CARLTON FLETCHER: You can stick your ABS … I’ll always prefer old-school baseball

For the times they are a-changin’.

— Bob Dylan

Yes, I know that I’m “mature” enough to be “old-school,” but I was old-school even when I was “middle-school.” I’ve just always liked certain things a certain way. And even if change is good, I sometimes am slow to adapt.

That’s just me.

Heck, I did not like it when the American League started using designated hitters, and I particularly hated it when the National League decided to adopt it as well. Some of the most fun moments in baseball history – coming from someone who loved the game only slightly less than life itself coming up, a product of my dad’s influence – was watching pitchers bat in crucial situations.

And while I’ve accepted that the DH offers more offense in Major League games now, I believe this one rule has taken the strategy out of managing the game. Before there were designated hitters, managers had to weigh keeping their pitcher in the game for one more inning or yanking him in favor of a pinch hitter who might actually get a hit.

But the DH was accepted, and now young fans can’t imagine the thought of their pitcher – if his name isn’t Shohei Ohtani – getting near the batter’s box.

Once those of us old-school fans accepted the use of the DH and pretty much admitted that the added offense was sometimes good, MLB came out of the woodworks with another rules change: Players/managers were allowed to challenge a certain number of umpire calls.

Close play at first on a runner getting down the baseline? Challenge. A late tag at the plate? Challenge.

Teams sometimes use challenges to literally overturn the outcome of a game, negating what might have been the tying or winning run by some computer nerd’s interpretation as he sits in a studio in New York.

So fans, players, managers and umpires adapted to the challenges, and baseball executives – who obviously care nothing about the “sanctity” or “legacy” of the game – came up with a new wrinkle that started this season.

The ABS challenge. That stands for automated ball-strike challenge, and it’s a wrinkle that allows batters, catchers or pitchers to challenge an umpire’s ball or strike call. While challenges on the bases often take from five to 10 minutes to clear up, ABS challenges take no longer than 15 or so seconds. Not that big a deal, right?

But to purists, it is a big deal. Baseball is a game played, and officiated, by human beings. And all human beings, even Ohtani, make mistakes. It’s part of what makes us human.

Players make errors. Managers bring in the wrong pitcher to face a specific batter. And umpires make bad calls. It’s part of the game, or at least it was for the first 100 years or so. Then the Major League powers that be decided they’d find a level of perfection by allowing teams to challenge their calls.

I haven’t umpired since calling Little League games in Ocilla, but I think I would probably have felt kind of self-conscious about being potentially challenged on every single call I made (which, because of the rule, is possible with the ABS system).

True fans still argue or bemoan calls made decades ago that cost their team games. Braves fans can remember the playoff game in which their team was robbed by an umpire who called pretty much any pitch a catcher could coral a strike, leading to a loss and an eventual ouster from the playoffs.

Some of the umpires’ calls over the years were horrendous. (I read of a player who was called out at first in a crucial game and the player, one of the most docile players in the league, went after the umpire with a vengeance. It turns out the umpire was noted for making calls at first based on the sound of the ball hitting the first baseman’s mitt. On this particular play, an infielder started to throw to first but then changed his mind. The first baseman slapped his glove anyway, and the umpire called the runner out … even though the throw had been made to another base.)

But here’s what I miss most about all these electronic challenges to umpires’ calls: Arguments. It’s dang nigh impossible for a manager to argue a call these days because his calls are either confirmed or overturned by others, leaving him out of any tough decision-making. For Braves fans, would all those hungry years have been any fun at all without Bobby Cox there to argue … and, inevitably, get ejected? (Cox holds the record for such.)

So you can have your on-field challenges and your ABS system and your DH and anything else that owners looking for something new to make a dollar can dream up. I’ll keep a special spot in my  heart for the old-school game … the way it was meant to be played.

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected].