"Call The Count": A Horrible Idea

At the Red Sox spring training game yesterday, the public address man announced each pitch as either a ball or a strike, and then announced the updated count. After. Every. Pitch. Could the team have come up with a worse idea than "Call The Count"?

The Globe reported that team president Larry Lucchino first raised the idea more than a year ago.

Charles Steinberg, executive vice president of the Red Sox:

It's an idea that people have been debating about at Fenway Park for more than a year. We figured, instead of continuing to debate about it in the abstract, let's use our spring training testing ground to put it into practice. ... The premise of the idea is the count is so germane to the outcome of the at-bat, and there's a greater emphasis on that right now by fans than there used to be. The unintended benefit that we saw today is that in our iPhone world, where your eyes are focusing on e-mails and texts, hearing the pitch and the count keep you posted and maybe your eyes go back up to the game when you hear it's a full count. The worry we had going into it was whether an announcer would be intrusive into the ambiance that you like to have.

Anyone at the ball park who is curious about the count only has to look at one of several scoreboards around the park. Or, you know, simply pay attention to the game. Perhaps reading and sending emails and texts can wait until the half-inning is over. If not, then perhaps you don't really care all that deeply about the progress of the game.

John Lackey, who made his first appearance of the spring in the game, was not distracted by the additional noise, but added:

That's a bad idea.

John Farrell:

Certainly different in the atmosphere of the ballpark. Other than that, I really don't have any comment.

Torey Lovullo:

I'm very traditional and it was a little bit different from what we're used to.

Peter Abraham, Globe:

People can decide what they care about and if they care about the count, they can turn their heads an inch and look at the scoreboard. Games are too noisy as it is. We need fewer distractions at the ballpark, not more.

Michael Silverman, Herald:

It was fair to say that players, who did not want to speak publicly about it, did not consider the experiment a success.

The Red Sox should be cutting out distractions and unnecessary noise from games, not adding to the irritating cacophony. Stop the commercials between innings. Stop the excessive music (which, to cite only one example, has completely ruined the joy of watching batting practice). Pare the intrusions down to the absolutely essential. We come to the park to watch the game. Let us focus on the game.