Quote:
Originally Posted by AtlUmpSteve
This may be an unpopular stance, and there is no exact rule support, per se. But, one minute was selected as a reasonable amount of time for (both) teams to change over, and prepare for the opposite role. The team leaving defense should have same one minute to:
1) leave their defensive positions and go to the dugout,
2) remove defensive equipment (catcher),
3) take a swig of water,
4) get their bats, helmets, put batting gloves on,
5) take a few practice swings,
6) coaches have a few words,
7) base coaches move to their coaching boxes,
etc.
It so rarely happens that a team hustles out every inning as a normal pace of the games, that I have no sense of special urgency when they finally choose to just because it now benefits them. If the opposing team cooperates, fine. If the opposing team makes a special effort to delay, I will address that. But one team just now deciding they have an added incentive to get started, well, I'm giving the opposing team a reasonable opportunity to get ready, similar to what they have had all game long to this point.
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No doubt that if we ever went off our rockers and started to enforce the 1 minute, there would never be 5 warm-up pitches, wind sprints by bench players, not congenial conversations by coaches, no reason for F3 to ever carry a ball onto the field, etc.
As often noted, this is a rule in place for game control purposes and really shouldn't be pushed unless necessary to control the game and that includes keeping it moving in a timely manner, clock or no clock.