The 300s

In 2006, a movie was released called “Idiocracy.” The basis of the plot is that, over a long period of time, while intelligent professionals continue to focus more and more on their careers rather than personal lives and well, reproduction, fucking imbeciles have kids at more and more rapid rates until our world is entirely populated by said imbeciles. The smart ones get basically evolved out. It was from the brain of the brilliant Mike Judge, the creator of the movie “Office Space” as well as shows such as “Beavis and Butthead.” Despite having Judge’s name behind it “Idiocracy” was immediately labeled as one of the worst movies of all time. It was lammmmmmmmbasted. I’m talking (“Gigli” x “Waterworld”) ^ “Jem And The Holograms.” So pretty bad.

Over the years however, Judge’s brilliance has been slowly credited. The blunt but logical way he explained the pure absurdity of what happened to society, much in the way Trey Parker and Matt Stone can with this one, is finally getting it’s due. Therefore, over the past few years, as “what the fuck” moments have increased tenfold, you may have heard someone refer to our current state of affairs as “Idiocracy” or something such as Dennis Rodman becoming biffles with Kim Jong Un as an “Idiocracy Moment.” Life, they say, imitates art.

I write that two paragraph prologue to illustrate my feelings on what this blog is really about: The revered, independent, Atlantic League of baseball experimenting with stealing first base. Let’s read that one more time:

Stealing. First. Base.

The new rules are simple: on any pass ball, wild pitch, or occurrence where the ball is dropped by the catcher in any capacity, the batter may choose to run to first to try and basically steal a single. I’m hazy on whether or not they can be forced out, as it kind of fucking is a force out by nature, but my guess would actually be no here.

To be clear this would change the fabric of the game entirely.

First of all the roster and who you have in the dugout warrants extra consideration. Imagine an important game. Bottom of the 9th no one out and you really want a base runner. Maybe the pitcher is a sinkerballer or a knuckleballer that is prone to not exactly being Brady-Gronk with his catcher. Well good thing you skipped that extra infielder so you could keep the guy who can barely hit .160 but runs a 4.3 40. BOOM, one in the dirt and you have a man on. See what I mean? On the other hand, forget a catcher who can hit, just get a guy with the hands of Torrie Holt. Who cares if he’s Chris Davis with a chest protector, he won’t allow any thefts of bag number one.

The pitching staff now warrants the same questions. Is it really worth having anyone in an important game that doesn’t just throw blazing 101mph non-moving heat? Do we really want to risk anything else?

I’m also curious how they are going to score this? Can you really call it a steal when it’s coming off an error, either on the pitcher or catcher’s part? I mean you have to call it SOMETHING for the base runner right? A “Proactive Walk” or “Aggressive Walk” perhaps? I don’t know.

Anyway, we are officially living in a Goddam sports society where the rules don’t matter anymore. We should have seen this coming when hockey started to softly condemn fighting. “Idiocracy” indeed.

-Joey B.