Major League Baseball Announces Plan To Reduce Pitch Clock To One Second

By Mike Range

NEW YORK - It was revealed today that Major League Baseball’s decision to reduce the pitch clock this season from twenty to eighteen seconds with runners on base is only the first step toward the sport’s ultimate goal of giving pitchers a single second to throw the ball.

“Last season’s adoption of a 15-second pitch clock  was successful in reducing game length from Oppenheimer-ian to Mission Impossible-ish,” stated Commissioner Rob Manfred. “But our goal is to get nine innings in as quickly as a few episodes of The Office, which many fans are probably watching on their phones while at an A’s — White Sox game anyhow.”

While the MLB Players Association is against the proposed reduction to eighteen seconds with runners on base, Manfred believes they will come around to the idea of catching the ball and throwing a pitch in the time it takes a toad to snatch a fly out of the air.

“As our friends in the NBA have proven, it only takes 0.3 seconds to catch and shoot a basketball. We will be allowing over triple that time to do the same with a baseball, which is much smaller and easier to handle, so I don’t see the problem,” Manfred said. “For those who have an issue coordinating that maneuver in a timely manner, nothing in the rules will say you can’t just smack the return throw from the catcher back toward the plate with your glove like you’re playing tennis. Or maybe we’ll give them pickleball paddles, that would be fun!”

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Manfred admits there are still some kinks to be worked out before the league institutes their single-second nirvana.

“While we expect to eventually shave nearly an hour of dead time from each game, our test during a Class A minor league game did last seven hours, due to 121 walks, and 40-mile-per-hour “fastballs” resulting in glorified batting practice for the hitters,” he added. “But we are confident that pitchers at the major league level will fare much better. If not, it will be an exciting bidding war between the Yankees and Dodgers for Novak Djokovic.”

End of the Bench will have more on this story after we throw this pitch.