Welcome to Jon thunk, where I, Jon Crain, think about things and write about them in a hopefully interesting way. My sources are Google and Wikipedia mostly and I won't be citing them except as sources of further interest for nerds like myself.
In an earlier article (Pitch Selection, Location, and Hitting), I thunk about baseball and that made me think about if the pitcher was allowed to throw from 30 feet away instead of the 60ish feet they throw from today. Disclaimer: I don't recommend anyone actually try this at home. But I think we can actually make this work. I dub thee, JonBall.
Similar to the NFL, our first concern is player safety (haha) and there's no way a player could get out of the way from a pitch at that distance, also the catcher probably couldn't even move his glove if the pitcher misses, so the catcher and batter have to wear a full helmet and pads. For reference, human reaction to visual stimulus is about 250 milliseconds, and currently a pitch takes about 400 milliseconds to reach home plate, giving the batter about 150 milliseconds to actually react. We cut the time for the ball to reach the plate in half in JonBall, so it's actually physically impossible for either batter or catcher to react. They have to guess where the pitcher is going to throw the ball.
The batters best strategy here is going to be lay down a bunt, and try to move the bat after the pitcher starts his wind up once it's too late for the pitcher to change his mind where he's aiming, hopefully making some contact. This is going to be pretty difficult, for which I propose a couple more rule changes. If the pitcher misses the zone, it's always a ball. If the catcher fails to catch the ball (if the pitcher misses his glove and it ricochets off him like a ping pong ball), the batter can choose to run. If we still don't have the offense we'd like to see, I suggest changing the bat to a sort of large wooden spatula about the size of a third of the zone, which should result in about a third of strikes being put into play, disregarding fouls.
The ball ain't going very far, so we really only need a batter, catcher, and pitcher in this game. This incidentally makes fielding pretty interesting, as the pitcher may want to try to dive for a popped up ball, or run to first with his minor distance advantage over the batter so the catcher can try to field the ball and throw the runner out at first. Added capitalism advantage, we can play in current MLB stadiums and sell tickets for people to sit in the outfield.
In the interest of entertainment, the pads open up the possibility of making baseball a contact sport. I suggest allowing the catcher to tackle the runner to get them out, with the ball or not, but only if they aren't touching a bag and they're between first and third.
All this racing to bases and tackling will make this a pretty intensely demanding sport, also pitchers need to be able to not only throw accurately and hard but be fast enough to beat batters to a plate. So we'll allow defensive substitutions every at bat.
Once a runner gets on base, defense gets a lot more interesting. Another rule change, no stealing, or lead-offs. The pitcher actually has a disadvantage running to second, so throwing a runner out is very unlikely, if the ball is hit in play with a runner on first and less than two outs the best option for the pitcher is to run to third to hold the runner to second. Alternatively, you could go with what I like to call the 2-3 trap.
When the ball is put in play, the pitcher runs to second. If by some miracle the pitcher makes it there and the catcher fields the ball before the runner gets there they can throw him out. Alternatively, the catcher can beeline for between second and third, cutting off the runner as he rounds second and going for a massive hit. I suggest only allowing rugby tackles, nice clean hits where the runner is wrapped up. Again, this is all about player safety. To avoid only having tiny fast runners as batters, if the batter is able to run over the catcher or not go to the ground (same rules as football), they are allowed to advance unless the catcher has the ball in his hand and holds on. If the runner is small and speedy and smart, they are likely to double back if they think they can't make third before being clobbered, which gives the catcher a chance to throw to the pitcher at second and get a tag. It's all the fun of a pickle but with the added bonus that the catcher can tackle the runner.
All in all, I'd love to see a game of JonBall but I'm not legally responsible for anyone actually trying this.
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