There was a time when I believed — admittedly, not too seriously — that former Aberdeen Parks & Recreation Director Karl Harris invented softball’s International Tiebreaker.

While assisting then-Parks & Rec Director Wes Peterson many years ago, Harris served as director for some district youth fastpitch tournaments. In the course of releasing pre-tournament information one year, he emphasized that the International Tiebreaker was in effect.

At the time, I’d never heard of such a tiebreaker. Since softball games at the lower age groups tend to be time-consuming, I suspected that Karl had devised the rule to shorten his stay at the ballpark.

I was also tickled by the terminology, which gave the impression that multi-national treaties were necessary to adopt the softball rule. If President Trump ever threatens to revoke the International Tiebreaker during trade talks with China, that suspicion would be confirmed.

Since Harris is seldom (actually, never) mentioned in historical softball references, it has become clear that the rule was in place long before he became associated with the sport.

It stipulates that if a game is tied entering a certain inning (usually the ninth, but some leagues implement it in the eighth), each team will begin the next frame with a runner on second base. That makes it easier to score — and is designed to avoid marathon extra-inning contests.

Fans of baseball’s Tacoma Rainiers, even those who have never attended a high school or youth softball game, presumably will become more familiar with the tiebreaker this year.

In an effort to shorten the length of professional games, Major League Baseball officials announced recently that a hardball version of the tiebreaker will be introduced for extra-inning minor-league games this season. If successful, it could be implemented in major league contests in the future.

This, in my view, is a drastic over-reaction to a legitimate concern — that professional baseball games have become so time-consuming that it is driving fans away from the sport.

For starters, the tiebreaker isn’t even universally beloved among softball coaches.

Pat Pace, whose Montesano High School team has won nine state championships, has never been a fan of the rule.

“I think it’s been a negative (to the sport), because I think (rulesmakers) think the girls aren’t good enough to finish the game without help,” he said.

When the tiebreaker rule was first introduced, I feared that coaches would employ small-ball tactics (bunting the runner to third and squeezing her home, for example) so frequently that they would trade one-run innings ad infinitum. I once witnessed a state 1A contest in Wenatchee that played out precisely in that manner until ending in about the 14th or 15th inning.

Pace, however, said a growing number of visiting-team coaches have their troops swing away for a big inning that would take the small-ball option away from the home team.

Even in that form, the tiebreaker is an artificial device for settling contests. It is probably needed in a summer youth tournament in which several games are scheduled in one day. But its impact is dubious for a high school softball contest — and even less necessary in professional baseball.

“Actually, when I pay my money for a (baseball) ticket, I want to watch those extra-inning games,” Pace said.

Although I’m a baseball purist, I could accept a tiebreaker being adopted to shorten a marathon night game that would otherwise spill over until the following morning. The rule could go into effect, for example, if the game was still deadlocked at midnight.

Initiating it as early as the 10th inning is overkill.

While the International Tiebreaker isn’t the answer, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is justified in at least exploring methods of streamlining professional baseball games. He unilaterally imposed rules that limit timeouts in major-league contests and has threatened pitching time clocks in the future.

Early returns seem to indicate those measures aren’t working. Of 25 major-league games last weekend in which box scores were available, 12 lasted longer than three hours and five of those went more than 3 1/2 hours.

Baseball is perhaps the only professional sport that contains no restrictions on timeouts. A college or professional football game in which coaches were allowed to call time after every play might take all weekend to complete.

Unfortunately, the Major League Baseball Players Association is in a state of denial on the negative impact of lengthy games and believe that simply shortening the span between innings would be sufficient to bring games to an acceptable length. That would help, but it isn’t enough.

Baseball’s real problem is that, with an increasing emphasis on pitch counts and elaborate pre-pitch routines, every level of the sport is getting slower. Six-inning district Little League games, for instance, once were regularly completed in 90 minutes. Now it’s closer to 2 1/2 hours.

Last month’s Hoquiam-Aberdeen high school game, for no apparent reason, seemingly dragged on forever. It was finally completed in about 2 hours and 45 minutes. Had it gone nine innings, it would have easily surpassed the 3-hour mark.

Most top-level high school softball games, in contrast, generally are completed in about 2 hours.

One prominent Harbor high school softball pitcher of about 15 years ago was notorious for staring at the ball so long between deliveries that spectators might have suspected she was falling into a trance. For the most part, however, high school pitchers are ready to pitch and batters are ready to hit without undue delay.

In other words, professional baseball could learn from softball in many pace-of-play areas. Borrowing the International Tiebreaker isn’t one of them.