The Schiller Rule: “If an IBAF-sanctioned game remains tied after 10 innings, then for each subsequent half-inning, play begins with runners already on first and second base. In addition, each team can begin the 11th inning anywhere in the batting order (however, except for normal legal substitutions, they may not change the actual batting order).”
IBAF is the acronym for the International Baseball Federation.
This new rule was forced on the IBAF in 2008, before the Beijing Olympics, by Dr. Harvey W. Schiller, a U.S. citizen, who was back then the IBAF president.
Cuba did not use this illogical and crazy rule in 2008 or in 2009 in its National Baseball Series, but the island decided to use a slightly different Schiller rule in their 50th Cuban National Baseball Series, which started yesterday.
The original Schiller rule is supposed to go into effect after the 10th inning on a tied game. Cuba is using the Schiller rule after the end of the ninth inning on a tied game.
Why is this new rule being used? It is very simple. Capitalist money elites rule over just about everything in today's world, and capitalist corporations do not want to transmit a TV game that could last 20 or 25 innings, if it is tied after regulation play. In effect they are saying: screw the baseball fan, money is the only thing that is important to us.
Out of thin air, IBAF, and now even Cuba, place two runners on first and second base simultaneously. I call those two runners fake runners. They were placed there because of a very stupid new rule, and not because a baseball batter connected a hit. If any of those two fake runners reaches home plate, that is what I will call a fake run.
Right now, U.S. major league baseball (MLB), is not using the Schiller rule in either the American League or the National League, but MLB is using it in their World Baseball Classic.
Because I consider myself a baseball purist, I will not personally recognize the fake runners or the fake runs that are scored by them. Other people can choose to accept the Schiller rule. I will not.
Cuba Journal will no longer publish the box score of any baseball game where the Schiller rule is used. And I also will not attend any baseball games where this crazy rule is enforced. The Schiller rule is for people that are only interested in money. It is prostituting baseball.
0 comments:
Post a Comment