Mississippi Today

'Old school' Jeff Brantley loves baseball's pitch clock. And why not?

Published

2 years ago

March 31, 2023

‘Old school’ Jeff Brantley loves baseball’s pitch clock. And why not?

by Rick Cleveland, Mississippi Today
March 31, 2023

Jeff “Cowboy” Brantley, the former Mississippi State and Major League pitching great, considers himself a baseball traditionalist. “Old school,” he describes himself.

Nevertheless, one game into the first season of MLB’s new pitch clock, which will forever change the sport, Brantley gushes. “I love it. I mean, I really love it.”

I do, too.

“The thing is, I didn’t think I’d like it,” Brantley said in a phone conversation from Cincinnati, where he still broadcasts Reds games. “I thought it might rush the game too much. I thought it would change the rhythm of the sport. But after a full spring training and one regular season game I dan tell you, I absolutely love it.”

Again, I do, too. In my mind, it’s the best thing to happen to baseball since Jackie Robinson.

For those who haven’t paid attention, a quick pitch clock synopsis: With no runners on base, a pitcher must throw to the plate in 15 seconds. With runners on, the pitcher has 20 seconds. Batters must be in the batter’s box, ready to hit, when the pitch clock ticks down to eight seconds. Batters can call timeout once per at bat. Pitchers can throw to a base in a pickoff attempt — or step off the rubber — only twice during at at-bat. A pitcher can make a third pickoff attempt, but if it is unsuccessful, the runner advances a base. If a pitcher doesn’t throw to the plate before the pitch clock runs out, the umpire calls a ball. If the batter is not ready to hit, the umpire calls a strike.

No longer can a pitcher stroll around the mound for a while between pitches, adjust his cap a few times, rub up the baseball for a few seconds, shake off the catcher’s signal a few times before finally throwing a pitch. No longer can a pitcher throw to first base six or seven times between pitches. No longer can a batter step out of the box between every pitch, adjust his batting gloves, arm padding and necklaces, scratch his privates, spit, etc., before getting ready to hit.

All that dead time is gone. If you equate that with changing the rhythm of the game to the sport’s detriment, so sorry for your loss. In my mind, it makes the sport infinitely more watchable.

Or, as Brantley puts it, “People come to watch players play. They don’t come for all that stuff that was happening in between pitches.”

I watched the Braves and Nationals play Thursday. The change was noticeable and appreciated. A word of warning: No longer can you make a trip to the refrigerator between pitches. If you don’t want to miss something, you’ll wait until between innings for refreshment.

“We didn’t have a single game in spring training that went beyond two hours, 30 minutes,” Brantley said. “That’s unheard of. Those games usually take forever with all the lineup changes that take place.”

The Reds’ opener – a 5-4 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates – lasted three hours, two minutes, but, says Brantley, “there were nine pitching changes and 15 walks. Last year, that game would have lasted more than four hours.”

Only five of 15 games on baseball’s opening day exceeded three hours. The average length of a game was down 26 minutes from last year.

Brantley believes the shorter games – or more appropriately, the less dead time – will appeal especially to younger fans.

“In our culture today, especially among our younger people, they are used to having action at their fingertips,” Brantley said. “They want constant action. Without that constant action, you lose their attention. I just think this is going to make the game that much more appealing to young people.”

Again, I couldn’t agree more. And yet, there are still naysayers who insist we need to quit messing with the grand old game. That argument makes no sense at all. If anything we are returning it to the grand old game it once was. The average length of a nine-inning MLB game in 1975 was two hours, 25 minutes. In 2021, the average game was three hours, 10 minutes. That’s a 45-minute difference. And, as someone who was watching back then and now, I can tell you that’s 45 added minutes of dead time. That’s 45 minutes when nothing happened.

Long live the pitch clock.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1906

Published

3 hours ago

January 22, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2025-01-22 07:00:00

Jan. 22, 1906

Willa Beatrice Brown served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Civil Air Patrol. Credit: Wikipedia

Pioneer aviator and civil rights activist Willa Beatrice Brown was born in Glasgow, Kentucky.

While working in Chicago, she learned how to fly and became the first Black female to earn a commercial pilot’s license. A journalist said that when she entered the newsroom, “she made such a stunning appearance that all the typewriters suddenly went silent. … She had a confident bearing and there was an undercurrent of determination in her husky voice as she announced, not asked, that she wanted to see me.”

In 1939, she married her former flight instructor, Cornelius Coffey, and they co-founded the Cornelius Coffey School of Aeronautics, the first Black-owned private flight training academy in the U.S.

She succeeded in convincing the U.S. Army Air Corps to let them train Black pilots. Hundreds of men and women trained under them, including nearly 200 future Tuskegee Airmen.

In 1942, she became the first Black officer in the U.S. Civil Air Patrol. After World War II ended, she became the first Black woman to run for Congress. Although she lost, she remained politically active and worked in Chicago, teaching business and aeronautics.

After she retired, she served on an advisory board to the Federal Aviation Administration. She died in 1992. A historical marker in her hometown now recognizes her as the first Black woman to earn a pilot’s license in the U.S., and Women in Aviation International named her one of the 100 most influential women in aviation and space.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Stories Videos

Mississippi Stories: Michael May of Lazy Acres

Published

19 hours ago

January 21, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – rlake – 2025-01-21 14:51:00

In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey takes a trip to Lazy Acres. In 1980, Lazy Acres Christmas tree farm was founded in Chunky, Mississippi by Raburn and Shirley May. Twenty-one years later, Michael and Cathy May purchased Lazy Acres. Today, the farm has grown into a multi seasonal business offering a Bunny Patch at Easter, Pumpkin Patch in the fall, Christmas trees and an spectacular Christmas light show. It’s also a masterclass in family business entrepreneurship and agricultural tourism.

For more videos, subscribe to Mississippi Today’s YouTube channel.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1921

Published

1 day ago

January 21, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2025-01-21 07:00:00

Jan. 21, 1921

George Washington Carver Credit: Wikipedia

George Washington Carver became one of the first Black experts to testify before Congress.

His unlikely road to Washington began after his birth in Missouri, just before the Civil War ended. When he was a week old, he and his mother and his sister were kidnapped by night raiders. The slaveholder hired a man to track them down, but the only one the man could locate was George, and the slaveholder exchanged a race horse for George’s safe return. George and his brother were raised by the slaveholder and his wife.

The couple taught them to read and write. George wound up attending a school for Black children 10 miles away and later tried to attend Highland University in Kansas, only to get turned away because of the color of his skin. Then he attended Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, before becoming the first Black student at what is now Iowa State University, where he received a Master’s of Science degree and became the first Black faculty member.

Booker T. Washington then invited Carver to head the Tuskegee Institute’s Agriculture Department, where he found new uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans and other crops.

In the past, segregation would have barred Carver’s testimony before Congress, but white peanut farmers, desperate to convince lawmakers about the need for a tariff on peanuts because of cheap Chinese imports, believed Carver could captivate them — and captivate he did, detailing how the nut could be transformed into candy, milk, livestock feed, even ink.

“I have just begun with the peanut,” he told lawmakers.

Impressed, they passed the Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922.

In addition to this work, Carver promoted racial harmony. From 1923 to 1933, he traveled to white Southern colleges for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation. Time magazine referred to him as a “Black Leonardo,” and he died in 1943.

That same year, the George Washington Carver Monument complex, the first national park honoring a Black American, was founded in Joplin, Missouri.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.