As Joel Sherman of The New York Post reported weeks ago, Major League Baseball and the MLBPA agreed to the so-called "ghost runner" rule to return for the 2022 season.
Never mind that ghost runner had an entirely different meaning when you played baseball with your friends as a kid, that's not the discussion today.
But the rule -- first implemented in 2020 -- is a very polarizing one. There's almost no one who is neutral on the idea of extra innings starting with a runner on second base.
And that's fine, there should be debate when such a drastic rule change is introduced. What there shouldn't be, however, is that suggestion that those who like the ghost runner are somehow acknowledging that they don't truly love the game by suggesting that after nine innings, they don't mind a rule that expedites a result.
The average MLB game time in 2021 was three hours and 11 minutes, the second consecutive year that a new all-time record was set. Certainly, in a world where almost everyone -- not just Millennials and Gen Z -- has a shorter attention span than people did 25 years ago, that's indicative of a larger problem that the game is dealing with that can't simply be solved by one rule change.
With that said, there are 162 games every season. If you've played three hours or longer, there's something to be said for trying to push things towards a result. Every other sport has some added sense of urgency if things are tied after regulation -- or they end in a tie, which probably no one is interested in seeing happen in baseball -- and MLB now has their own version of this.
The difference here is that while a sense of urgency has been created, both teams are guaranteed a chance to score under the same circumstances, unlike the NFL. And there's not going to be a shootout -- perhaps a Home Run Derby would be more comparable in this case -- if a result isn't achieved in the first few innings. Under the current rules, games could still go 20 innings. It's just overwhelmingly unlikely, with a result likely to come in the 10th or 11th inning.
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There are some baseball fans who view the chance of any batter stepping up and hitting a go-ahead or walk-off home run as creating a sense of urgency, but the reality is you can play hours under traditional extra innings rules without getting result. Some fans love the occasional 15-inning game, but games that finish after midnight aren't seen by young fans, fans who have to work the next morning or older fans unable and/or uninterested in staying up that late.
Additionally, most managers will tell you they appreciate an extra-inning game ending in the 10th inning, as opposed to the 14th. A 14-inning game can leave you thin on relievers for a week afterwards. And while there's certainly relievers that don't like inheriting a runner on second base with no one out, ones that are trying to settle in at the Major League level have a significantly smaller chance of being optioned back to Triple-A for a fresh arm if a game ends after 11 innings, than if one goes to 15.
There are certainly changes that could be discussed to the ghost runner format. Maybe it should start an inning or two later. Perhaps the runner should start on first base with no one out or on second base with one out so that teams can't just bunt the runner to third base and have two cracks at driving him in 90 feet. Certainly, no pitcher should be tagged with the the loss in a game where they inherit a ghost runner on second. The current ghost runner format is back, but only in place for 2022. Moving forward, there's room to debate tweaks to it.
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But we've had two seasons worth of the ghost runner, and despite some initial skepticism, there's quite a few people who live and breath baseball that like a resolution after teams are unable to reach a result organically in nine innings. And you know what? That doesn't mean that they like baseball any less than someone who prefers the traditional rules.
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