Joe Starkey: We've officially lost our minds with the 'ghost runner' rule

We are talking about fake baserunners to start extra innings, are we not? Fake baserunners that just hit an imaginary double and magically appeared on second base at the precise time managers should be digging deep into their bench and bullpen looking for ways to salvage a win, yes?

What are we doing here?

This stuff makes "Angels in the Outfield" look like a documentary. It's Hansel and Gretel material. It's James Stewart and his imaginary rabbit friend Harvey.

And you thought NHL shootouts and college football overtimes were gimmicky?

There has never been gimmicky like this — and I can't figure out whether I love it or hate it, although I'm pretty sure I hate it.

I know this much: We've all gone nuts.

My friend John Perrotto has been covering baseball basically since its inception — I'm told he secured the first one-on-one interview with Abner Doubleday — and he's fully in favor of this atrocity.

"I'm going to lose my membership in the Crotchety Old Man Club for this," Perrotto tweeted Tuesday, when owners and players reportedly agreed to a third straight season of ghost-runner baseball, "but I kinda like the ghost/zombie runner rule. Sorry."

Apology not accepted, although, truth be told, I didn't mind the rule when it was adopted two years ago as an emergency measure in a COVID-shortened season. Part of me still likes it, from a strategic standpoint.

I would hardly call myself a stick-in-the-mud sentimentalist. I love NHL shootouts. I love the mandatory two-point attempts in college football. I even support seven-inning doubleheaders. Maybe I just want us all to acknowledge the gravity, the insanity, the revolutionary nature of this rule before we move on.

Maybe I just want us to call it what it is: the most profoundly distorted rule change in sports history.

I mean, imaginary doubles! Hits that didn't happen! Fake runners! These are things we did when we didn't have enough kids for a pickup game, back when pickup games existed. These are things we did during one-on-one Wiffle ball games in my backyard.

And what's with the obsession over preventing long games? To keep people watching? I'm pretty sure if you're still watching in the 10th inning, you're going to stick around. You probably want it to keep going. Some of the most memorable sporting events I've witnessed were memorable precisely because they went on forever (think Syracuse-UConn six overtimes, or Pirates 8, Astros 7 in 18 innings in 2006 — a game I specifically remember for staying up past 1 a.m. and watching with my stepson).

MLB's obsession with shortening games is fruitless, by the way. If baseball has a problem, it's baseball — the very nature of the sport, which doesn't lend itself to an attention-deficient, iPhone-addled society. They could shorten games to an hour-and-a-half, and it wouldn't become any more palatable to future generations.

It's a slow game. We're a fast society.

I really don't care whether players and managers want shorter workdays, either, even after an abbreviated spring training. Cut the season by 15 games if you're that worried about wear and tear. Give up a little revenue (now that would really be revolutionary). Increase the roster by more than two players. Go back to seven-inning doubleheaders.

Some of us don't want your ghost runners.

"I know it's not traditional baseball," Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo told reporters. "But when you're talking about saving arms, and saving guys for the next day, I think it's good."

Isn't managing one's roster against a relentless schedule a manager's primary job? It's part of the grind of navigating 162 games. It's part of the beauty of baseball.

Or at least it was, before the zombies took over.