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Originally Posted by SanDiegoSteve
This association frowns on the unnecessary, frivolous calling of Time, and this is an example of that. Good things can happen when the ball is alive (such as outs), and not many can happen when it is dead.
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This is certainly not a consistent instruction across baseball organizations. My high school association teaches no such thing. Little League has a published ruling that says time is out when the plate umpire cleans the plate.
I'm just trying to envision a runner "sneaking" a steal of 2B or 3B while the plate umpire is brushing the plate, action was otherwise relaxed, and then just before ejecting the defensive coach your explanation is "yes, I was ***-to-field, but I never called time and my partner was still watching."
You may think it's a "good thing" that you're allowing bases to be run, outs to be recorded - hey do you still call balks while brushing the plate, maybe using your brown eye? - but to me it's a practice that is simply an endorsement of bush league baseball. No thanks.