Posted on June 14,
2024
The "Purist" Put-Down
A weak excuse for ruining sports
by
Daniel
Clark
In yet another of the radical changes that have become
too commonplace in the world of sports, the Southeastern Conference introduced
the "safety base" at this year's postseason baseball tournament. This invention, designed to reduce collisions
during close plays at first base, is basically two conjoined bases that
straddle the first base line. The
actual, official first base rests in fair territory as it always does, while
the duplicate, different-colored base (in this case green) sits on the opposite
side of the line. That way, the batter runs
to one base, and the fielder the other, thereby removing some of that naughty
element of competition from the game.
After one tournament game on the SEC Network, a coach
and two announcers sat around a table, all of them agreeing that of course
the safety base is a good idea, even though "the purists" aren't going to like
it. There was a time when lots of sports
fans self-identified as purists, but these days purists are the bogeymen,
spoken about by sports media figures with the same contempt with which liberal
legal scholars might refer to strict constructionists. The purist designation has always been a
caricature, because there is no "pure" form of any sport. Almost everybody is willing to accept certain
changes, when they are enacted with reasonable deliberation. What a lot of us don't like is to have
significant and even radical changes that are whimsically imposed.
In
this case, the entire college baseball regular season had gone by without the
safety base, or any reason for anyone to wish it was there. All of a sudden, at the championship
tournament of the nation's best conference, they plop down a new piece of
equipment, with new rules to go along with it.
On a ball that is hit to the outfield, the batter is to use the real
first base, because there will be no first baseman there obstructing his
path. On an infield grounder, however,
he must run to the green safety base in foul territory, because the first
baseman will be positioned inside the line to accept a throw from another
infielder. If the batter tries to reach
first base after the catcher drops the ball on a strikeout, he and the first
baseman must flip positions, with the batter running to the regular base, and
the first baseman occupying the safety base, because the catcher will be
throwing to him in foul territory.
So, to summarize, Player one runs to the white base
and player two to the green base in scenarios A and C, but they reverse
positions in scenario B, and this is designed to prevent them from
running into each other. If you don't think that's a
good idea, then you must be one of those dastardly purists, living in your own
little anachronistic, socially repressive Leave It to Beaver world in
which there's only one first base. Why
don't you just repeal the Civil Rights Act while you're at it, you curmudgeonly
enemy of progress?
The "purist" put-down is just the usual liberal tactic
of making all arguments personal, so that they may then be dismissed for that
reason. If you object to ghost-runners,
three-on-three overtimes and touchbacks for fair catches in the field of play,
that's just because you happen to be a certain way, and not because those
ill-conceived, impetuously imposed rules have been detrimental to their
respective games.
Sports
being a microcosm of society, there can be little doubt that there is a
political facet to these relentless attacks on their basic structure. It's as if the athletic equivalent of the
Warren Court has been wreaking havoc for the past twenty years, and is only
gaining momentum. American sports are
the pith of American culture, and you have to change American culture to
succeed in "fundamentally transforming the United States of America," as Barack
Obama was famously committed to doing.
Why else do you suppose fans have had to endure four years of raised
fists and rainbows, sports leagues taking partisan political positions as MLB
did in denying Atlanta the All-Star Game, teams implementing "green"
initiatives, collegiate conferences running PSAs extolling "social justice,"
and racially segregated national anthems at the Super Bowl?
This is not to suggest that there's an organized
campaign to destroy sports, but leftists are always leftists first, and
whatever else they are second, if that.
Nobody wants to fundamentally transform something he loves, but sports
are being fundamentally transformed all over the place. It's not a scheme, but an instinct that is
driving the process. When professional
and college sports returned during the COVID lockdowns and after the George
Floyd riots, it was only typical that the liberals who dominate those
institutions would take advantage of a captive audience by assaulting it with
anti-American demagoguery. They had
probably been itching to do such a thing for decades. No conspiracy was necessary.
As if a built-in proclivity to tear down traditions
wasn't enough motivation in itself, the liberal minions of the sports world
have adopted safety as the prime justification for their wanton acts of
vandalism. Last season, Major League
Baseball expanded the bases from 15 to 18 square inches. Like the SEC safety base, this un-funsized version was concocted in order to cut down on
collisions at first base, which has strangely become a fashionable cause in
spite of not having been an issue for 150 years. Will bigger bases make the game safer? Who knows?
Maybe middle infielders will get injured more often, with second base
not quite being where they've always expected it. As long as we're overreacting, why
deliberately place three trip hazards on the field in the first place? Perhaps the bases will soon just be white
squares painted on the field, or digitally superimposed.
Physical play around the bases has always been a part
of the game, but if it's suddenly such a concern, then shouldn't most of the
busybodies' energy be directed at home plate? Why not eliminate the threat of injury in
this case by adding an extraneous base line, leading from third base to a
"safety plate" in the middle of nowhere, so that the runner and the catcher are
no longer battling for the same strip of territory?
If first base is so unsafe, then so is the entire game
of baseball. How many collisions do you
see in the outfield every season? How
many fielders run into walls and railings while chasing after foul balls? How many batters are injured by pitches, or
pitchers by batted balls? By the time
the game has been made ouchless, there will hardly be
anything left of it.
The National Football League has just banned the "hip
drop tackle," which basically consists of wrapping up an opposing player at the
waist and falling onto his legs. If this
sounds extremely commonplace, that's because it is. Routine plays have become intolerable in the
NFL, because no matter what new rules the league comes up with, there will
always, inevitably be a new most dangerous play in football, which must be
eradicated.
Not
all sports injuries are caused by physical confrontations, though. Because fatigue leaves athletes more
susceptible to injury, there's a movement afoot to change the rules of various
sports to prevent the players from becoming tired, even though a "purist" might
find that absurd. The indefinite length
of baseball games, previously thought to be one of the charms of the sport, is
now considered a menace. Hence the
"ghost runner," a player who is awarded second base at the start of an extra
inning without having to earn it, in hopes of ending the game sooner by
increasing the likelihood of a score.
In college football, when a game remains tied after
two overtimes, it is decided by having the teams take turns attempting
two-point conversions, instead of each running an entire offensive series. How badly has the structure of the game
broken down when you can score a conversion without a touchdown?
Every physical act carries with it some possibility of
injury, but as dangerous activities go, running to first base probably ranks
somewhere between ice fishing and tai chi.
Nevertheless, an athlete must not be allowed to accept certain risks as
the cost of participation. That's too
much like free enterprise.
You don't have to be whatever a purist is to recognize
that the structure of every major sport is under attack. In football, you can no longer tackle high,
or low, or around the waist, or on a boat, or with a goat, or just about any
other way. The National Hockey League is
so aware of the illegitimacy of its overtime and shootout rules that it awards
a point in the standings to the losing team.
In the National Basketball Association, the rules have become so
subjective and so inconsistently applied that the referees have become like
walking Magic 8-Balls.
It's doubtful that anybody exists who disagrees with
every proposed change to every sport, but fans are fans because they love the
sports they follow. That makes them the
natural enemies of those fundamental transformers who treat them so spitefully. The leading conference in college baseball has
gotten so carried away with the trendy iconoclasm of the day that it is
actually questioning the definition of a base.
The mere fact that the subject had come up for discussion should have
set off alarm bells in living rooms across America. If the people in that league want to play
ball with two first bases, then let them invent their own game, and leave ours
the hell alone.
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