The Strike Zone

It's funny how your mind wanders when you find yourself in a hopeless situation. For example, I went with Trina tonight to do a little Christmas shopping. I foolishly thought that the crowds would be smaller on a Monday than they were on the weekend. I am not sure where I came up with that theory, must have been the same place as the guy that thought the Earth was flat. Anyway, I sat in the car inching up and down the parking lot looking for a parking place somewhere in the same time zone as the store. Trina of course was talking away, something about the types of gifts we were looking for, how her day went, the chances of nuclear war I'm not sure what she was saying. I was busy listening to the radio. During the sports minute, they were announcing that baseball managers and umpires had met at the baseball winter meetings to discuss a change to the strike zone. Major League Baseball wants the umpires to begin calling the strike zone as defined in the rule book. This means that the strike zone will no longer end at the belt but will move up another 9 inches to across the letters. This is seen as a change that will help the pitchers become more competitive without resorting to raising the mound. This is a huge change for baseball and the managers are fairly worried about what this will do to the game. First of all, if the pitcher attempts to throw a hanging breaking ball above the belt, it may be a strike but chances are it will also be tattooed into the stands. "This can't be good!" I said. "Yes, you are right" Trina added, "We need to pick up a couple more things for Whitney if Christmas is going to even out for the kids." Uh yeah, that is what I meant. It would seem the modification of the strike zone is affecting more than just the game. I wonder if baseball envisioned all that could be changed as a result of this announcement. I know Whitney will welcome the news, she just got 2 more Christmas presents because of it.