Quote:
Originally Posted by kq76
I greatly prefer ties after 12 innings over this stupid runner on 2nd rule. Worst rule ever. I hate it.
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So, this is a bit off-topic, and I apologize for that. But your comments here made me think of something I started doing when I was a kid playing Strat-O-Matic, a rule I made for myself largely because after 12 innings it became very difficult to keep score of a game on the scoresheets I was using at that time.
Although I did not use ties to resolve this, I did implement a rule where after 12 innings the first run scored was the game-winner. Of course, this now gave the visiting team an advantage starting in inning 13, but I wasn't terribly troubled by that at the time.
And here's the really embarrassing part of this story. A number of years later, while in college, I was hanging out at a friend's house and the Detroit Tigers game was on the television. A group of us were there, and I'm not really sure why we were even watching that game as most of them weren't really baseball fans. The game went into the 13th inning and the visiting team scored a run (it was a home game for the Tigers) and I told everyone the game was over. I had played with my little homemade rule for Strat for so long that in my mind that had taken over as the official MLB rule. Now, slightly in my defense, during my late high school years and into the college years I was paying attention to a lot of other things more than baseball. The game went into a commercial (I can only imagine there was a pitching change) and I was convinced they would just come back for the wrap-up about the tough Tiger loss.
One of the female members of the group, one of my best buddies' (to this day) girlfriend at the time, who was more athletic than most of us and had played high school softball, argued with me and I arrogantly professed my superior knowledge of how baseball works. Only to have to eat my words and foolishly mutter something about how they must have changed the rule recently without me hearing about it when the game came back on and eventually moved into the bottom of the 13th.
I don't think it was until much later that it dawned on me what had really happened- that in my mind my own fictional rule had replaced long-standing MLB reality.
Likely none of my friends present that day even remember this, but for me it remains a life-long shame and embarrassment.
