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You clearly are correct that protests can and do effect changes and comments to the rules, and I have no doubt that they affect what goes into NAPBL and PBUC publications. There often is a protest lurking in the history of the rule changes.
But, I am intrigued at the notion that the protest ruling is binding on the league (especially now that there is no league president). There does not appear to be any collection of protest decisions - - and no one appears to study or cite the protest decisions as authority. Such a collection would be very helpful in rules interpretion.
Do you know if MLB has ever distributed a copy of a decision or summary of protests to each team and umpire (not just the affected teams and umpire crew)? That is, if they are not collected or distributed, how does umpire crew #2 know the reasoning and result of a protest in a case involving crew #1. Has any league president cited a prior protest ruling as binding on him?
P.S. If I were a MLU, I could think of no better compliment than "he makes mistakes that only Bill Klem would have made." Then again, Klem was a gentleman and I am lawyer.
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