The speed of Major League Baseball games has become a pretty hot issue, and Chicago Cubs pitcher Jon Lester has a strong opinion.
League commissioner Rob Manfred announced Thursday that pace of play rule changes were coming ahead of the upcoming season, which naturally resulted in plenty of players voicing their opinions.
Lester — who clearly is a bit of a baseball traditionalist — gave his side of the argument.
Jon Lester…not a fan of potential pace-of-play rule changes: "I think it’s a terrible idea. It’s all terrible. The beautiful thing about our sport is there’s no time. To be honest with you, the fans know what they’re getting themselves into when they go to a game.”
— Patrick Mooney (@PJ_Mooney) February 16, 2018
Great point.
He then challenged the idea of limiting mound visits, and he illustrated it in a pretty hilarious way.
Jon Lester: “There’s reasons behind the mound visit. He’s not just coming out there and asking: ‘What time are we going to dinner?’ Every game has a flow. That’s what makes it special. I’m sorry I’m old-school about it, but baseball’s been played the same way for a long time."
— Patrick Mooney (@PJ_Mooney) February 16, 2018
It’s understandable that players are opposed to the idea of speeding up the game if it’s at the expense of their strategy and what they are comfortable with.
Although there might be plenty of ways to speed things up without being too intrusive, the reality is there likely will be some head-butting between the league and players over the pace of the game for years to come, and changes — like it or not — are going to be made.
Guess Lester will have to arrange his dinner plans after the game.
