By Kristina Airdo

We are about a month into the 2022 baseball season, and baseball is officially all the way back. Just four weeks into the season, we’ve seen it all: Unwritten rules, bench-clearing brawls, and enough warning track fly balls to reach our quota for the next couple of years. We’ve also heard the word “humidor” more the last few weeks than ever before, taking me back to a time when I wish I had no idea what the heck that meant.

For what feels like the hundredth time in the last couple of years, there have been plenty of debates about various “unwritten rules”, such as running up the score on a losing team, swinging on a 3-0 count – White Sox fans know this one well :), and apparently bunting is bad now too. To be clear, bunting isn’t really a great option like 99% of the time, but if the other team wants to give me a free out, who am I to complain? I know you’re probably asking yourself, “If they aren’t written, why are they rules?” That is essentially the million-dollar question. It is the year 2022, we’ve moved on from this boomer ideology – one where we don’t get mad when our team scores more runs and actually makes baseball fun.

Plus, as White Sox fans, we’ve now seen what could happen even with an 8-1 lead… Pain.

But hear me out – what if we just blew up the rules in general? The league already hates baseball and joy, as we just witnessed a three-month player lockout, so perhaps we should be looking elsewhere for inspiration. MLB and the MLBPA have been searching for ways to grow and improve the game, and not even Mad Max Scherzer and his Porsche could whip up such an idea.

The Savannah Bananas invented Banana Ball within the last few years, and if you have not heard of them, imagine two hours of the most wild and thrilling baseball you’ve ever seen. They consistently rank highest in attendance across the Coastal Plain League, and regularly sell out their home games, so clearly what they are doing is working. Literally, their slogan is “We make baseball fun”, which is pretty much the opposite of what MLB and Rob Manfred have been trying to do. Banana ball is full of competition, entertainment, and some of the strangest rules ever introduced to the game – and it ROCKS. 

Imagine being the reason José Ramírez makes the last out of an inning, when you, as a fan, catch a foul ball down the third base line in the stands. Have you ever had THAT MUCH power in an MLB game?! No! You might end up on SportsCenter, or go viral on Twitter for like 20 minutes, but we should acknowledge the value that fans add to Banana Ball, as some days they could be contributing about as much as Dallas Keuchel. Actually, watching Keuchel pitch on the Bananas would be amazing – since walks aren’t allowed. Anytime a batter walks they break out into a sprint around the bases to advance as far as possible, while the defense has to throw the ball to every single position player before the ball is considered “live”. Since he walks a thousand people, just think about the action he would bring into the game. 

MLB wants to keep the length of games down, right? The Bananas have it already worked out. Careful not to step out of the box with two strikes, you’d strike yourself out before the pitch is even thrown! And what if instead of extra innings we just had a one-on-one duel with each team? We could be done with the days of extras and five-plus hour games while enduring the dumb “man on second” rule. Each team selects a pitcher and a batter, and the defensive team gets one fielder. The batter puts the ball in play and attempts to make it around the bases to score a point. I’d pay to see someone like Yaz and his super speed attempt to make it home, or alternatively, seeing Adam Engel cover the entire field –  because that dump truck can MOVE.

The discourse from MLB has consistently revolved around ways to make updates to the game in effort to increase competition, when there are elite rule changes staring us in the face.

Tired: Banning the shift. 

Wired: Banning the bunt.

You heard that right. In Banana Ball, there isn’t a worse offense than bunting in a game. If a player attempts to bunt at any point, they will simply be thrown out of the game, full stop. Sounds like a great rule in my book – nobody wants to watch a bunt, let’s be real. Maybe incorporating these rules would actually get TLR to quit on his own – heaven forbid he can’t use Gavin Sheets to bunt down one run in the bottom of the seventh. I don’t know if he has actually done that (yet), but it sure sounds like something he would do.

It’s clear that MLB needs to officially be ridden of the “UnWrItTeN rUlEs”, and this just feels like the easiest solution to make baseball fun again. Oh no, the pitcher sucks and keeps throwing wild pitches? Watch out, the batter might steal first! And don’t even think about sending Ethan Katz out there, because mound visits have been exiled. The Bananas have an ad-free stadium (which is unheard of these days), sometimes they play in kilts, and even have Daisy the bat dog! Rob Manfred has some research he needs to do, but obvious improvements could be made to the game. And Rob, if you’re going to continue to be the lamest dude ever, can we at least get bat dogs?