We’ve reached the All-Star break, the unofficial halfway point of the Major League Baseball season.
For fantasy baseball players, it’s a form of detox. Three consecutive days without having adjust lineups, scan injury reports and monitor statistics. It gives us a chance to reconnect with other things in our lives. You wouldn’t believe how much my daughter has grown since early April.
It also provides a little time to reflect on the first three months and change of the baseball season, which, as always, has had its moments. Here’s a look at three specific events that were a little out of the ordinary.
Part 1: THE 12-SECOND RULE
No, this has nothing to do with the federally-mandated (I think) time limit for picking up a piece of dropped food or gum and re-inserting it into your mouth — everyone knows that is the 10-second rule, and nobody, to my knowledge, has ever dared challenge it by eating an item 11 seconds after it touched pavement.
I speak about the much lesser-known 12-second rule. It’s so obscure, I’ll give you a quick multiple-choice guess as to what it refers:
A) The amount of time it takes to call a friend and tell them about my blog: ThePickToClick.com (hint hint).
B) The legally admissible amount of time you can scream and/or shout obscenities at the computer screen after MLB.com’s Gameday updates with, “#5 Called Strike. Travis Hafner called out on strikes. Three out.”
C) The amount of time a pitcher, with the bases empty, has to throw the ball after the hitter stations himself in the box.
D) The amount of time it takes to frantically dispose of a room full of beer cans when the wife’s car pulls in the driveway.
If you said all of the above, you are correct. For this discussion, however, let’s focus on choice C (though not forgetting the message in choice A, mind you).
This rarely enforced rule came into play on July 3, igniting a different form of fireworks from Cleveland manager Eric Wedge. Dana Demuth penalized Indians pitcher Rafael Betancourt for taking too long to throw a pitch to Detroit’s Carlos Guillen.
A ball was added to the count, and Wedge emerged from the dugout — not to challenge the call, but to suggest someone from the Tigers must have tipped the umpires off to this delay.
OK, news flash. If you’re an umpire, working home plate in July, wearing pads all over the place … you might be aware of someone trying to slow down the pace of the game, perhaps even annoyed by it.
Plus, how could Jim Leyland possibly have said anything about this to the umpires. It takes longer than 12 seconds to smoke a cigarette so there’s no way Leyland was aware of what was going on here.
The beauty of it is that the rule is in place to ensure the continuity of the game — and when it was broken, Wedge came out and argued, further stopping play. Maybe they need a 12-second rule for managerial discussions with the umpires. Argue for more than 12 seconds and you are automatically ejected. I’m for that.
The next day, DeMuth revealed the real culprit: Major League Baseball, which has a little black book of players who notoriously slow down games. Are you kidding me? These offenses they choose to rigorously track, and effectively combat with action. But battling steroids needs an intervention from Congress.
How about a similar penalty for someone whose muscles contract too much when they step into the batter’s box. Let Barry Bonds start 0-1 every at-bat and be done with it.
Next post: Part 2, Protesting a Protest.
Sal DeFilippo is a Web Content Editor at Greenspun Media Group and an avid fantasy baseball player. Share your own fantasy baseball experiences with him. He can be reached at (702) 990-8932 or ">[email protected] and at www.thepicktoclick.com">thepicktoclick.com