A question for baseball fans .....

[gainesvillenole]

18. Keep the batters in the box!

The biggest single change they could make to speed up baseball is to put a stop to the ridiculous ritual of batters stepping out of the batters box on EVERY SINGLE PITCH! It maddening.... every pitch the batter calls time, steps out, kicks dirt, adjusts his gloves (and other things) and steps back in. Make it so a batter must stay in the box unless deemed necessary by the umpire to step out due to hit by pitch or one allowed step out to see signs from the third base coach. It would easily cut 30 minutes from a game.
You could limit throws to first as well.... either by a rule limiting the number or more directly make every throw to first a ball. Yes, it would tilt the advantage to the runner trying to steal, but hell, what’s wrong with that? It would make it more exciting. As it is now, between the endless step outs, throws to first and the scratching/adjusting “equipment”, baseball has become a boring spectacle of watching two guys play catch while eight others stand around and watch.....