New York Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner has had it with what he feels are silly and hypocritical fines from the MLB office on pace-of-play rule violations.
Gardner says he has been fined “thousands of dollars” for multiple violations that involve him taking too long to walk from the on-deck circle to the batter’s box, and he thinks the whole thing is very silly.
“My agent started taking care of it,” Gardner said, via Anthony Rieber of Newsday. “I told them don’t talk to me about it. I’ve got more things to worry about than taking three seconds too long to get to the box. Somebody else can [throw pickoff throws to first base] 27 times in a game and waste 15 minutes of everybody’s time, and I get fined thousands of dollars taking three seconds too long to get in the box.”
The league has made it a point to change a lot of rules to try to speed things up, including fining players for being too slow. It doesn’t sound like the financial penalties have changed the way any batters approach things, though.
