Ex-Florida Marlin says Republicans should learn from baseball or keep striking out | Opinion

As a former draft pick of the Florida Marlins and baseball traditionalist, I was skeptical of Major League Baseball’s rule changes. After all, America’s pastime earned its moniker by adhering to tradition. Like apple pie or fireworks on the Fourth of July, some things are meant to be left alone, despite sagging ratings and waning public interest.

But having watched early spring training games this year, I have been pleasantly surprised. The games are shorter and more enjoyable. It’s possible to watch nine innings without the clock striking midnight. The product is more consumer friendly with more appeal to an audience beyond the diehards.

Baseball has a litany of life lessons that translate to politics. MLB’s willingness to modernize should encourage another group trying to broaden its appeal: the Republican Party. Here are three parallels:

First, to increase the pace of the game, pitchers and hitters now have a limited amount of time to throw a pitch and get in the batter box. Previously, the average length of games was creeping higher, from 2.5 hours in the early 2000s to three hours and 11 minutes in 2021, according to Baseball-Reference.

If the GOP wants to return to our roots as fiscal conservatives, we need to get back to balancing budgets. Even with the national debt growing by $3.7 trillion under President Biden, it’s not enough to criticize him spending too much. On Donald Trump’s watch, the national debt level rose by $7.8 trillion — approximately 25% of the current $31 trillion total.

It’s long past time for a serious conversation about modernizing major entitlement programs, including Medicare and Social Security, that make up nearly half of all federal spending. It’s not enough to punt these discussions, especially with both programs careening toward insolvency within a decade.

Second, MLB has increased the size of the bases by three inches to increase stolen bases and reduce injuries. The GOP should expand its tent to voters beyond our base and avoid self-inflicted injuries. The Democrats enjoy an edge in the cities, Republicans dominate rural areas, but the suburbs are always up for grabs. In 2020, for the first time since Barack Obama’s 2008 victory, suburban voters broke for Democrats. A 1.2 million-vote margin favoring Trump turned into a 600,000 advantage for Biden. Before dismissing the impact of 2 million votes in an election with more than 159 million ballots cast, remember that Trump won the White House in 2016 by a combined 80,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Third, eliminating the shift. In recent years, fielders have moved from their natural positions where the algorithms predicted where the ball would go. The result has been more outs and fewer runs. The Republican Party has strayed from its conservative principles and embraced populism. Rather than make the case to voters about our ideas, we have embraced the politics of grievance and anger. Instead of shaping public opinion, we have been driven by it.

Our party’s long-held positions on free trade, America’s role in the world and government intervention in the private sector have shifted accordingly. When he’s not railing against “free trade fanatics” or “forever wars,”, the Republican presidential candidate leading in the polls — Trump — is attacking the second-place Florida Gov. DeSantis, using scare tactics about cutting government programs. This is the messaging more commonly associated with Democrats.

Change starts by admitting a problem. The status quo is not an option.

History is not kind to entities that delay too long before moving their feet. Look at household names such as Kodak, BlackBerry and BlockBuster, which went from market leaders to irrelevance because of failure to innovate.

The Republican Party has lost three consecutive elections. It’s not enough to bank on Biden’s low approval ratings to change our trajectory. We must look within and take the necessary steps. If Major League Baseball can do it, so can we.

Geoff Duncan, a CNN contributor, served as Georgia’s lieutenant governor from 2019-2023. He is a former professional baseball player, and was drafted by the Florida Marlins in 1996. He is the author of “GOP 2.0: How the 2020 Election Can Lead to a Better Way Forward for America’s Conservative Party.”