Ghost runner shows MLB cheerful as ever to take existing fans for granted

With the ghost runner likely returning after all, MLB remains as cheerful as ever to take longtime fans of the game for granted.

Just when the dust had settled and fans were sinking their teeth into a crazy free agency and trade period, MLB decided to remind fans how irrelevant they are in the grand scheme.

Granted, that’s pretty much what both the MLB and MLBPA had been doing for the entire lockout, confident they could go to war over money as much as they want, because the fans will still be there with open arms (and open wallets) whenever they got around to playing again. Still, it came as something of a surprise when Jayson Stark and Matt Gelb revealed that the most controversial rule of the past two seasons — previously reported as dead at last — would, in fact, likely be sticking around the game for good.

Yep, the ghost runner in extra innings might be coming back to MLB.

Why is this a problem? Primarily, it’s just an embarrassing rule. If you’re one of my three regular followers in this space, you’ll know I’ve made no attempt to hide my disdain for it from day one. Making it possible for a team to actually lose when a pitcher comes into the game and gets the first two batters faced out is not an innovative solution. It’s just plain stupid. More broadly though, all it does is strike a blow to the soul of the game and spit in the face of fans who grew up loving baseball.

Switching to the universal DH after 50 years is suddenly super critical? Fine. Baseball can become cooler if runners have to run three inches less? You do you, Rob Manfred. Pitchers need to pick up the pace between pitches? Yes, I’m sure that will help make baseball cooler than a LeBron James dunk. Messing with the timeless, clockless magic of baseball though? Thumbing your nose at baseball’s status as the only major sport where the game could theoretically go on forever? That’s just not acceptable, and shouldn’t be on the table when it comes to rule changes and marketability fixes.

Honestly, most of Manfred’s proposed fixes come much closer to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic than actually coming up with the signature move that inspires the 15-year-old TikTok prodigy or die-hard basketball fan to start watching a hundred-plus baseball games a year. This one just goes too far though.

It’s just one more example of MLB not caring about the views of their most ardent fans in their quest to expand their audience. Based on the unfavorables cited in Stark and Gelb’s article, the only thing in MLB that might be less popular with fans is the commissioner himself. But some poll, somewhere, shows that it might draw in new viewers … and that would seem to be the ballgame. While some might object that the players like this rule, that’s kind of irrelevant.

MLB certainly does need to some innovating, some tweaking. There are issues that need to be resolved, far too few of which were even remotely addressed during the lockout.

Tactically speaking, I’m not even saying it’s bad strategy for MLB to assume they can take their diehard fans for granted … but only to a point. Putting something that is, statistically speaking, very close to a period on a baseball game, and dramatically altering the ability for a team to fairly compete in extra innings, that’s getting into soul of the game territory. Make too many changes of that nature, and they are going to succeed in irrevocably alienating more fans than they will gain with the changes.

MLB neglects their base at its own peril.