Vote on This

Considering that Clare called yesterday afternoon with the news, baseball seems almost shy in getting the word out. Nothing on MLB.com about the Manfred man/ghost runner rule becoming permanent. You know the one, where every half inning in extra innings starts with a runner on second and nobody out. I hate it, my daughter hates it, but what do we know? Commissioner Gump thinks it’s a good idea, and so did a management-player-umpire committee voting yesterday to make the rule permanent. If I can cite an old game show here, it’s not what you say but what you don’t say that counts. The stories I read—and remember, mum’s the word on MLB.com—said not a word on fan reaction. We’re good enough to vote for the All-Star teams but not this. Gosh, I suddenly feel disrespected by the baseball establishment. Oh, well. I mentioned to Clare about two long-ago extra-inning affairs that I remembered from the time of the dinosaurs. In 1967, The White Sox beat Cleveland at home, 1-0, in seventeen innings while losing to the Senators on the road, 6-5, in twenty-two innings. And did I mention the time the Sox beat the Brewers, 7-6, in twenty-five innings over the course of two days back in May of 1984? No? Well, it doesn’t matter anyway.