An Update

    Yesterday I released a post called Fenceball, an attempt to complain about MLB's new ban on bunts. However, it turns out that they are not banning the bunt. I had heard it from two different friends, and read a couple articles speculating about the possibility of doing it in the future. To the relief of my blood pressure, athletic career, and passion for the game, they did not. Like I said, that would kill baseball, and the new game would be radically different. Since everybody aims for the fences nowadays instead of the gaps, I called this new game fenceball. 

    However, MLB has announced a couple of changes that will be put into effect in 2022. First, the National League will use the DH. I am not a fan of this, but a ban on bunting would be far worse. Secondly, the long awaited ban on shifts has been enacted. This I can live with. Shifting has helped make baseball into the simplistic, one dimensional sport that it is today - just a contest to smack a ball over a wall some 350 feet away. When I thought I heard that MLB banned bunts, I was afraid that the strategic game of baseball was all but dead. Luckily, our National Pastime survives today. 

    These kinds of things got me thinking. I have decided to publish a mini-series recounting all major changes in baseball history since 1900 (I will eventually write about 19th century ball, but since the game was so different back then, it will occupy its own mini-series). Since my book will cover players from every era of the game, I think that such a series will help put the candidates in better context.