Majority of fans against penalty for stepping out of batter’s box

Majority of fans against penalty for stepping out of batter’s box. March. 11, 2015 07:22. uni@donga.com.

An exhibition game between the Hanwha Eagles and the LG Twins took place at Daejeon ballpark on Saturday last week. Kim Gyeong-eon, who stood at bat with a runner on the first base with no out in the third inning, inadvertently stepped out of the batter’s box and was handed strikeout while having one ball and two strikes. He was declared as such due to "speed up rule" that the Korea Baseball Association introduced this year to shorten the proceeding of games.

As many as seven players were automatically handed strikeout due to violation of speedup rule in the 10 games held during the last weekend. In three of the cases, the batter was ruled strikeout with at least two strikes in ball count.

The duration of play on average per game was 3 hours and 27 minutes in Korean baseball last year, the longest ever in history. For this reason, many fans agree on the need for speedup of play in pro baseball. However not a few people are opposed to the rule, asking question whether it is okay even strikeout is declared in a ridiculous way.

To gather opinions on this matter, the Dong-A Ilbo conducted an online opinion poll through the “Hot Issue – What is your view” corner on the dongA.com portal site on Monday. As of Tuesday, respondents who said they are opposed to "granting of strikeout to a batter when both of his feet are positioned out of the batter’s box" outnumbered at 61 percent (367 people) over those who replied "he should be given strikeout” (39 percent or 234 people).

A netizen who voted against the measure said, “This is a measure that damages the fundamental of baseball. It should naturally be withdrawn.” Another netizen said, “If we see a situation wherein a batter is declared out completely unexpectedly with the bases loaded and with two outs in the ninth inning, we would suffer mental collapse.”

However, one should heed to the fact that nearly 40 percent of respondents voted for the measure. This indicates that many fans are disappointed at baseball games in which rules are applied in an overly flexible way. A web user who voted for the measure said, “I liked it because the game did not seem to be in disarray, and I could more concentrate.”

KBO plans to apply the rule strictly during exhibition games on a trial basis. In the course of doing that, the organization plans to improve specific operational rules and seek to find a way to speed up the proceeding of games while not damaging the fun of baseball during the regular season.