FanPost

Baseballs are a disgrace to baseball

Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports

The past weekend has led to some very intriguing, thought-provoking conversations.

Who’s at fault for the hot tempers between the A’s and Royals? Is it Brett Lawrie, for his dangerous slide into Alcides Escobar? Is it Yordano Ventura and Kelvin Herrera for their not-so-unintentional pitches at Lawrie? Obviously, both sides have their own opinions and no amount of debate is going to change that.

Kelvin Herrera is a disgrace to baseball. Brett Lawrie is a disgrace to baseball. But nobody’s mentioned the true culprit in all of this -- the real reason the A’s and Royals have become baseball’s hottest rivalry.

Baseballs are a disgrace to baseball.

Just think how much this situation could have been avoided if the Royals and A’s played baseball without the baseball.

No one would get hit by a pitch because there wouldn’t be any pitches. If the umpires and the league are so worried about retaliation and player safety, the obvious solution is to eliminate the baseballs. No one could possibly get hurt by an object that isn’t there.

There would be no hard slide by Lawrie into second base, because there would be no ball put in play for Lawrie to run on. For that matter, Lawrie would never have made it to first base to begin with.

When you look back at the history of baseball, it’s clear that baseballs are ruining the sport.

The problems go all the way back to the introduction of the baseball in the 1919 World Series. Prior to that Series, baseball was a perfectly fine gentleman’s sport. Men played hard, and games were sorted out on the field, by men, with no baseballs.

Then, in 1919, the Chicago White Sox shocked the entire world by introducing baseballs to baseball. The unfairness of the series is now known as the "Black Sox" scandal (the first baseballs were black) and the players involved are banned for life.

But baseballs are still around. Why?

Well, if one team plays with baseballs, it’s clear that the other team has to play with baseballs too. You wouldn’t want the game to be unfair. The umpires have let baseballs slide, even though they’re never once mentioned in the official rules.

It’s time for that to change. We need to take a stand. It’s clear that the Royals didn’t deserve to have five players ejected on Sunday. No, the only thing that needed to be ejected from the game were the baseballs. If we can eliminate baseballs from baseball, baseball will become what it was intended to be: men playing a manly sport, settling manly issues on the field.

Some critics will argue that taking baseballs out of baseball will fundamentally alter the game of baseball. Baseball has evolved, they say, to accommodate the usage of baseballs.

If MLB doesn’t want to go all the way to eliminating baseballs, they can start by switching to wiffle balls.

Wiffle balls are hollow, so no one will get hurt playing with them. Ballparks like Kauffman Stadium already have accommodations for wiffle ball (the team can just use the Little K and use the big field as a distraction for kids during the game). And because it’s difficult to hit wiffle balls very far, it will also take care of another problem baseball faces: the bat flip, symbol of evil.

Wiffle balls won’t solve everything, though. The only way to salvage the game of baseball is to stop the usage of balls entirely.

I understand the elimination of baseballs from baseball could be met with some fierce criticism, but I’m prepared for this. It’s time for change.

I’m tired of the bad image that baseballs bring to baseball. It’s time for our players to get back to their roots by playing baseball the way it was meant to be played: without baseballs.

This FanPost was written by a member of the Royals Review community. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the editors and writers of this site.