Phillies: Larry Bowa says baseball needs to win fans back
By Matt Rappa
Difficulty of playing with no fans in the stands
Bowa says Phillies players will have some challenges to overcome as it relates to playing games without fans in the stands.
“Fans get players pumped up. There’s a lot of games you start when you have the stands filled, you don’t feel good or you have something that’s bothering you,” Bowa says, “and then, all of a sudden, the other team has the bases loaded and you make a double play and you hear the fans go crazy. That’s important.”
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Bowa adds that players frequently rely on adrenaline: “A guy comes in the ninth inning, you’re down a run and the closer for the other team walks the guy on four pitches. Everybody gets up and starts screaming and yelling.”
“That’s going to be non-existent; at least at the beginning of this thing. It’s going to be interesting to see how players react to that.”
Rule Changes
To some surprise, Bowa is not necessarily opposed to the designated hitter, despite calling himself “definitely old school.”
“The more I watched baseball the last five years,” he says, “I see pitchers get hurt. Not throwing on the mound, [but] running the bases, getting hit by a pitch, squaring around to bunt, breaking a finger, sliding head-first.”
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“So, I’m changing my thought process there. I’m going to starting thinking it would be better for baseball if we have the DH.”
Bowa says he also is in favor of the new rule that says pitchers must either finish a half-inning or face at least three batters before being replaced. He noted last September, when teams, like the Phillies, would seemingly promote all of their left-handed relievers to come into games against left-handed batters, and vice-versa.
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As far as the “man on second” rule for extra-inning games, Bowa is not as much a fan: “I understand their thought process … you don’t want 16 or 17-inning games. You’re going to go through the pitching staff,” he says. “I’m not saying I like it, but I can understand it for this short sprint they’re going to do for these 60 games.”
“I personally don’t think it will go into play next year, but that’s for them to decide.”
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Bowa noted one player the Phillies could utilize in particular for this new rule: speedy outfielder Roman Quinn.
“If you don’t deplete your bench and you have a speedster over there, a [Billy] Hamilton, or in our situation, Quinn. You might say ‘I’m putting him in for whoever made the last out’ and try to steal a run there,” he says.