MLB’s rule changes will only bring needless new degree of confusion

As we said when we were children, “I’m ascared.” 

I’m ascared that we’ll soon read full-screen graphics listing major league leaders in extra inning games lost without allowing a baserunner, and strikeout leaders, both batters and pitchers, with just two strikes as per pitch-clock ruling. 

I’m fearful that our TV screens during baseball games — already filled with more distracting, artificial clutter than you can shake a pitch count at — will be so additionally surrounded by data that the obstructive, needlessly superimposed strike zone box will seem like an old reliable friend. 

I’m afraid that because the commissioner of baseball, team GMs, team managers, players and the MLBPA could not, for the good and welfare of The Game, be convinced to play the game faster and smarter until they placed baseball on life support, soon to rest in pieces. 

I’m convinced that MLB has become nothing better than an annually adjusted, unsanctioned medical experiment, and its fans, trending older and thus fewer, are no more essential than lab rats. 

And here we thought Rob Manfred’s plan to speed up the game with automatic bases-on-balls (saving seconds per season in exchange for the removal of in-play baseball) would fix everything! 

Then again, Manfred indulges bat-flipping, home-plate-posing and all other acts of rank, in-game immodesty as the best way to sell The Game to kids. That, and gambling on baseball. 

This is the first season which longtime fans will enter without knowing what the hell is going on, what’s eligible for more replay reviews and dubious decisions, and what’s eligible for just extended arguments, debates and foresight-less happenings that will force MLB to make it up as it goes along. 

Stolen base totals (at these salaries, who needs to run anymore?) will be artificially stimulated by limiting get-back throws to first. In other words, the fast runner at first will barely have to trot to second after two pickoff throws, as the catcher will concede the base as a matter of offseason legislation. 

And the bases have been enlarged, apparently because players such as Manny “$350 million extension” Machado have so much trouble seeing them: Why else would they feel the need to jog in their direction? 

That’s baseball, Suzyn! 

I’ll guess that stepping out of the batter’s box to adjust one’s batting glove (even after a pitch has been taken) in just one season surpasses the time it took for the dinosaurs to depart. 

Batting gloves are not an intrinsic part of the game any more than any outside additives. But no need to add pitch clocks or to ban batting gloves, ban the needless delays batting gloves cause! 

It still strikes me that Manfred, had he been raised a baseball card-carrying devotee of baseball, would have rejected as anathema to the game MLB’s recent changes — starting with the insane suggestion that the 10th inning begin with a runner on second base. Say, who leads the bigs in artificial, bogus RBIs? 

To think of all the historical, sensational, extraordinary extra-inning games that have been eliminated from the future because managers and their modern analytics smoke salesmen choose to play the first nine innings in super slow motion. 

Why not flip a coin after nine innings? Have a seed-spitting contest? Guess, the way they now do after replay determines that a foul ball down the line hit the chalk? 

Spring training games, thus far, have been averaging well under three hours? Great. 

But they could’ve been played at the same pace and not have been devalued or denuded of baseball just by eliminating senselessly designated per-inning relievers — both managers dueling as to which transient call-up or Closer of the Week would finally blow the game long after the park emptied. 

But the fantasy of prescripted outcomes — the total dismissal of the here-and-now — not only caught fire, it persisted! As Ron Darling said, “They pay all the big money to the starters then expect the relievers to win the games.” 

But it perhaps serves as a significant clue to Manfred’s foresight that without knowing what the heck it was all about, he had MLB sign on as a cross-promoter of FTX, the cryptocurrency fools’ bait now fully scandalized as a Ponzi-like scam. 

But if you admire double- and triple-talk, here’s what Manfred said about being suckered by FTX: 

“The FTX development was a little jarring. We have been really careful moving forward in this space. We’ve been really religious about staying away from coins themselves as opposed to more company-based sponsorships. We think that was prudent particularly given the way things unfolded. We will, I think, proceed with caution in the future.” 

Huh? What? Does he play everyone for fools? If he’d exercised caution rather than quick-buck greed, MLB would have avoided FTX! 

Are there Mosquito Rules? Force majeure — “greater force” — dispensations? 

Two out, bases loaded, bottom of the ninth, down a run, two strikes. A poison malarial bee or flying squirrel swoops into the batter’s right eye. He jumps out of the box to swat it away. Strike three! Batter’s time clock has expired! 

Wait’ll Manfred hears that he can quadruple the number of doubles by moving second base to just five feet from first! 

Now we await TV’s treatment of Rob Manfred Baseball. Already given to turning our screens into zipping, multi-colored nightmares suffered by stock market floor brokers, will clocks be added to “The Game With No Clocks”? Will John Smoltz speak faster to make up for lost time? 

Will the mascots’ Sausage Races in Milwaukee be shortened or eliminated? 

Finally, will the 11th inning begin with runners on second and third, two runs in? 

March jargon madness

’Tis the season when invention oversupplies need. What good is the NCAA basketball tournament unless it’s immersed in algorithms and overly complex math to distinguish the worthy teams from the unworthy? To separate the bubble teams from the Double Bubble teams and those who have yet to set foot on campus? 

So last week we could read, right here in these pages, that “North Carolina has a NET ranking of 47, a 1-8 record in Quad 1 games, plus three Quad 2 losses.” 

Reader Michael Christadore: “Was I having a nightmare or did I just land on Mars?” 

Must escape Chuck!

Is there a place for spots fans to hide if they no longer care what Charles Barkley thinks about anything? 

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NBC’s “Sunday Today” show last week included good, strong stuff on the involvement of the NCAA Tournament-bound Alabama basketball team in the near-campus shooting death of 23-year-old mother Jamea Harris. Just one question: Would NBC News have pursued the story if NBC had owned the rights to the NCAA Tournament? 

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Why would ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith spend his time understanding hockey when he still doesn’t understand basketball beyond loud, rotten guesswork? And don’t get me started on football.