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

Photo Courtesy of: Wikimedia and

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
Copyright 2015
All Rights Reserved.

Changing Of The Guard: From Old School To Progressive New School In Major League Baseball

Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia and Arturo Pardavila III from Hoboken, NJ, USA

under CC BY-SA 2.0 License

The dawn of the 2015 Major League Baseball season is exactly one week away!  Can you feel the excitement?!  Major League ballparks across America will be open for business once again for the next six months.  For 10 lucky clubs there is hope they will be open for business a little longer than the usual six months thanks to a postseason appearance in pursuit of a possible World Series title.

The beginning of the 2015 season, while bringing the same hope and dreams for all 30 Major League clubs, will be unlike any other we have seen in more than 20 years.  Bud Selig is no longer the commissioner.  That job now belongs to the man Selig seemingly hand picked as his successor in Rob Manfred.  Manfred will now be entrusted by all 30 Major League owners to continue the never ending mission of evolving the game known as America's national pastime.

In his first few months on the job, Manfred has not been shy about his desire to make significant changes in the game to better improve the overall product.  Count me in favor of looking at all areas for ways to improve the game even if I don't agree with every single idea being discussed such as possibly banning defensive shifts.  At least we're at a day and age in baseball where the powers that be are willing to discuss these kinds of issues.  I'm not sure the desire for improvement would have been taken seriously some 20 years ago under Bud Selig.

Tim Musick
Copyright 2015
All Rights Reserved