WILL BASEBALL’S NEW RULE CHANGES ATTRACT YOUNGER KIDS?

Starting in a week or so, right with the beginning of Major League Baseball’s spring training games , MLB has decided to change lots of rules. They have added a pitch clock to speed up the game....pitchers are allowed only two throws to first base with a runner on...balks will be called more often....there will no more defensive shifts in the infield...the bases on the field are bigger, which makes it a shorter distance to steal a base in the hope there will be more attempts at stolen bases....they are going to keep the ghost runner on second in extra innings....in short, there are lots of changes taking place to the National Pastime

Why is MLB doing this? By most accounts, there’s a sense that baseball games are just too long and boring due to a lack of action. And MLB feels that a way to correct all of this is by adopting these various changes. Only time will tell this spring whether these ideas are good ones or not so good. But the real question that a lot of baseball lifers ask is whether these various changes will actually make a difference in attracting younger fans to the game of baseball.

To me, that’s the real question. I asked Dom Scala, the former star third baseman at St. John’s University, who was a high draft choice of the Oakland Athletics, and when his playing career was over, he served as a long-time coach with the Yankees and for 18 years was the head baseball coac at Adelphi Unversity. Dom was inducted into the NYS Baseball Hall of Fame in 2021.

I wanted to get Dom’s take on all of this. His insights, along with the callers, made for a fascinating conversation. Listen to it here: The Sports Edge with Rick Wolff