If nothing else it would provide comic relief for a sometimes boring game. Especially when some poor slob is the first to run the wrong way.

To make it even more interesting, the coin toss would concern each batter as he came up. That way, some runners would move clockwise, some counterclockwise so that the comedy would be continuous, confusing and keep everybody wide awake.

Excellent ideas. When I grew up, we kids played baseball frequently, frisbee tag, touch football, golfing with wuffle balls, ... If a new game was known, we would try it. I've created a Yahoo Group site to capture these ideas and maybe solicit the general public to contribute as well. The intent is to possibly have these ideas spawn into actual activities.
Baseball_Workgroup

It's fine to come up with ways to improve a game, but this one would change the game so completely that it would be almost like a totally different game. All the players would have to be retrained to deal with the necessary changes in strategy. There's no way anybody in the industry would support this.

Figure 8 base paths could make for some hilarious runner crashes. Make them wear horse blinders. Not serious, of course, I happen to like baseball as is, but it's a funny thought.