Overturn overtime rules to fix baseball

sports@dailylobo.com

America, together we can make a stand and fight for what is right. Together we can make our voices heard and put a stop to the overtime snoozefest known as extra innings.

If a baseball game is tied at the end of regulation, then the game continues until someone is on top at the end of an inning: there is no time limit.

Adding extra innings is by far the worst overtime system in all of sports. The process lacks all of the excitement that makes overtime in other sports so great. Baseball will never have an overtime as exciting as the one in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, in which Boise State beat Oklahoma with a trick play, or as tense as a shoot-out at the end of a soccer game.

On opening day this year, the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Cleveland Indians 7-4 in a 16-inning game that lasted five hours and 14 minutes. On July 26 of last year, the Atlanta Braves beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-3 in a 19-inning game that lasted six hours and 39 minutes and did not end until almost 2 a.m. Inning-wise, it was more than twice as long as a normal game.

Meanwhile, basketball games are settled with short five-minute overtime periods. NFL regular-season overtime ends when a team scores. The idea that each team has a short time to beat its opponent, or that it faces sudden death if the other team scores, makes for some compelling drama. Watching a baseball game drag on for 19 innings is about as exciting as watching C-SPAN.

By the end of these ridiculously long games, the stands are empty and the loyal fans who chose to stay until the end are falling asleep. This is a big problem. Overtime is supposed to keep people in the stands, not chase them out or bore them to sleep.

Here are a couple of solutions: If the game is tied at the end of the ninth inning, how about each team’s best sluggers go out and have a home-run derby? It would be faster, and there would be the added drama of putting pressure on one player, much like when a kicker squares up for a game-winning field goal, a shooter takes a last-second game-winning shot or a keeper is pressured to protect the goal during a shoot-out.

Or, because baseball players tend to enjoy a good brawl, what if both teams brawled at the end of regulation, and the team with the most players standing at the end was named the victor? If this were the case, fans would probably pray for a tie at the end of every game.

It would be pretty exciting, but the chances of that actually becoming the rule are about as likely as the Lobo football team going undefeated next season.

Whatever the solution, one thing is certain: change is needed. If we can band together and lobby the MLB for an alteration to the overtime system, maybe one day overtime in baseball will be bearable for fans to watch.