MLB Gets Its Rockwell On

Sure, Major League Baseball might have had a little trouble figuring out that whole steroid issue thing, but it's nice to be made aware that they've got their finger on the pulse of one of the game's most serious problems: Time wasting.

[Indians manager Eric] Wedge charged out onto the field and argued with the umpiring crew after a ball was called on Tribe reliever Rafael Betancourt for not delivering a pitch within 12 seconds (after he receives the ball and with the batter in the batter's box) when nobody is on base. It's a rarely enforced rule, and Wedge's tirade stopped just short of getting him ejected. In the bottom of the ninth, the umpires again called a ball on Betancourt for taking too much time. After the game Indians manager Eric Wedge accused the Tigers of alerting the umpires to Betancourt's slow delivery, an allegation that Tigers manager Jim leyland flatly denied. So how did the umps know about Betancourt's tendency to have a slow motion? According to the chief umpire from Tuesday night, it is because MLB keeps a naughty list of slow players. DeMuth said Wednesday that Betancourt is on a list, supplied by Major League Baseball to its umpires, that shows which pitchers and hitters take too much time.

You know, we were wondering why we hadn't seen Steve Trachsel in a while.

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