Posted on 05/01/2014 2:10:31 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
The Boston Red Sox spent last winter basking in the afterglow of their World Series victory. They also spent some of it pondering a couple of questions: Why do their games take so long? And what should Major League Baseball do about it?
At the request of commissioner Bud Selig, the perennially slow-paced Red Sox formed a committee of seven team executives to study the issue and recommend changes for the league as a whole. A volunteer corps of 30 front-office staffers spent over 350 hours combing through video of Boston's 2013 regular-season games, charting every little drag on the pace of play.
The Red Sox, whose games averaged an MLB-high 3 hours 15 minutes in 2013, are only about halfway done with the project. But the fact that such a committee even exists shows how little progress MLB has made in its attempts to speed up the game.
"This is one of the most critical issues facing baseball as we move forward into the next three, five, seven years," Red Sox chief operating officer Sam Kennedy said.
Selig has expressed concern about the pace of play for years. It has become almost cliché for fans to grumble about hitters stepping out of the batter's box, pitchers pacing around the mound andno, not another pitching change! But for all of the attention the issue has received, the speed of the game continues to reach new lows.
Entering Thursday, the average game time this season was 3:08, according to Stats LLC. Never mind comparisons to the days of flannel jerseys and black-and-white telecasts: That is 13 minutes longer than the average time in 2010.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I think the idea is to prevent the sport dying a slow death. I played baseball at a high level 30 years ago, and I will be honest, today’s game bores me to tears. You attend a MLB game today and the crowd resembles a nursing home. The diehard baseball fan today has a foot in the graveyard. It may be unfair, but it is true. The younger people do not like the sport as much as they did 30,40 years ago for a number of reasons. The pace of the game, the destruction of youth baseball by my generation with all the club teams and money involved in playing today, the lack of stars in today’s game. What I mean by stars is not just performance, but personality. Today’s player comes off as a personality lacking robot. It is not their fault, it is how they have been molded by today’s system. If any sport wants to survive in the future, it should always be thinking of ways to improve, not sitting on its tradition.
Except for 1st leg ties involving Jose Mourinho.
And he can't even do that.
Worst offender - Nomar Garciaparra.
Football these days is just as bad. They don’t even show replays anymore, just straight to commercial.
Cabrera got off to a slow start this season but he’s making adjustments and hitting more.
That's 'NOMAH!'
Dustin Pedroia in my opinion.
.
I love baseball (Let’s Go Mets!), but like you, I CAN’T STAND the Parade of 1000 Relievers.
I kind of like the pace of baseball. Done correctly, and especially in an important game, they can become positively Hitchcockian with suspense.
Regards,
PS: Oh, and get rid of the DH.
I love baseball. The older I get, the more I appreciate it.
NOTHING should be changed. NOTHING.
I don’t like and/or find many things boring. But I certainly don’t advocate changing those things.
Baseball is a beautiful sport. Leave it alone.
“You attend a MLB game today and the crowd resembles a nursing home.”
—
You’re kidding. Lots of young people at Fenway Park.
My sons and grandkids all love the game.
.
You always hear this from sportswriters. They aren’t paid by the hour.
Of course, real fans have been priced out and the stadiums are more like theme parks now. But, I was never in a hurry to go home. I didn’t care if I ever got back!
Bottom line - the longer the game, the more conce$$ion$ sold. And more commercials for the networks. So it ain’t gonna’ change anytime soon.
Because once in a blue moon a wild pitch is thrown. Also intentionally walking a batter sometimes gets into a pitchers head. I couldn't tell you the number of times I seen an intentional walk followed by an unintentional one.
I will confess, I stole the line from a host on ESPN radio. In regards to popularity, New England and other parts of the Northeast lead the US in their baseball fandom. True, people in the Northeast love talking about the Red Sox, Yankees, and Mets, but the rest of the country not so much. I suspect in the South people care more for SEC football than MLB. I do not say this with glee, I just observe reality. ESPN polled younger demographic on what they are fans of. The result was that the NFL topped the poll with no competition for the top spot, followed by the NBA and NCAA football in the next level. MLB was tied with the MLS in the third tier, and the NHL barely registered. It is a snapshot for the future, you ignore at your peril.
Exactly! Good to see at least one person "gets it". Baseball is a very exciting game, if one understands it.
MLB can get rid of this new challenge rule, however. If an umpire cannot get the calls right consistently, fire them. There is nothing exciting about watching three people "review" the play on a monitor on the sidelines.
+1
Baseball is to most sports what chess is to ping-pong. Baseball requires decisions based on experience and careful thought, not reflexive reaction to outside stimuli.
People - and not just Americans - have been conditioned by TV and computers to expect instantaneous resolution and satisfaction in whatever issue they are involved with at the time. That only happens on tv.
As a child I frequently hitch-hiked 30 miles to watch the local AAA baseball team play. Today I wouldn’t walk across the street to see a championship soccer match. I do not denigrate the skills of the soccer players because they have to be very good to do what they do, but soccer is not in my blood the way baseball is. When I was 19 years old I was approached by a scout for a major league team and invited to spring training camp. Three days later, Uncle Sam “invited” me to his training camp and by the time I finished my military career baseball was out of the question for me.
When that local AAA team finally played their last game on a field that has now been bought by a soccer team, I went down after the game and scraped some dirt from the catcher’s box and gave it to my wife. After I am cremated that dirt is to be mixed with my ashes before they are stored, scattered or tossed into a landfill.
When is Selig going to go? He's ruined baseball and he's been around way too long.
There's a big difference between slow games and long games, though. A high-scoring game will simply take longer to play, which is why the worst "offenders" in baseball for long games are usually American League teams with a lot of good hitters.
Hockey is a year's worth of excitement packed into three 20-minute periods.
Sure it would...it would just be baseball with rules you don’t like. But you’re right...it will never happen in a million years. Too many baseball fans like the low-scoring, dull game it is today. Or Pitchball as I like to call it, because pitchers are by far the most important players.
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