Hockey

25 Oct 2011 – The Intentional Walk Rule is Ridonculous

Albert Pujols is what major league baseball is all about. He’s a pure power hitter, the kind of player who can change a game with a single swing of the bat. Or, in the case of Game Three, with three single swings of the bat – he became just the third player in history to hit a trio of longballs in the same World Series game. The final score of that game? A ridiculous 16-7 for the St Louis Cardinals, who went up 2-1 in the series and were unlucky to not be up three-bagel.

The Texas Rangers, having stolen game two for their only win of the series, started doing what any successful team in baseball history has done before them. They chose to stop pitching to the big man. Pujols has now been intentionally walked four times in five games so far in the World Series. He had given first base on purpose just three times in the 11 games of two previous series, and only 15 times in 147 games during the regular season.

What’s wrong with that? you say. That’s just smart pitching. Good calls from the dugout. Sure. It’s within the rules of baseball. But who in blazes pays to see the best hitters in the league not allowed to even swing at the ball? Baseball already moves at about the speed of a challenge math class chess match. The game takes so much time they have to give the audience a break to frickin’ stretch during the seventh inning. So you take the most exciting offensive player on a team, in a key moment in a game, and just… don’t pitch to him. The Cardinals had 19 runners on base in game 5, and were only able to manufacture two runs – largely because Pujols wasn’t given a chance to do what he’s paid to do.

The intentional walk rule is beyond ridiculous. It’s ridonculous. You see? It’s so stupid one needs a made up word just to describe it. Can you imagine other sports if they had an equivalent to the intentional walk rule? How could we possibly eliminate the threat of something interesting happening in other sports?

  • NHL Hockey: “You can have Henrik or Daniel, but you can’t have both Sedins tonight.”
  • International Hockey: “No slapshots inside the blue line, boys and girls!”
  • NBA Basketball: “Nah, we’ll play the you-can’t-inbound-to-Kobe card.”
  • NCAA Basketball: “Remember when we said ‘no financial compensation for your players’? Yeah, we’re going to start enforcing that in the third quarter.”
  • Rugby: “Shave that beard, buddy.”
  • Decathlon: “Sorry, we’re all out of poles. You’ll have to use this gymnastic vault.”
  • Triathlon: “We think you’d be better off without these bike shoes.”
  • NASCAR: “Gotcher keys. Bwa-ha-ha-ha! GOTCHER FRICKIN’ KEYS!!!”
  • NFL Football: “Yeah, we don’t want Drew Brees to throw the ball till the 2nd half.”
  • CFL Football: “Yeah we choose to only play the BC Lions during the first half of the season.”
  • International Football: “Subbing in Beckham to take late free kicks? Shyeah, I don’t think so.”
  • Billiards: “No chalk for you!”
  • Synchronized Swimming: “Noseplugs? You don’t need no stinking noseplugs.”
  • Golf: “We choose Tiger to play for the Presidents Cup instead of Bradley. Wait, you actually want him to play? Oh. Well, we’re okay with that then.”
  • Men’s Tennis: “Banana peels behind Federer’s baseline.”
  • Women’s Tennis: “Underhand serves only.”
  • Giant Slalom: “…and so, we tie the blindfold like this.”
  • Bowling: “Hey Fred, Simon says you have to throw this ball left-handed.”
  • Darts: “We’re going to cover up this triple 20 for the next few turns & see how that works out”