The pitch clock is already starting to destroy baseball

It was hailed as a leap into the future for a medieval game by proponents, derided as the destruction of the holiest of American holies by opponents, but it was only a matter of, ahem, time before the pitch clock influenced the outcome of a game.

The national number one LSU Tigers met the Kansas State Jayhawks in Game one of the 2023 Round Rock Classic, offering us just that occasion.

With the Jayhawks trailing by four and with Cole Johnson on first base, Roberto Peña was down to his last strike when the umpire called time out, signalled that Peña had taken too long to get into the batter’s box, and awarded the third strike to end the game. LSU 7, Kansas State 3.

We are just one week into the college baseball season and it is clear that the pitch clock has already begun to voraciously destroy baseball.

Let me just head you off at the pass with a few comments here:

No, I am not saying that the outcome would have been different. LSU are the best team in the country and had a comfortable lead. But simply awarding the win this way is not sporting.

It is not only unfitting for baseball, it undermines everything that the game is about.

And yes, there is room for compromise in the game with new ideas and tradition coexisting. While I fall into the camp that despises clocks in baseball, if we must have them in the game, perhaps they should be turned off in the final inning, lest we have another outcome decided not by the play on the field, but by a clock in the press box.

The shame of it all is that there is simply no need for a pitch clock at all. You perhaps argue that we need to speed the game up. Ok, let’s say for the sake of argument that you are right. The rules of the game as they have been for over a century would allow that to happen with no need for the introduction of a clock.

Pitchers in the last decade have begun using the most insane double and triple sets in their motion. I have no idea where this came from, but it is a balk. I has always been a balk. If the umpires would have called it as a balk, each and every time it happened, then these pitchers would not have gotten into the habit of doing it.

And for the record, yes, you can balk with the bases empty. By rule, if the bases are empty, a ball is awarded to the batter.

But what about the batters, stepping out and readjusting their gloves each and every pitch? There has always been a rule that the umpire can order the batter into the box, and if he doesn’t comply, simply allow the pitcher to throw anyway. If it is a strike, so be it. Umpires have created this monster by holding the pitcher up to allow these batters to take all the time they wanted.

Had the umpires simply enforced the rules as they stood, as they have been played by countless generations, then baseball would be intact. Their chosen path of dereliction of duty has created a “need” for a clock, so that they can say, “Hey, it’s not me. It is the clock!”

And now, we have this situation. LSU improves to 5-0 and will face Iowa in Game three, an outcome that would almost certainly have happened anyway. But instead of letting the game come to its own natural conclusion, it was euthanised by baseball’s own personal Dr Death.

How sickening.