If you want to start with a runner on second base, then hit a double.

Has anyone even pondered the fact that you're giving both teams the same advantage? Sure, you're increasing the chances that the visiting team scores a run in the top of the inning ... and then increasing the chances that the home team scores a run in the bottom of the inning:

"I know there's a romantic notion about extra innings, which speaks to the timeless element of a sport that isn't governed by a clock. But the reality of it is the romance goes out of your run-of-the-mill extra-inning game fairly quickly, and after the 10th or 11th it feels as if everyone in the ballpark is begging for some action."

I harbor no romantic notions about extra innings or even the timeless elements of a sport that isn't governed by a clock.

Baseball has lots of run-of-the-mill games, extra innings or not.

Baseball fans enjoy them either way. 

If you're really hoping to keep the youngsters off their iPhones, you've lost them by the bottom of the second inning anyway. You're trying to make that game more exciting for a catatonic 9-year-old in the cheap seats ... and you think they'll awake from their slumber because you start the inning with a runner on second base?


"Is it gimmicky — an artificial way to get to a speedier result? Sure, but it wouldn't change the authenticity of the competition.

Instead it would create instant drama, put immediate pressure on the pitcher and the defense, and set up a strategy decision — to bunt or not to bunt? — that all but ensures some level of second-guessing of the manager.

Is any of that bad for the game?"

Yes, I believe it's bad for the game. The reasoning is so obvious that I don't even feel like taking the time to explain. After nine innings, line up 5 players from each team and spin plates on the knob of the bat. Whoever keeps their plates spinning the longest wins the game.

You're also wildly overrating the excitement of (a) sac bunting and (b) second-guessing the manager.
 

"But perhaps a better comparison is the radical change another sport adopted nearly 50 years ago to bring a conclusion to the endless hours sometimes needed to determine a winner.

At the time, players and fans alike screamed in protest that installing a tiebreaker in tennis was too gimmicky to be accepted. Now, all these years later, it's hard to imagine tennis played without tiebreaker. Otherwise some of those classic Federer-Nadal matches over the years might have never ended."

It's not a good example.

Because one is tennis and the other is baseball.

So ... other than that ...  it's a good example.