Loved reading your thoughts on these possible rule changes! A few of the proposals – especially the two hour time limit – I worry will take away from a lot of the magic moments that baseball has. If a team is down by 4 in the bottom of the sixth, but the time limit hits, they don’t get the chance to come back and walk it off in the seventh. It’s a win/lose scenario based on time rather than outs, more like basketball than baseball.
The league would have to decide when and how the clock pauses too. The bananas time limit includes time between innings, would this? Hmm…
Thanks for reading! One of the classic baseball clichés is its beauty as a sport without a clock. The worst parts of basketball games and football games are the final quarter fouling or running the ball to wind down the clock. Baseball doesn't normally have that - you literally have to beat the other team in 27 (or, I guess 21) outs, which I love.
The pace of play clock has worked great, but I agree with you that an overall clock could easily kill the vibe and rob us of some of those moments. And for what, so we can save 20 minutes of our lives? That's not even long enough to watch a TV show these days.
Really well done! At some point I will have enough content to do another podcast episode, and then I'll probably go into my take on a few of these proposals. The announcement for cities and team names can't come soon enough! :)
To be honest I think all of these rules are gimmicky. The Bananas are certainly not popular for the quality of their baseball. This league will be popular because of who's playing -- and will draw people to the sport in the same way NWSL, WNBA, and to a certain extent PWHL have. (I only watched MLB before these leagues became popular.)
Furthermore, AUSL has proven this already. I'm not as familiar with college softball but it seems that, aside from the strike zone, there aren't any major differences between the college game and the pro league. More importantly, AUSL does not have a time limit and their games also run roughly 2 hours at 7 innings.
It seems to me that the two best things PWBL can do is make the games as accessible as possible via streaming and location. (Please please do not expect NYC fans to travel to Hartford. Gotham FC and the Sirens can't even get us to take the PATH to New Jersey.)
Something I'll also be curious to see is the extent to which PWBL openly embraces queer players and fans. AUSL is the only women's league so far to NOT do that, from what I've seen. (Kim Ng is gay so I think this is more a choice of omission and softball's more conservative culture than active quashing.)
Morning Rachel, thanks for reading and chiming in.
100% agree that accessibility to games is going to be paramount. I'm not a football or hockey fan in part because my family couldn't easily go to NFL/NHL games in Southeastern Wisconsin when I was growing up, whereas MLB and NBA were much more easily in our grasp.
I understand the logistical need of keeping the WPBL clustered during the inaugural season but I hope they get some good momentum and can start to branch out like the PWHL has since launch. And until then... yes please to the good streaming. Fingers crossed we can watch the draft live somewhere next month. Even just on YouTube or Twitch until a broadcast partner is established would be a small first step.
I've barely dipped my toes into the AUSL, but I've seen the WNBA truly embrace the LGBTQ+ community. Fingers crossed the WPBL follows suit and amplifies the players being their authentic selves, and that trickles down to these burgeoning fanbases.
And thanks for doing all the hard work of compiling these drips and drabs of information!
Loved reading your thoughts on these possible rule changes! A few of the proposals – especially the two hour time limit – I worry will take away from a lot of the magic moments that baseball has. If a team is down by 4 in the bottom of the sixth, but the time limit hits, they don’t get the chance to come back and walk it off in the seventh. It’s a win/lose scenario based on time rather than outs, more like basketball than baseball.
The league would have to decide when and how the clock pauses too. The bananas time limit includes time between innings, would this? Hmm…
Thanks for reading! One of the classic baseball clichés is its beauty as a sport without a clock. The worst parts of basketball games and football games are the final quarter fouling or running the ball to wind down the clock. Baseball doesn't normally have that - you literally have to beat the other team in 27 (or, I guess 21) outs, which I love.
The pace of play clock has worked great, but I agree with you that an overall clock could easily kill the vibe and rob us of some of those moments. And for what, so we can save 20 minutes of our lives? That's not even long enough to watch a TV show these days.
Really well done! At some point I will have enough content to do another podcast episode, and then I'll probably go into my take on a few of these proposals. The announcement for cities and team names can't come soon enough! :)
Thanks for reading Max - I'll be on the lookout for your next episode, for sure!
Only so many days left in September, hopefully the team news drops soon.
To be honest I think all of these rules are gimmicky. The Bananas are certainly not popular for the quality of their baseball. This league will be popular because of who's playing -- and will draw people to the sport in the same way NWSL, WNBA, and to a certain extent PWHL have. (I only watched MLB before these leagues became popular.)
Furthermore, AUSL has proven this already. I'm not as familiar with college softball but it seems that, aside from the strike zone, there aren't any major differences between the college game and the pro league. More importantly, AUSL does not have a time limit and their games also run roughly 2 hours at 7 innings.
It seems to me that the two best things PWBL can do is make the games as accessible as possible via streaming and location. (Please please do not expect NYC fans to travel to Hartford. Gotham FC and the Sirens can't even get us to take the PATH to New Jersey.)
Something I'll also be curious to see is the extent to which PWBL openly embraces queer players and fans. AUSL is the only women's league so far to NOT do that, from what I've seen. (Kim Ng is gay so I think this is more a choice of omission and softball's more conservative culture than active quashing.)
Morning Rachel, thanks for reading and chiming in.
100% agree that accessibility to games is going to be paramount. I'm not a football or hockey fan in part because my family couldn't easily go to NFL/NHL games in Southeastern Wisconsin when I was growing up, whereas MLB and NBA were much more easily in our grasp.
I understand the logistical need of keeping the WPBL clustered during the inaugural season but I hope they get some good momentum and can start to branch out like the PWHL has since launch. And until then... yes please to the good streaming. Fingers crossed we can watch the draft live somewhere next month. Even just on YouTube or Twitch until a broadcast partner is established would be a small first step.
I've barely dipped my toes into the AUSL, but I've seen the WNBA truly embrace the LGBTQ+ community. Fingers crossed the WPBL follows suit and amplifies the players being their authentic selves, and that trickles down to these burgeoning fanbases.
My takes on these rules can be found on my newest podcast episode!
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/16s3S6YpR9FSIg5bLhdF8i
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-7-no-news-good-news-good-rules-bad-rules/id1834268777?i=1000727993636
Spoiler: I disagree with you on a few things but the fact that we're debating this is awesome for the league. :)
Ooooo exciting - thanks for sharing! I’ll add it to my queue for the week. 👀