re: Pitch clock rules

quote:

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The shift is baseball’s tush push

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No, not even close.

The shift is a defensive alignment, just like stacking the box and crowding the line is in football. Set up to defeat the most likely offensive action, but very vulnerable to certain attacks if the offense can execute- quick over the top pass for football, hitting where the shift ain't in baseball.

The tush push is an offensive move that gives unfair advantage to the offense- the defense might initially stuff the run, but because you're allowed to have guys run into the pile and hit the ball carrier from behind and push him, and the defense can't do that themselves, it's a cheat.

Closest thing in baseball I can think of... it might be going back to a Dodgers-Yankees World Series in the 70's. The way I remember it, the Dodgers had an extremely hardpacked infield and batter's box area. They'd just chop the ball off the plate or right in front of it, and it would bounce HIGH... the batter would reach first before a Yankee fielded and threw to the bag. It wasn't a 1 time thing, it happened quite a few times out in LA that series. It was a good pitch and it should have been routine groundouts, instead they got like 5-6 hits out of doing that.