Baseball’s New 12-second Rule
Umpires now have one more thing to keep track of while standing behind home. According to the new rules clarifications sent down from on high — the first changes in more than a decade — if a pitcher fails to throw the ball home within 12 seconds of the batter steeping into the box, the umpire will call a ball.
This marks the first time that any kind of timed element has affected the game. This is a big deal.
However, I look at this rule as being similar to the balk rule. There’s no way it can be, or will be enforced to the letter of the law. If a pitcher is out there taking an egregious amount of time to deliver the ball, then the umpire has discretion to call a ball.
I don’t see umpires with stop-watches coming to a ballpark near you in the near future.
March 5th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Maybe Bill James is right, that the way to improve the (sometimes unbearably) slow game of baseball is to make it impossible for batters to call time whenever they feel like it - and then go wandering out of the batter’s box, mill around, rub their bat, and do six other things. I mean, they can call time, but the umpires won’t feel compelled to grant it. :)
March 8th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Somebody should send Bill James’ thoughts to Cleveland. Those guys seem to be the kings of milling around outside the box. With that kind of thing going on, the pitcher’s guaranteed to need more than 13 seconds, so the “12-second rule” is kind of pointless.