My latest column from the National Sports Journalism Center stemmed from me watching an excruciatingly dull Chicago-Boston game on Tuesday night. Still working on my goal to eliminate slow play in baseball in our lifetime.
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Tuesday, I came home around 9:30 (Central), and I noticed that Chicago and Boston were tied at 1-1. Since the White Sox, my team since the age of 5, are off to a decent start after last year’s 99-loss disaster, I have some renewed hope. Hey, that’s the beauty of baseball in April.
So I tuned in to see how they would do against the defending world champions. And I watched, and yawned, and watched and yawned, as the game crawled along at a maddening slow pace. Even White Sox announcers Ken Harrelson and Steve Stone took note.
“This game really is moving slow,” Harrelson said.
“That happens a lot with the Red Sox,” Stone said.
Finally, with the few fans and players suffering in the mid-30s weather (welcome to spring in Chicago), the game mercifully ended on a throwing error by shortstop Xander Boegarts, giving the White Sox a 2-1 victory. Perhaps Boegarts had enough of being out in the cold.
I looked at the clock and it was 10:43 p.m. That meant this 2-1 game in nine innings took three hours and 36 minutes to complete. Ridiculous. By the way, the first two runs were homers and the teams combined for only eight hits. So it wasn’t like there were any extended rallies.
Thus another entry in my “JUST PITCH THE BALL” campaign against slow pace in baseball. I believe these excessively long games are killing the sport, especially with the short attention spans of young viewers.
The Chicago-Boston game, though, struck me as particularly relevant in light of the recent comments from MLB commissioner Bud Selig and ESPN president John Skipper during a teleconference prior to opening day.
Here is the exchange:
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Q: David Samson has made a big deal the last few months about the speed of the game, and he’s telling Marlins players they must play the game more quickly and it’s a big concern for him as far as attendance. John, from a TV standpoint, does speed of the game still worry you, and Bud, is there anything more being done to speed the pace up?
Selig: Well, it’s the pace of the game. Speed sometimes is not always the right answer. I’ve read David’s remarks. I have been talking to all of our people, particularly Joe Torre and Tony La Russa and Peter Woodfork and everybody, and yes, I’ve talked to a lot of the umpires, and I’m confident that we’re moving in the right direction, and it’s important that we do continue to do that. Obviously it will depend on the type of game, number of pitching changes, everything else, but yes, that is a matter that I have been talking to a lot of people about.
Skipper: Not a significant concern for us. I agree with the commissioner’s characterization that pace is much more important than speed. I’ve been at an awful lot of very riveting three and a half hour games. It really is about the competition and what’s going on, and we’re confident that as demonstrated over a long tenure that baseball will make the right decisions for the game.
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Did Skipper really say, “Not a significant concern for us?” I wish Mr. Skipper would come to my house and observe my sports-obsessed teenage boys, who watch ESPN 24/7, and see how they squirm while trying to get through a tedious baseball game. They have checked out, and surely Skipper has data that shows other young fans have, too.
And it isn’t easy for me to stay tuned in, and I have been following baseball for nearly 50 years (very sobering to write that last line).
Maybe, it is because I can remember a 2-1 game taking 2:15, perhaps even less to be completed. And don’t give me pitch counts (there were a combined 22 strikeouts and 10 walks in the Chicago-Boston game). Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver and Ferguson Jenkins all had high strikeout totals, and still managed to complete games in timely fashion.
Skipper should be very concerned about the slow games. I’m sure Fox executives are too, given how World Series games routinely stretch into the four-hour neighborhood. Publically, Skipper may be saying one thing with Selig on a teleconference, but in private, I would be shocked if he isn’t telling the commissioner about the need to pick up the pace.
And if Skipper isn’t, then he is doing a disservice to fans who watch baseball on ESPN. Contrary to what he says, there are very few “riveting” games at 3:30.
I can assure Skipper that there was nothing riveting about a 2-1 game lasting deep into a cold night Tuesday in Chicago. Expect, of course, the final outcome to me since the right Sox won.
I’ve read that there’s a 15 second pitch clock in college baseball when the bases are empty and that it’s taken an average of 45 min off game time. The MLB rules are supposedly 12 seconds so why not a pitch clock? Also raise the mound and increase the strike zone to pre-1969 levels. Bats are for swinging!!!
Working quickly on the mound keeps the defensive players awake and on their toes. It makes for a better game. The hitters make way to many adjustments to their equipment, gloves, helmets, body armor. Did you see the Red Sox Johnny Gomes? How many times between pitches did he adjust his batting helmet?
I notice that breaks between innings seem longer this year. In the past few years, when I would DVR a game and an inning would end, I would press the 30 second forward button three times and that would take me to just when the batter was stepping in. This year, I am noticing that it takes over four forward button pushes, as sometimes a fifth.
Also, since there are more in inning pitching changes than ever, that’s another three minute break. And of course, ass replay to that, and that’s another at least five minutes every game, and maybe more.
And yes, it is aggravating to see a batter step out of the box and go all OCD on us between every pitch. I blame NoMAH for making that cool to it.
But if you really want to get right to it, the problem is too-small strike zones, which lead hitters to work counts, and pitchers who have becoming frankly too good at pitch movement, leading to excessive number of strikeouts. The MLB average … AVERAGE! … is over 8 per nine innings this year. In the early 80s, it was under five. Shit, man, before 2010, it was under seven. And 2010 was only four years ago!
Anyway, I have a quick solution to that part of the problem, three solutions, actually:
1) Call a higher strike. Make the hitter look to hit that pitch. he will take fewer pitches and put the ball into play more often.
2) Lower the seams on the ball. They’re already lower than they were a couple decades ago, but pitchers are still adept at make the ball dive. lower them even further, and make it easier for the hitter to make contact and put the ball into play.
3) Deaden the ball to reduce home runs. I know homers are down, but if you’re going to make the ball easier to hit, you need to also make it harder to hit out. Probably something in the neighborhood of a 5% reduction in liveliness should do it. That will make a 370′ homer into a 350′ out. Then players will try to hit more gap shot, puting the ball in play more, and making fielders make plays. because ultimately, that’s what fans want to see. More plays on the field, and fewer True Outcomes.
Do just these three things, and you could probably chop off close to half an hour per game.