Pace-of-play fines don’t sit well with Brett Gardner, and he’s got a point
By Cody Rivera
Brett Gardner apparently was fined thousands of dollars for taking too long to get in the batter’s box, and it rubbed him the wrong way.
It’s pretty amazing the lengths that Major League Baseball will go to in order to attempt to shorten games. After all, baseball is one of the most slow-paced, drawn-out sports there is, and it’s often been a common complaint among fans: games are too long and too boring.
Well, I’m sorry to say that it’s just the way baseball is. It’s always been a long game, and it always will be. If you are a true fan of the game, typically that’s just something you understand and make peace with.
(Side note: Adding instant replay didn’t help speed up the game, but that’s a story for another day.)
But in order to speed games along, MLB apparently can fine players if they take too much time getting into the batter’s box. New York Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner was supposedly fined approximately $3,500 in the month of June because he violated MLB’s pace-of-play regulations, which was originally reported by the New York Post but recently covered on ESPN.com.
As one can imagine, it didn’t sit well with Gardner at all.
“I’ve got more things to worry about than taking three seconds too long to get to the box,” Gardner said. “Somebody else can [throw pickoff throws to first base] 27 times in a game and waste 15 minutes of everybody’s time, and I get fined thousands of dollar for taking three seconds too long to get in the box.”
Gardner makes a good point. Some hitters take a little longer to get in the batter’s box; maybe they’ve got things they have to run through their minds on the way to the plate to help themselves get in the zone. Maybe they just really appreciate the opportunity to play in the big leagues, and they want to soak it all in. Either way, no baseball game has ever been seriously delayed because of a player taking a couple extra seconds to get to the plate.
On the other hand, how many times do pitchers successfully pick off runners at first base? It doesn’t happen very often, yet some of them still decide to throw over three or four times in a row. If you’re just trying to let the runner know you’re keeping an eye on him, usually throwing over just once, maybe twice, gets that message across. Yet, that never seems to be an issue for MLB, even though that slows down the pace of the game in a big way.
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The point here: baseball is a slow game, and that’s just the way that it is. I would imagine the league has bigger issues to worry about than Gardner taking his time getting into the batter’s box, but I guess they felt that it was an issue that needed to be addressed.
Whatever. You do you, MLB.