Friday cannon fodder: Changing the rules

In yesterday’s CF, there was a mini-discussion about bowling, and I thought it’d be cool if leagues could use the kid bumpers but only if they did so intentionally. Calling a shot on a second ball off the bumper and making it would result in a bonus.

That got me thinking a bit about a fun question that gets asked every once in a while, that in lieu of links, I will ask here today as an open thread question.

In your favorite sport, or whatever sport you’re interested in, what rule or rules would you change and why?

Okay, I’ll start. I am a pretty big baseball fan, but like most baseball fans, I get annoyed with the pace of play. There are a lot of unnecessary pauses in the action, and there’s two ways I think those could be reduced, one a rule change and one the enforcement of an existing rule:

- Rule change: When a pitcher wants an intentional walk, he should just signal to the umpire that that is his desire, and the umpire would then allow the player to take first base. Eliminate the charade of throwing four pitches well wide of the strike zone. Sure, you lose stuff like this, which is hilarious, but that doesn’t happen often enough to matter.

- Enforcement of existing rule: Specifically, the comment on rule 5.04(b)(2) (top of page 19) that states “the batter is not at liberty to step in and out of the batter’s box at will”. If you keep the batter from stepping out after every pitch, you shorten up the game. Easy. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem too likely to happen, seeing as how that rule has been on the books more or less forever.

Tell me what you’d change in a sport.

Also, this is an open thread, so talk about other stuff!