Baseball, Specialist and Astros

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I'm a big fan of baseball. I'll watch any game. Sure I have my favorite team, but overall i'm a baseball fan. This spring training there's two things that are annoying me. One is the new rule that a relief pitcher has to face a minimum of three batters. So no more pitcher "specialist" coming in to only pitch to one batter. I guess that means pitchers who have made a career out of only pitching to left handed hitters, for example, will now be slowly phased out of thier careers and into retirement. From the bullpen to the pasture. It's a strategy that's being taken away from the game. The reasoning for the change was to cut down the length of the games. That's it. That's the reasoning for it. I don't ever recall a problem with one batter pitchers. The second thing that's been bugging me is this whole controversy over the Houston Astros cheating. Get over it! Teams have been sign stealing since the birth of the game. The only controversy I can understand is with one of the methods of communication that the Astros "allegedly" used, a buzzer of sorts worn by the batters. Banging a bat against something doesn't bother me. MLB has even released a statement that if during the season a pitcher intentionally hits an Astros batter, he will be ejected and possibly fined. So basically the MLB has cornered itself by protecting the Astros from retaliation by opposing teams. The players haven't been punished, only the teams general manager and manager along with a former bench coach. There's more as to how I feel about these two things, but I just wanted to get this rant off of my brain before it gives me a headache. Photograph- Taken/Owned by me, Plethos