Someday, an enterprising baseball writer will break new ground with the book, "Great Moments in Intentional Walk History.'' It will be a relatively short work, in the mode of "Yordano Ventura's Guide to Baseball Etiquette'' or "Great Icelandic Baseball Heroes.''

People who enjoy their baseball at a quicker pace regard the busywork entailed in an intentional walk as perhaps the most worthless interlude in the game. To them, it's duller than a visit to the Department of Motor Vehicles, and the brief time that the pitcher and catcher spend playing catch isn't long enough to accommodate a restroom break or concession stand visit. So what's the point in continuing it?

That thinking helps explain why Major League Baseball might be on the verge of eliminating the routine. As ESPN.com's Jayson Stark recently reported, MLB's competition committee has discussed a package of changes to reduce dead time and help speed the pace of play. One proposed change calls for a batter to take first base on an intentional walk without the formality of the pitcher having to throw four wide.

"Frankly, I'm in favor of the auto walk,'' Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto said in an email. "I'm a baseball history junkie and as a result tend to lean toward tradition. That said, as an industry we really do need to find subtle ways to create a quicker pace if we intend to remain relevant with the next generation of fans.''

Long-time MLB manager Jim Leyland, now a special assistant with the Detroit Tigers, agrees.

"I'm all for it,'' Leyland said. "Put up four [fingers] and tell the guy to go to first. Every blue moon one gets by the catcher, but I'd like to see us put this through. Keep the pace of the game going. To me, it's a no-brainer.''

Some basic math helps frame the debate. The average intentional walk takes 45 seconds to a minute to complete. MLB teams issue 900 to 1,000 intentional walks a season, which means 16 to 17 hours are invested in batteries playing catch. The average MLB season includes about 7,300 hours of game time, so MLB would shorten the season by about 0.2 percent with a change in the rules.

Are baseball's decision-makers so intent on squeezing precious minutes and seconds that they make quirkiness obsolete?

Theater of the absurd

Forget about cycles and no-hitters -- celebrated achievements that have occurred 250-300 times each since the start of the modern era in 1900. During that same 116-year span, the intentional walk-turned-hit is only slightly more commonplace than Randy Johnson vaporizing a bird with a pitch, or Adam Wainwright almost hitting a bird with a pitch.

"I don't want to lose those moments where you can say, 'I've never seen that before,' '' said Phillies broadcaster and former big league pitcher Larry Andersen. "If you eliminate the intentional walk, there's a chance you'll lose one of those 'I've-never-seen-this-before' episodes. Those are part of what makes baseball great. Granted, they're few and far between. But they keep the game a little more entertaining.''

Sure, intentional walks slow the flow of a game from time to time, but the four-pitch sequence can quickly become a source of entertainment -- and embarrassment -- when things go awry. AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin

In a 2011 Society for American Baseball Research article, historian Bill Deane recounted 11 instances in which a hitter swung at a pitch during an intentional walk and put the ball in play. Ty Cobb, Willie Mays and Pete Rose are among the members of this exclusive club.

Like squirrels cavorting on the field, botched IBBs appear every now and then to add a touch of intrigue or hilarity to the regularly scheduled proceedings.

• In Game 3 of the 1972 World Series, with the count full on Johnny Bench, Oakland manager Dick Williams visited the mound and made a show of telling reliever Rollie Fingers to go ahead with the intentional walk. Bench, lulled into a false sense of security, stood motionless as A's catcher Gene Tenace jumped back behind home plate and caught a fastball on the outer edge for strike three. Years later, Bench told Fingers the incident was the most embarrassing moment of his life.

• Catcher Tony Pena, a veteran of 18 big-league seasons, was adept at faking out hitters by stepping outside the box, then hopping back into his crouch and catching strike three before the unsuspecting hitter knew what hit him. San Francisco Giants catcher Brian Johnson was victimized by the ruse during the 1997 season with Houston reliever John Hudek on the mound.

"What a dummy I was,'' Johnson, now a scout with the Giants, said in a text message. "Oh well. I guess I fell for the 'banana in the tailpipe.' ''

Johnson took the lapse less personally when informed that Pena also victimized Chili Davis and John Olerud with the ploy.

"Perfect!'' he said. "I feel better already.''

• Terry Francona achieved a distinction as one of the few (if not the only) players to be ejected from a game while receiving an intentional pass.

Francona was playing for the Brewers in 1989 when he hit a line drive that Angels outfielder Dante Bichette clearly trapped, but umpire Ken Kaiser mistakenly ruled the play a catch.

The atmosphere was still tense several weeks later when Kaiser was working home plate during a Milwaukee-Baltimore game. As pitcher Bob Milacki issued an intentional walk to Francona, Kaiser reportedly cracked, "Can you believe they're intentionally walking you?''

Replied Francona: "If you weren't so fat and hustled, you wouldn't have blown that call.''

Needless to say, Francona never got a chance to take first base.

• Miguel Cabrera has made 10 All-Star teams and won two MVP awards, but the most novel sequence in his Hall of Fame-worthy career will never merit a mention on his plaque in Cooperstown.

Cabrera was playing for the Marlins in 2006 when he reached out on a careless intentional walk offering from Baltimore's Todd Williams and slapped it to center field for a run-scoring single.

Upstairs in the booth, Orioles broadcaster Jim Palmer sputtered in exasperation and called it the type of play that happens in Little League.

• In 2004, Barry Bonds drew an astounding 120 intentional walks. The Giants responded by selling a rubber chicken named "Walk'er'' in the team gift shop, and frustrated fans stood and twirled the chickens whenever opponents refused to challenge Bonds.

Seeing Giants' star Barry Bonds take his base via the intentional free pass became such a common event that fans in San Francisco turned it into an event by keeping track on the ballpark wall. Don Smith/MLB Photos via Getty Images

This is another long-held baseball tradition: Regardless of the circumstances, if a home player is being walked, the home crowd responds with a torrent of boos.

"I guess it's a sign of cowardice,'' Chicago Cubs broadcaster Jim Deshaies said. " 'You're not challenging our guy and giving him a chance to perform.' There's kind of a coliseum mindset. You're half-waiting for them to drag the pitcher off and throw him to the lions because he intentionally walked a guy.''

For some, a four-pitch nightmare

A 2-minute, 47-second YouTube compilation features assorted intentional walk disasters. John Axford, Lance McCullers Jr., Chris Withrow, Steve Cishek and Kevin Jepsen are among the pitchers who had to stew in their embarrassment after a failure to execute the most rudimentary task.

During the second half of Larry Andersen's career, this was his reality.

Andersen, remembered by many as the guy who was traded for Jeff Bagwell in 1990, made 699 appearances in a productive 17-year career. But as his time in the majors wound down, Andersen suffered from a bad case of the yips when throwing to first base and issuing intentional walks.

"My catchers had to be in full-on goalie mode. There was no telling where the ball was gonna go." Former major league pitcher Larry Andersen on his intentional walk nightmare

In hindsight, Andersen says he thinks his problems began with a seemingly innocuous throw when he was pitching for Houston in 1986. In an attempt to pick off Pittsburgh's Johnny Ray at first base, Andersen made a wild toss and nearly drilled Pirates first base coach (and his good friend) Tommy Sandt.

Doubts began to creep into Andersen's mind, and intentional walks elicited a sense of dread. Late in his career, Andersen threw about 90 percent sliders, and he felt off-kilter lobbing the ball home.

"I don't know of anybody else who threw breaking balls on intentional walks, but I would have been better off if I had done that,'' he said.

Andersen hit rock bottom in a game with a young Craig Biggio behind the plate. As Andersen recalls, he threw the ball to home plate with a slow-pitch softball arc, and Biggio lost it in the lights and was tagged with a passed ball.

"My catchers had to be in full-on goalie mode,'' Andersen said. "There was no telling where the ball was gonna go.''

Decades later, Andersen has conceived what he considers a fair compromise in the intentional walk debate.

"You know how they have a 'no-fly list' for people who can't fly?'' Andersen said. "They should have a 'no-free pass list' for pitchers who can't throw intentional walks. Anybody who's done it five times with no problems, they don't have to make the throws. For somebody like me, they have to force them to do it.''

Sadistic? Perhaps. But Andersen falls squarely in the "misery loves company'' camp in this debate.

"I've gotta be honest -- I don't mind seeing other guys struggle with the same thing,'' he said. "It makes me feel a little bit better about myself.''