baseballrules Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

We have a controversial NCAA baseball call!
This was bad baseball all around, except from home-plate umpire Jeff Head. Almost every bit of the most-important play from the final game of the College Park regional of the NCAA Baseball Tournament was absurd. ...

How mad do you have to be to argue a ball for your teammate?
Every bad call for one team is a great call for the opposing team. That’s why fans always get upset when umpires make bad calls against their team, but stay silent when the same is done against the opposition. Players act the same way. That’s what made Anthony Rizzo’s ejection in Thursday’s game aga...

Robo umps can’t get here soon enough as unhinged humans remind sports fans that baseball still has worst officials
The MLB’s umpires are really milking their last few minutes of relevance, and in the process aren’t doing themselves any favors in the argument against robot umpires taking their jobs. No, Triple A isn’t testing out a robo-ump at the moment, but maybe they should be because what happened to Madison ...

Baseball is back, but the DH is everywhere, and that’s awful
There’s only one bad thing about the MLB lockout being over: The game is changing forever....

MLB secretly used two different types of baseballs last season, according to report
Can’t we go six months without a scandal in Major League Baseball? Just six months. That’s all I’m asking for....

You’ve got a lot of balls, MLB
As long as you’ve known baseball, it’s been four balls for a walk, but it wasn’t always that way. Today is the 133rd anniversary of the Joint Rules Committee taking away 20% of pitchers’ margin for error, reducing the number of balls for a walk from five to four....

This was your human element moment
I’m not here to claim that anyone should feel sorry for the Tampa Bay Rays. While MLB would love to position them as the plucky underdog, what they really are is the model that almost every team owner has pointed to while yelling at their front office saying, “Why can’t we win that cheaply?!” while ...

Cinnamon Toast Crunch sighting in last night’s Mets-Marlins game
Alright, who had cereal mascot playing umpire in the seats at LoanDepot Stadium on their 2021 scorecard? Nobody? That makes sense....

Deadspin’s deep dive into umpire stats: accuracy and consistency are key
Umpires are supposed to get every call right to the point where they have virtually no impact on the outcome of the game. Therefore, whenever an umpire does affect the outcome of a game, people start to take notice. ...

All-Star Takeaway: MLB is alive, internationally supreme, and going to get better
DENVER — It would be nearly impossible for any fan to have left the MLB All-Star Game here at Coors Field on Tuesday night without feeling good about the game. ...

I for one don’t welcome our crappy new robot umpire masters
Do you remember the part in Iron Man 2 where Tony Stark was in court and the United States government was essentially trying to take the Iron Man technology for themselves and their argument was that other countries were developing the same technology, then Stark hacked the monitors and showed a vid...

MLB’s must-see show is Tatís Jr, not Shohei Ohtani
With Shohei Ohtani mania running wild, it’s hard for anyone to think there is a bigger star in MLB America than him....

A new HR king declines possible crown, for now
Is this like when LeBron James opted out of the dunk contest early on in his career? Maybe....

All this ‘sticky stuff’ talk has gotten out of hand
Tyler Glasnow isn’t wrong that Major League Baseball has done a poor job in executing its crackdown on sticky stuff....

If MLB wants to fix what’s wrong, all it has to do is watch the college game
Dallas Baptist University is playing the University of Virginia in a win-or-go-home Super Regional game right now, and something I haven’t seen in a while just happened — a runner got on first, stole second, then the batter hit a fly to deep right that allowed the runner to move to third. What is th...

HEAR ME OUT: The infield fly rule is dumb and needs to be done away with
Last night’s Astros-Red Sox game had everything. There was a divisive fan moment before the game when a kid called Alex Bregman over under the guise of wanting to get a picture only to pull the rug out from underneath him and call him a cheater. There were six lead changes — more than any game since...

Mom makes MLB catch of the year
Is there anything a mom can’t do? It’s an overused phrase, I know. But it’s pretty true. I’d like to imagine that someone, somewhere, actually has a list of all things the super-moms can do out there. Now, it’s time to add, “mom bare hands foul ball with baby in hand” to the file....

Rookie umpire throws bat, hits José Abreu squarely in knee
I know umpires like to clear bats out of the way when they anticipate a play at the plate, but one would think that they would do so with a little bit of caution....

Remember to touch every base
Yes, if you hit a home run you still need to step on all the bases and, of course, home plate. It’s not a crazy, or even a controversial, rule. But sometimes, even the pros forget....

How many Tampa Bay Lightning players do you think Tom Brady can name?
It’s no big deal if Tom Brady isn’t familiar with anyone on the team, and he was just glad to agree to serve as the Bolts’ “fan captain” for Saturday’s Game 4 against the Carolina Hurricanes. It’s also hilarious to see the big-time Cameo video energy that Brady brought to the table to fire up the Ta...