New Addition to the MLB Rule Book-Rule 8.0...Whatever: The Check-Swing Rule

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jimcchou and Mattingly23 under CC BY 2.0 License

Under new Commissioner Rob Manfred's leadership, Major League Baseball has not been shy about tweaking the rules and procedures of the game to give it more of a modern-day feel and not be left in the dust by the other big three sports.  Instant Replay has been implemented and expanded upon and home plate collisions are seemingly no more.  Following in the Commissioner's overall goal of considering all areas to improve America's Pasttime, I bring forth two new rules for Major League Baseball to consider.


The first one as listed above is the Check-Swing rule.  The numbering of the rule is not important. You could give it any number designation to be included in MLB's Official Rulebook as long as it was implemented.  The new Check-Swing rule would be pretty simple to implement and follow in that this new rule would make it mandatory for the home plate umpire to appeal with the first or third base umpires on all check swings.  This new rule would hopefully further curb manager and player outbursts against home plate umpires who take it upon themselves to make a judgement call from a vantage point on a baseball field that isn't best suited to determine if a player made a full swing at a 95 mile per hour fastball or any other pitch a pitcher delivers to the batter from 60 feet 6 inches away.


Tim Musick
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