Baseball Is Insisting Now on Pause That Is So Refreshing

I went to my first baseball game of the new season Sunday. This, for me, is a very special annual event, a renewal of a lifetime love affair, a time for getting back in touch with the excitement and electricity that belongs alone to our national pastime.

I was not disappointed. Only slightly toxic levels of smog blanketed the cozy confines of Anaheim Stadium, and the home team, the Angels, won the game, 6-4, over the fearsome Oakland Athletics.

Most thrilling of all was the method of victory, something new to the grand old game. The Angels got clutch relief pitching and clutch hitting, but you expect that from the Angels.

No, what swung the game in the Angels favor was the balk. Two of the Angels runs came as a result of three balk calls on the A’s starter, Balkin’ Bobby Welch.

He balked Jack Howell to second base in the second, and Howell scored on a two-out single. Then Welch balked Mark McLemore to second in the third, McLemore took third on a fly ball, and then scored on Welch’s third balk. A hat trick for Balkin’ Bob, a win for the Angels.

Very encouraging. Like they say, the mark of a great team is its ability to take advantage of balks.

I rushed home from Anaheim to catch the Sunday night highlights, to once again see Welch failing to pause the required one second in his stretch delivery. Wow. I taped the three balks, because someday my young son will want to know what baseball is all about.

“Son,” I’ll explain to the lad, “the 1988 season ushered in the Balk Era. There were some truly classic balks that season. But why describe it when I can show you the videotape?”

Baseball had to do something this season to keep pace. In recent years, basketball has installed a three-point shot and the colleges now have a shot clock, too. Football has restricted defenses, opening the game to long bombs. Wrestling has introduced the Battle Royal and sharper foreign objects.

Baseball desperately needed a shot of Adrenalin.

“What can we do to increase the excitement level of the game?” the keepers of baseball asked themselves.

The answer was brilliant.

“Call more balks.”

Fans love to see the umpire jump up and down and wave his arms around in the gesture that means either a balk has been committed or a swarm of bees has attacked. The thrill of the baserunner jogging to the next bag, well, it’s like no other sight in sports.

There will be a period of adjustment, of course, as pitchers become accustomed to seeing well-pitched games go down the toilet on random and unfathomable balk calls.

“We’re going to have to live with it,” said Welch after Sunday’s game. Rather than angry or upset, Welch seemed dazed and puzzled.

On Welch’s second balk, he was flagged not because he didn’t come to that full-second stop in his stretch, but because the stop came at a slightly different spot.

“I hadn’t stopped at that spot yet,” Welch said. “In the future, I guess you have to show something like that up front, show them you stop in different places.”

I didn’t want to upset Welch with questions like, “Did you know it was a balk as soon as it left your hand?”

So I went to the other clubhouse to talk to the victors, who, coincidentally, had lost to the A’s the night before with the aid of three balks called on Angel pitchers.

DeWayne Buice, a balker Saturday but a stopper Sunday, must have enjoyed seeing the tables turned, no?

“I’m out in the bullpen (watching the balks called on Welch) and I can’t believe it,” Buice said. “There’s no reason for it. This is a fun game, a sacred game, people love it, why mess around with it? This is my 12th year in pro ball, I’ve been pitching the same way my whole life and now they tell me it’s a balk.”

Why are more balks being called?

“Because the umpires weren’t getting enough TV time,” Buice said.

There’s always someone around who will fight progress. Buice obviously doesn’t realize baseball had been headed in a dangerous direction. Some games were being played in three hours or less. In the Balk Era, games are longer. Sunday’s game was a leisurely 3 hours and 29 minutes, slow enough for most of the fans to absorb and analyze the action.

Hey, if it’s dizzying, mindlessly fast-paced action you want, go watch college basketball, or professional golf, or cricket.

Baseball is meant to be savored, like chess in slo-mo. And with the balk, there’s more savoring time. Games will be longer. All the great balk records will fall. Twitches and hitches and tiny pauses will decide championships. It’s a new era.

Balk is beautiful.