The best baseball players get on base < 33% of the time.
Pitch clock, pick-off attempt limit, the shift being reined in a bit. The bases are slightly larger, which should tip the scale toward the runner.
You want to speed up the game? Turn off the screens. I know there's a tradition of taking baseball more like a picnic than a sport, but if cricket could come up with variations to shorten 2-3 days into 3 hours I'm sure baseball can do it too.
I have absolutely no recollection which team won or who was playing against my local sports team. But I remember having fun!
Of course it makes watching the game a worse experience.
In what ways is baseball violent or like golf?
Those rules have also been changed and those plays are extremely rare, and also frowned upon by players.
However, the pitcher intentionally throwing a ball 90 mph at a batter's head because of some perceived slight is still part of the game.
Indeed, smashing the catcher at home plate was common whether initiated by the catcher or the base runner. For over one hundred years, MLB has debated whether there is any place for violence at home plate between base runners and catchers, intentional or otherwise. It is a complex question that has been answered by rules and player attitudes with little consensus between rule makers, players, and spectators, which, of course, closely mirrors society at large.
I love baseball and golf and have participated in both, but only as a young player. To me, spectator sports that aren't the Tour de France, F1, or WRC are just not dense enough with action to sustain my interest, even if that action is enabled by wheels and sources of power that may not be human.
This tension between safety and freedom is a theme that has played a role for at least as long as the publication of Trevor Melia's book, "Lucifer State", more than four decades ago. I'm out-of-my-depth in classics but I'd be surprised if there weren't a much older reference to this tension in antiquity. The role of that tension in modern society most certainly divides the room whether we are talking about art, sports, or life itself.
> Early baseball or town-ball had many, many variants, as would be expected of an informal boys' game, and most differed in several particulars from the game which developed in New York in the 1840s.
All wikipedia pages point to baseball being invented in new england, USA.
Yes, other games that involve hitting balls with sticks were invented elsewhere, including great britian, and the influence can be traced to those, but the game we play today was invented in the USA.
MiLB isn't any more exciting than MLB games. At least the games are more affordable. You might find some NCAA games more interesting though, since the quality gap between teams tends be higher and home runs rates are higher than other levels. Allowing metal bats probably has something to do with it.
Juan Soto, who is currently playing, has a career .421 OBP.
A .333 OBP in MLB, depending on the player's position and what year it is, would be OK. Not great, certainly not the best.