COLUMN: New rule helps move things along

     Random thoughts:

     In general, I’m in favor of changes that speed things up, no matter the situation, event or venue.

     You wouldn’t think that a guy who still calls horse racing his favorite sport would feel that way.

     After all, if an average horse race takes 90 seconds, and if a race card has 10 races, that’s 15 minutes of action crammed into a four-hour period. And yet, I would rather be at a horse track than any other sports venue on earth.

     But when it comes to other sports, and really most other events, let’s move it along.

     Major League Baseball is undergoing some rule changes for 2017, the biggest of which is that intentional walks will be handled differently.

     Instead of the catcher standing up with his arm out to signal that the pitcher is going to purposely throw it outside four straight times, a manager can now signal an intentional walk, and the batter will simply drop his bat and head to first base.

     I am a big fan of this. The argument against it has always been: What about those times when the pitcher throws one away?

     I would ask: How often does that happen? Maybe once, per team, over the course of an entire season?

     Let’s say a team gives up an average of one intentional walk per game, or 162 times in a season. And let’s say that the old method, tossing four pitches outside, takes about a minute.

     So that’s 162 minutes, or more than 2½ hours, of game time each team would save. It’s not much, I guess, but when it comes to moving things along, it all adds up.

Cub fans – too much of a good thing?

     What will Cub fans be like this coming season? Now that the team’s fans have seen their demons exorcised and their wildest dreams have come true with a world championship, what now?

     Much has been written about how surly fans of the Boston Red Sox have become since their team finally broke an 86-year drought and won the World Series in 2004.

     Will this happen to Cub lovers? If the team somehow falls short of a title in 2017, will the once fun-loving fans turn into angry mobs, calling for the firing of manager Joe Maddon?

     In other words, will they be spoiled by their team’s 2016 success?

     I have very little experience with this sort of thing, since my teams rarely win championships (for NBA, NHL, MLB and NFL, two titles in my lifetime, both by the Twins). However, I can tell you that the urgency level for a Twins title in my mind – even though it has been 26 years since the last one – remains relatively low.

     Cub fans? I guess we’ll see.