Quincy News: Major League Baseball rule changes this year will include the reduction of work time for concessions workers

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– News covered by Quincy Quarry News with commentary added.

PLAY BALL!!!
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Major League Baseball is about to underscore the start of spring what with Opening Days to be played all around the country this week.

In turn, hope will again spring eternal for fans. At least for a while anyway.

This season will feature two significant rule changes along with various other sorts of lesser tweaks.

One of the significant rule changes is the highly controversial imposing of the Designated Hitter rule to National League games after years of its only blighting American League games.

On this rule change Quincy Quarry is not a fan.

Batting practice sponsored by T-Mobile ...
Image via Major League Baseball

Granted, pitchers batting is usually an all but automatic out; at the same time, pitchers having to bat tends to encourage pitchers to not to hit batters as pitchers then have to risk going to bat themselves.

Plus, pitchers batting mitigates the amount of payback inflicted upon their teammates when a beaning culprit is not going to go to bat.

And on a more general level, pitchers having to bat adds complexity to a game rife with engaging complexities whereas at the end of the day a designated hitter hitting a dinger is not all that different than watching batting practice even if the DH does help to run up scores.

“So, where are we going for dinner after the game?”
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The other major rule change will be the introduction of a pitch clock so as shorten games as they have become overly long in recent years.

On this rule change Quincy Quarry News is conversely at this point generally favorable.

As such, the Quarry looks forward to seeing how this rule change plays out at the major league level this season after it was first beta tested in the minor leagues.

At the same time, a pitch clock is expected to shorten game times by roughly twenty-five minutes on average and as such does pose problems.

The problems include less work time for ballpark concession workers who are working part-time to make a buck.

Quincy Quarry Sports Editor Roy Hobbs
A Quincy Quarry News staff image

Inflation and a nervous economy are making things tough for a lot of people these days.

As such, cutting work time for those working a side hustle at ballparks will only make things tougher for them.

And as for baseball fans, what with beer sales traditionally stopped at by no later than the seventh inning at major league ballparks, a twenty-five minute cut in game times also works out to more than an inning’s worth of time cut to beer drinking time.

Accordingly, to mitigate the financial pain for concessionaires as well as sure be a hit for beer drinking baseball fans, the Quarry thus proposes to end the traditional seventh inning or thereabouts ending of beer sales by extending beers sales for another inning and thus only but slightly reducing the time when beer can be bought at major league games.