After Twenty-Two Long And Frustrating Years, The Bullpen Cart Is BACK
She’s back, baby. After 22 long and frustrating years away from the game, it is with great pleasure that I relay the message that bullpen carts are officially coming back. Kind of. The Arizona Diamondbacks are the first team to bring back the bullpen cart, so as of right now, it’s only one team. But once everyone sees how much fun the Dbacks are having, it’s only a matter of time before every team lifts the embargo.
The bullpen car is coming back after being gone for an entire generation of baseball fans. The Arizona Diamondbacks will use a helmet-clad golf cart for the first time since the vehicle left Major League Baseball more than two decades ago.
“I think it wore out its welcome,” Diamondbacks president and CEO Derrick Hall said. “There were these new stadiums, and the focus shifted to the guys running through gates and onto the mound. We think the time is right to bring it back.”
Hall said the Diamondbacks purchased two golf carts and had them retrofitted with big caps by SportsKartz, a company in Tampa, Florida. It’s not all for tradition. The Diamondbacks sold a sponsorship to OnTrac, a West Coast courier service, which will receive branding on the vehicles. “An ancillary benefit might be that it could speed up the game,” Hall said. “I expect a lot of teams to follow suit.”
How does an inanimate object wear out its welcome? Apparently there were a bunch of John Rocker-like bullpen carts running rampant in the league a couple decades back. Sad to see. But I’ve got to be honest with you guys; I’m a little torn on this. I wrote about bullpen carts last month, and my fear was that they would drastically decrease the fear factor that elite closers instill in their opposition upon their entrance into the game.
My suggestion was simple — bullpen motorcycles for closers. After having time to think about it, not all closers are actually good, so before you can enter the game with a motorcycle, you need a 40-save season. The motorcycle is taken away from you if you save fewer than 30 saves in seasons thereafter. 40-save season to get the motorcycle, and 30-save seasons to maintain it. Seems fair.
But for everyone else, the bullpen cart will be great. I love how the article mentions the aspect of bullpen carts helping to speed up the game as some sort of side note. As if that wasn’t the whole point and that they were just bringing them back because they’re cool as shit. They are, but they’re also going to eliminate dudes taking six and a half minutes to get from the bullpen to the mound like they’re reenacting The Undertaker walking down the ramp at WrestleMania.
All in on bullpen carts. All in on bullpen motorcycles. All out on dumb ideas to speed up the game that alter the actual game. Put sponsors on jerseys so that you can have less commercials. Cart relievers out from the bullpen. Do whatever you’ve gotta do within reason so that our great game can stay great.