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I'm a bit surprised there doesn't seem to be much commentary on what is rather unprecedented. Lord knows Official Baseball Rules (Pro Rules or whatever else you want to call it) undergo very few changes. I think the last major one was in 1988/1989 when the coming to a stop and balk thing was rewritten (Bob Davidson must've been having orgasms over that), resulting in no stop balk calls skyrocketing that year. It was quickly reversed the following year, as we all remember.

Every year we've grown accustomed to OBR having that one sentence statement on its inside front page: "The playing rules committee has adopted no changes to the Official Baseball Rules for the NNNN season." This year, however, that sentence is quite different, as there are listed a rather stunning 23 changes! Some are editorial rewrites of casebook comments and the like, but others are some significant changes and rule deletions. For example: the 20-second rule regarding the pitcher has been changed to 12. A batter is out on a dropped third strike not when he enters the dugout or reaches his defensive position, but when, believing the ball was caught, he leaves the circular area surrounding home plate. There are other changes, including what is basically the NCAA's batter's box rule of keeping a foot in it and not incessantly leaving it (this one refers only to National Association games only and not the major leagues).

Of course, the changes must be approved by the Players Association (that, BTW, is a topic for another discussion, IMHO).

Has anyone else been paying attention to the changes in OBR? It will be interesting to see if these become permanent.

FYI, these changes are not reflected in MLB.com's Internet accessible OBR; rather, they're included in the printed book, published by The Sporting News.