{"id":815,"date":"2020-02-29T12:03:50","date_gmt":"2020-02-29T17:03:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/takomatorch.com\/?p=815"},"modified":"2021-09-23T00:14:23","modified_gmt":"2021-09-23T04:14:23","slug":"mlb-requires-an-astros-player-to-stand-at-home-plate-during-ceremonial-first-pitches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/2020\/02\/29\/mlb-requires-an-astros-player-to-stand-at-home-plate-during-ceremonial-first-pitches\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB Requires an Astros Player Stand at Home Plate During Ceremonial First Pitches"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"651\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/takomatorch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/firstpitch.jpg?fit=810%2C515\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-816\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/takomatorch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/firstpitch.jpg?w=1024&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/takomatorch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/firstpitch.jpg?resize=300%2C191&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/takomatorch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/firstpitch.jpg?resize=768%2C488&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\n\nTucked in to a slate of rule changes designed to make baseball marginally less boring to watch, Major League Baseball announced a new policy to keep fans entertained: a Houston Astros player must stand, defenseless, at home plate for every ceremonial first pitch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;My decision not to vacate the Astros\u2019 wins and World Series Championship after multiple seasons of cheating apparently didn&#8217;t go over well among fans,&#8221; stated MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred. &#8220;Hopefully, the opportunity for those disgruntled fans to throw at an Astros batter will restore my credibility.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The change was announced several weeks into spring training. So far this pre-season, the Astros have led the league in batters hit by pitches, a circumstance which caused Astros Manager Dusty Baker to plead with MLB to step in and protect his players from retaliation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After Manfred\u2019s announcement, Baker agreed that giving individual fans and special guests the opportunity to bean an Astro with a weak, poorly aimed ceremonial throw was a much better arrangement than having professional pitchers hurling 95 mph fastballs at their heads during game play. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since the announcement, all 30 teams have reported an unusually large increase in applications and requests to throw out first pitches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;It brings a whole new level of excitement to the game,&#8221; stated a 6 foot 4 inch, 220 pound man wearing a wig, glasses, and a fake moustache and going by the name of Harold S. Chatman. &#8220;I really hope they pick me to throw out the first pitch on opening day.  I&#8217;ve been dreaming about it all off-season.&#8221;\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tucked in to a slate of rule changes designed to make baseball marginally less boring to watch, Major League Baseball announced a new policy to keep fans entertained: a Houston Astros player must stand, defenseless, at home plate for every ceremonial first pitch. &#8220;My decision not to vacate the Astros\u2019 wins and World Series Championship&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":816,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","wpcat-8-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/takomatorch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/firstpitch.jpg?fit=1024%2C651&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paPZSG-d9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2084,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions\/2084"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}