Today, officially, is the first day of full-squad work for the 2015 Milwaukee Brewers at the team’s spring training complex just outside downtown Phoenix, at Maryvale Baseball Park – even though most of the team has already reported.


Under the western sun, baseball "ramps up" so to speak, in that the sport’s season is beginning, but nothing about spring ball is fast. Pitchers work on bunt drills and pantomime throws to first and second and jog off the mound. Swings in the cage are smooth, carefree.

It’s about, formally, getting back to the pace of the game.

Which, unfortunately, isn’t much faster.

And finally, baseball is going to do something about it. By enforcing the rules already on the books.

After some interesting pace of play experiments in the Arizona Fall League, Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association agreed to "enforce the rule requiring a hitter to keep at least one foot in the batter’s box in most cases," according to a recent report in the Boston Globe.

Apparently, baseball is also going to pay more attention to when commercials start and end, and will also time pitching changes.

The initial punishment for players will be monetary, and such fines will only be made public once someone becomes an egregious offender – and who knows what a sport like baseball will call "troublesome."

But, this is a good thing.

Since my birth 30-some odd years ago, the game has slowed by a half-hour. The basics of the game haven't changed, though strategy has, and despite the assumption that added strategy equals added drama, that average half hour goes by like you’re waiting in line at the DMV – feeling more like 90 minutes and sucking your soul of any life.

There are too many trips to the mound, by catchers, pitching coaches and managers. There are too many situational pitching changes. And, frankly, relief pitchers are slower than glaciers because those frozen masses are melting faster than Francisco Rodriguez can deliver a changeup with two on in the ninth.

There’s the walking around the mound, the rosin bag tossing, the rubbing of the ball, the adjusting of the bill of the cap, and the looonnnnnnggg (oh God what is he staring at) look into the catcher’s thighs.

Batters are no better, either, and at least they will be monitored in 2015.

Many players will moan about not being able to walk a trench around the batters box, adjust every piece of equipment and extremity available, take four deep breaths and find their special spot in the hole they’ve dug out with their back heel.

It’s routine, they’ll say. I need this time, you’ll hear.

While I will acknowledge that a game day regimen is important to these guys – I’ve been around enough pro athletes in a variety of sports to understand they do think it’s important – these elements truly don’t matter.

Ryan Braun is either going to hit .330 with 40 homers because his thumb is healthy, or he won’t because it isn’t. He won’t slump because the umpire told him to keep his foot in the box and cut down on the practice swings.

Routines are routines because you do them. I bet some of these guys don't even know they’re doing the things they’re doing. But once you’re forced to start a new habit, a new routine, then by sheer repetition, that becomes your routine.

Sure, maybe a pitcher might try to slip a 80-mile-per-hour quick pitch by you a couple times during the year. Maybe it’s somewhat uncomfortable, feeling like you’re planted. I get that. I have to get up and wander around the OnMilwaukee.com offices every now and then because I get antsy.

But at its core, these slight adjustments, er, enforcement of the rules, aren’t going to affect anyone negatively. What it will do, I’m sure, is speed things up, which baseball desperately needs.

I’m all for tradition in America’s pastime. I don’t think it should be like the NFL where rules can literally change from one game to the next, and often do season-to-season. But it is 2015, and everything must adapt.

Major League Baseball has done a great job expanding its brand to digital formats, to making it accessible on mobile devices. Well, guess what, because of our culture, no one wants to watch the 3-hour, 53-minute, 9-inning game the Brewers and Giants put on display in early August last year.

Nobody.

People tune out, even those in the ballpark.

While I think a pitch clock is extreme, enforcing these existing rules are important. I’d like to see a few more implemented, such as:

• The pitcher has to stay on the mound between pitches.
• A batter cannot call for time once the pitcher makes the move to set himself.
• All warm up tosses must be completed during the commercial break, so when TV returns live, so does the game.
• If no runner is on second base, the catcher cannot run out to have conversations with the pitcher. Figure it out.
• Implement the 1988 strikezone, which is larger but eliminates the low strike.

The game of baseball is a beautiful one, and not much needs to be re-worked. I appreciate that there is no clock, and that each affair is its own.

But that doesn’t meant it should remain stagnant. So, hopefully these minor enforcements help, and if not, the new commissioner will need to take more drastic action.