Finally, no more “God Bless America.”

Earlier this month, when MLB commissioner Rob Manfred put the dagger in the game that he doesn’t like but I love, I tried to look at the bright side. He had already broken me with the hated universal designated hitter.

His latest act included sweeping rules changes that included a ban on defensive shifts, a pitch clock and a personal affront to Hawaii’s mythical father of baseball: larger bases.

Alexander Joy Cartwright is in the National Baseball Hall of Fame for his alleged role in pacing off 90 feet between bases. It is, as Red Smith wrote and I concur, “the closest man has ever come to perfection.”

Next year, that distance will change. After more than 150 years, it isn’t good enough. The millions of close plays at first — I am absolving you, Don Denkinger and Jim Joyce — aren’t the same. Cartwright would be rolling over in Nuuanu Cemetery if he hadn’t given up the game for the gold rush.

Cartwright died in 1892 and is buried beneath a mound of baseballs from well-wishers near and far. Honolulu’s fire chief and founder of the library might feel a little betrayed, his mortal soul sitting in a comfy chair in the great beyond enjoying seeing the game he loved turn into a business. He was, after all, one of Honolulu’s richest people and had no time for play.

In his youth, Cartwright and the Knickerbockers wanted to spend as much time on the field as possible. Now baseball people want it to end sooner so they can go home.

Theo Epstein trained Manfred into echoing the phrase “best version of baseball,” and I am all for it. Omar Moreno. Willie Wilson. Whiteyball. Rickey Freaking Henderson. But don’t change it.

I will love it much less next year when Seattle’s Julio Rodriguez steals 150 bags to obliterate Henderson’s record. Some Fox announcer will celebrate it (Give me a hug, big guy!) without mentioning that bases are 4.5 inches closer and there is a limit of two pickoff throws for the new king.

Like Rodney Yap in the now-defunct 180 low hurdles, Henderson is the stolen base champ no matter what happens. It’s a different game.

MLB executives say pace of play is everything. The average time of an MLB game is 3:04 this year after an all-time high of 3:10 last year and 2:55 a decade ago. I’m sorry for taking three hours out of your day, but some of us enjoy the break. You have already robbed us of the Rick Camp game (google it) ever happening again.

So people who don’t like baseball have marked three hours as too much. Unacceptable enough to change the rules. They have better things to do. They have to make youngsters who like action over thought give us their money.

Here’s a crazy idea: Tell television no, that you dictate the terms. The invincible NFL went with Amazon Prime, but the king eats what he wants.

But we are talking about baseball, a sport fans are so apathetic about that they yawned at rules changes. Whatever. I can still catch your act on local cable, Peacock, MLB.TV, the awful Apple TV+ and the even worse YouTube broadcasts. Instead of jumping into bed with anyone with a streaming service, how about treating your product like a commodity?

That would be radical in a world where you have an entire stadium sitting idly by waiting for a person with a red hat to wave a flag to resume giving your money’s worth, but so be it. The only thing worse than that is “God Bless America” during the seventh-inning stretch.

It used to be “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” that was the staple for the seventh inning of my game. And then “God Bless America” came along after 9/11.

A 2019 study by David Smith of the Society for American Baseball Research reported that the seventh-inning stretch took an average of 2:53 when only “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” was performed and that if only “God Bless America” was sung, it added 1:11 to idle time. According to MLB’s rules, there is no way we have to sit through another anthem, right? Don’t bet on it, just check out an umpire’s interpretation of today’s strike zone.

“Take Me Out To The Ball Game” is more appropriate to the occasion, was written 20 years earlier and shaves more than a minute off game times. Mr. Manfred has to take notice, right? Nope, the rules have been ignored forever and always will be unless they mean money.