Don't tell Joe West, but the SEC is adding "pitch clocks" to its conference tournament in hopes of keeping the pace of games crisp, according to the Nashville Tennessean.
Reminiscent of the 24-second shot clock in the NBA, the move is being billed as an experiment in keeping game times manageable. The clock, which will be fitted below the outfield video board, will provide 20 seconds for a pitcher to deliver a pitch when the bases are empty and will require teams to start the next half-inning 48 seconds after the previous one.
If players don't adhere to the clock rules, there will be relatively serious repercussions. A ball or strike will be added to the count, depending on who commits the time violation. Pitcher can't get a pitch across the plate in under 20 seconds? Ball to the batter. Batter steps out of the box? Strike to the batter. Somewhere, Nomar Garciaparra is crying.
"If you can't deliver the ball in 20 seconds, you are going to drive a lot of fans away from watching you to begin with," Tim Corbin, coach of the fifth-seeded Vanderbilt Commodores, said to the Tennessean. "This is a slow game anyway, in a sense, so we want to try to quicken it up so we can keep some people happy and into it, most notably the umpire and the defense. When you play slow baseball, it doesn't do anyone any good."
It's easy for him to say; he already coaches his team under time limits. It's a regular occurrence to see the Commodores sprint onto the field to start an inning.
"If I have [not thrown a pitch in 20 seconds], I'm sure I got in trouble from Coach," sophomore pitcher Sonny Gray told the Tennessean.
With umpire Joe West making his return to Boston for the first time since calling the Red Sox and Yankees "embarrassing" and "pathetic" for their slow play, fans can only hope he doesn't decide to follow the SEC's lead and start carrying a stopwatch.
