Baseball is shooting itself in the foot once again. The sport I used to love is losing fans, and part of the reason is the length of games.
Games are just way too long! When I was a kid in the 1970's, the average time it took to complete a nine inning game was two and a half hours. In the decade from 2000-2009, the average time had increased to 2 hours and 52 minutes!
There are a number of reason for this of course. One is due to increased commercial breaks in between innings. Back in the day, most games were not televised. They were just on radio, where the costs were far less, and sponsorships were less plentiful. Ever see all the old clips of games? Remember how many more advertisements there were in the stadiums than there are now? The outfield walls were littered with them. Now, most of those sponsorships are done in TV and radio ads.
There is more scoring in the game today. Fans love to see offense. Back in the 1960's and 70's, it was a pitchers era. It is a lot quicker to play a 2-1 game than it is a 12-9 game.
Also, baseball has given way to an era of specialization. The left handed pitcher who specializes in pitching to one left handed batter before being removed. Pinch hitters. The one inning closers. Middle men. Eighth inning relievers. Complete games for a starting pitcher are pretty much a thing of the past, and it isn't uncommon for a team to use five or six pitchers in a typical game.
All of these things contribute to the reasons, and I don't advocate doing anything to change this. What I am talking about are all the piddly on field delays that happen constantly in a typical baseball game.
Lets say there is a fairly typical situation of runners on first and third midway through aclose game. The pitcher steps on the mound and glares in for a sign, then shakes it off. Another sign and another shake off, then a third. Athis point the batter calls for time, steps out of the batters box and adjusts his gloves and helmet, rubs some dirt between his hands, then steps back in again. The pitcher then toes the rubber, but then steps off and looks the runner back to first, wipes his brow and steps on again. He shakes off anouther couple of signs, then steps off and fakes a throw to third. He glasres in again, and then the batter calls for time and steps out and looks down to his third base coach for signs. He steps back in and the pitcher stares in again....
All of this malarkey and not a single pitch has been thrown! A fan could have gone to the concession stands, bought a hot dog, peanuts and two beers, and made it back to his seat without missing anything!
As I laboriously produced a three hour and forty minute Red Wings game on Saturday night, I had time to read War and Peace, complete my Masters thesis and do my taxes. Some four hour plus Yankees-Red Sox games take longer to complete than some foreign wars between small countries. The US invasion of Grenada could have taken place, and the soldiers would be back in their barracks in time to catch the 9th and 9th innings.
It's no wonder that people who used to be huge baseball fans have left the sport for the greener pastures of the NFL or NBA or even the NHL. There is more consistent action over the three hours or so it takes to play those games than there is in baseball. In 1950, 56% of sports fans said that baseball was their favorite sport. In 2010, 58% said football was, and baseball had fallen down into the 20 percentile range. I'm convinced that these long games and all the on field delays are the main reason.
Any way you look at it, baseball needs to do SOMETHING about this problem, instead of turning a blind eye and not even admitting it is a problem.
If I were the commissioner of the sport, I would give umpires more power when it comes to timing the game. If a pitcher takes longer than ten or fifteen seconds to fire in a pitch to the batter, the umpire would have authority to just call a ball. No argument, no fussing, just bam, ball one! "Sorry pitch, you took too long!".
As for hitters, I would make a mandate that once a batter steps into the batters box, that's it, he's stuck there until he hits the ball somewhere, walks or strikes out. You get your damn batting gloves where you want them before the at bat. Get your helmet on straight, and get in there ready to hit.
While I'm at it, I would take away the rule that you get two visits to the mound before you have to take out a pitcher. Too many managers have perfected the art of using one of them to give his pitcher more time to get warmed up in the bullpen. You want to take a pitcher out, you get one chance, not two.
This would all reduce the "down time" in each game. The umpires would be in charge of keeping things moving. Hopefully it will trim a good 15 to 20 minutes off of a typical baseball game. This would also have to be implemented in all minor leagues as well, so all players would be prepared for it before they get to the majors.
Will this bring more fans back to the game? I'm not sure. Too much damage may have already been done. I know one thing for sure though. It couldn't possibly hurt.
