Time between innings

[IRISHMAFIA]

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.

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.