BY RICK CURTI Welcome to another addition of Ricks Rant. Hope everyone is doing well today. Baseball is right around the corner as spring training has started and I am excited. I’m also excited that North Carolina is getting a brand new team! I’m not talking about MLB, I’m talking about The Atlantic League Of Professional Baseball. The High Point Rockers. The league has been around for over 20 years and recently partnered with MLB to make the game more exciting and to try new things to make the game appeal to a new audience. They are trying things such as a pitching clock, having a runner start on a base at the start of the inning and the one where people are really scratching there heads, Robot Umpires? Yes let me repeat myself Robot Umpires! Sounds weird to me and a little extreme but that is what they want to do? MLB is experimenting with new gimmicks to appeal to a younger generation and to make the game shorter. I recently mentioned that the attendance of MLB has been dropping the last 3 seasons and they are hoping this will make the game more appealing. The strike zone has been inconsistent and it depends on what umpire you get. One can have a high strike zone or a low strike zone, the game can drag on and people may lose interest? So what do you think? Is this weird or crazy? Is it interesting and will it make the game faster? Or is the game relying to much on technology and will umpires lose there jobs? I’m not a fan, but I also didn’t like to see a wild card and more playoff games and that seems to work. Until next time everyone!
