the day pitchers and catchers report in February and, eternally the hope, the victorious rise of the trophy in October. Or the heartbreak in October. Or the confusing state of the season ending in September, with only the distant firelight of February to hope for.