Bill has recently been fielding "Hey Bill"s on a subject that has long fascinated me, that of strategy being determined by the counter-clockwise running of the bases, which is such a tremendous influence on how the game is played. Just in the infield, for example, we take it as a truism that third-basemen and shortstops need much stronger throwing arms than first- and second-basemen because of the commonness of groundballs requiring a long throw to first base. That one aspect of the game determines who can play which position, which naturally determines which batters’ weaknesses are tolerable in the context of their throwing arms. Someone with a 90 OPS+ (in times past, I might have specified "a .240 BA") can’t hold down a 3B job unless he has powerful credentials otherwise, like an extremely strong and accurate arm.

It’s easy (and kinda dumb) to imagine how the game might have evolved if a clockwise path around the bases had been chosen: pretty much like it has, only opposite. The first-basemen (and the leftfielders) would normally have the strongest throwing arms, because the furthest throw in the infield would be getting the runner out at third base on a routine grounder (and in the outfield, the furthest throw would be nabbing the runner trying to advance from second base to first base).

As an aside (I feel the need to stamp this dumb fire here, though it should extinguish itself) we probably wouldn’t be calling the bases by their current names: third base would become first base and vice-versa in a clockwise game.

So reversing the order of the bases wouldn’t change the game of baseball much—it would blow a few of the weaker minds, and take some getting used to, even for the finest minds among us, but it’s not a difficult process to imagine. Clockwise or counter-clockwise doesn’t matter much.

What fascinates me, though, is not clockwise or counterclockwise. It’s clockwise AND counterclockwise.

What if we changed the rules to allow a runner on first base (let’s keep the nomenclature consistent) to score by running clockwise? Further, what if we allowed a batter to decide, after having hit the ball, which way he wanted to run? Imagine the bases are empty, and the batter hits a slow five-hopper directly to first base: he’s dead-out 99 times out of 100, right? (Bill Buckner exception.) But in a game where the batter can choose to run either to first-base or to third-, suddenly the routine grounder gets a little more exciting, if he can hightail it down to thirdbase.

How about if the bases aren’t empty? Wouldn’t this be a royal mess, runners on every base, say, all needing to run in a direction that isn’t determined until after the batter connects?

Yes, it would—and I think that would be great.

Some teams might signal to baserunners a direction determined in advance so they’d all be moving in the same direction, negating the batter’s ability to choose. Or perhaps the batter, rather than the manager, would send the signal. Or one of the runners.

And it could change from pitch to pitch. Or not, depending on the degree of complication (and corresponding intelligence) of the batters and the runners.

The point is that the defensive team would need to think of a much wider variety of possibilities emerging on a developing play than they do now. I think this is a good thing, a very good thing, to have because it would work to the advantage of smarter teams.

Also as stated it would require more well-rounded ballplayers. I think this is virtuous, though there are certainly those (mostly fans of the DH, which I am not) who favor a game with flatter ballplayers, players of one-dimensional rather than four- or five-dimensional skills. In the game as I imagine it, it would be difficult to hide a weak arm on the right side of the infield, or to put a cetacean outfielder in left field. I’d love to see a game where hiding players’ weaknesses is much harder to do.

(Which is why I’m not a fan of the DH—I love the spectacle of good-hitting pitchers being able to play an extra inning or two because of their abilities with the bat, and I love the dilemma a manager faces when his shutout-throwing pitcher must be taken out of the game because of his lack of offensive skills.)

I would enjoy seeing this type of game being combined with another bugbear of mine, speeding up the game considerably by eliminating the batter-engendered timeout between pitches. Many ways to achieve this end, though I favor automatic ejection for the third stepping-out by the batter from the batter’s box without the umpire having granted an official time-out. ("The first time you get a cinder in your eye, Mister Bond, is happenstance; the second time, coincidence; the third time, it’s enemy action.") Playing the game at warp-speed like this would be, I think, very exciting. A pitcher who could pitch rapid-fire would severely interfere with the offense’s ability to change up any directional choices the baserunners might want.

Any detriments? Well, I think this change might cut down on the number of triples, since you’d be just as well-off to stay on first base as try for two more bases with the same end result, a runner 90 feet from home. But batters might still be incentivized to try to stretch singles into doubles to avoid the doubleplay.

So would these changes help the offense more or the defense? Hard to say. I imagine there would be a lot of screwups by the offense, a lot of first-and-thirds where the batter hits a grounder and both baserunners take off for second base—but wouldn’t that be great? The offensive team has a rally going but, because they couldn’t get their act together, hit into a disastrous double- (or triple-) play.

I really think we dropped a card by not making clockwise AND counterclockwise the way to go. I see this change as turning a pleasant, leisurely game of checkers (which some baseball fans prefer) into a complicated game of speed-chess.