One day last season — or maybe the season before — there was a rain delay at AT&T Park. The Giants’ locker room door was open. If the game was canceled, I would still need a column. So I entered the room and improvised.
Visiting as many lockers as possible, I asked players to tell me one baseball rules change they might make, if given the power to do so. Brandon Crawford and Brandon Belt were very receptive, as was Joe Panik. Their ideas were thoughtful: Video replay should be tweaked to include certain plays. And on ground-rule doubles, maybe it shouldn’t be an automatic two bases for runners, and umpires should have greater discretion on runner placement.