AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2007 > October > 28 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USPostseason baseball games too slow to keep interest
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Denver — I love postseason baseball — in theory. The reality is rather different. I don’t love nine-inning games that begin at 8:36 p.m. EDT and end 4 hours and 19 minutes later. Saturday night’s Game 3 had a lot of things to keep you interested — a big Red Sox surge, a big Colorado comeback, a clinching Boston countermove — but how many in the Eastern Time Zone (outside New England, that is) stayed up to watch?
The first World Series game I ever saw in person was Game 1 in 1972 at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium. The Oakland A’s beat the Reds 3-2. Gene Tenace hit home runs his first two times up. Vida Blue worked 2 1/3 innings in relief and earned the save. Jackie Robinson, who would die 10 days later, threw out the first ball. Time of that game: 2 hours and 18 minutes.
I ask myself: If I were 17 years old today, would I have the patience to watch — or, to use a more pejorative word, endure — postseason baseball? Would games that never run less than three hours and often run past midnight hold my interest the way the games did in my formative years?
My answer: No way.
USA Today ran a story last week on the glacial pace of October baseball, and it noted that, contrary to what many of us believe, the overlords of MLB and Fox TV don’t mind if games last until tomorrow. “Up to midnight with a close game,” consultant Neal Pilson was quoted as saying, “that makes network executives sleep well.”
Why? Because, according to USA Today, research indicates viewers often turn to baseball after watching prime-time shows, which end at 11 p.m. in the East. But let’s think about that: The target audience for baseball’s showcase event has become the audience that doesn’t really care much for baseball? Is that how far America’s former pastime has fallen?
Clearly the game has changed from the days of Gene Tenace and Vida Blue, to say nothing of Joe DiMaggio and Al Gionfriddo. The ability to take pitches has become, to many organizations, as great a skill as the ability to hit pitches. There were 339 pitches thrown in Game 3, and when you added all that to Fox’s 35-minute pregame show and its three-minute commercial breaks between half-innings, you wound up with the longest nine-inning game in World Series history.
And that’s too much for the casual viewer, too much for even the truly interested viewer. When the NFL saw its games running ever longer, it moved to have its 40-second clock start on the whistle that ends a play and to let the game clock restart after a player runs out of bounds (except in the last two minutes of the first half and the last five minutes of the second). The NFL, which has long been the gold standard for sports as a product, was smart enough to grasp that in a world where everything moves faster, it made no sense to go slower.
Baseball being baseball, it hasn’t gotten the memo. It hasn’t demanded that Fox start games earlier or cut pregame shows in half. It can’t do anything to keep batters from taking pitches, but it could do more to keep the games moving. It could preclude batters from stepping out and readjusting each article of clothing after every pitch. It could put pitchers on a pitch clock. (The idea has been floated in years past, but it needs to be more than floated now.)
The first World Series game I ever attended took 2 hours and 1 minute less than the one I witnessed here Saturday night. Think about that. I’ve been thinking about it all day, and I have to confess: If I hadn’t been getting paid, I wouldn’t have watched Game 3 to the end. Life’s too short. As Lenny Megliola of the Metro West Daily Post said when the official time of 4:19 was announced, “My first marriage didn’t last that long.”
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment | Categories: Braves / MLB, Mark Bradley
Comments
By Herschel Talker
October 28, 2007 7:14 PM | Link to this
Yes
By Wake Me When It's Over
October 28, 2007 8:03 PM | Link to this
As with all big businesses in this country today, those who manage baseball are totally out of touch with the general populace.
I’m a casual fan and I use to watch fairly regularly, but no more. Even the regular season games are crashing bores with the endless talk, constant commerical interruption, and reams of mind numbing stats and graphics.
MLB is not just chasing away it’s future fan base, it is not even getting their attention. It doesn’t need pitching clocks, rather, it needs to get back to basics.
PS - Same goes for NASCAR
By PlusSizeModel
October 28, 2007 9:35 PM | Link to this
Bobby Cox is a dim bulb who has been inexplicably permitted to coast on the merits of a hall of fame pitching staff even though they aren’t even together anymore.
By max sizemore
October 28, 2007 10:07 PM | Link to this
Doesn’t bother me. I watch everything on video tape and fast forward through the commercials and between most pitches. Been doing it this way for years. I even have a button on my VCR that will fast forward three minutes and then resume. It’s the only way to watch baseball.
By Old Fan
October 29, 2007 8:14 AM | Link to this
I like the VCR idea, unless I am at the park. One thing to speed it up: a wider strike zone. Efforts to produce more offense automatically lengthen the game. Widen the strike zone and fewer pitches will be taken. You’ll also see a return to more “small ball.” Baseball execs think everyone wants to watch a softball game with every pitch knocked a mile and scores that look like those in football. A wider strike zone will reduce the number of runs scored making each run more critical. But please, no clocks.
By Baseball Historian
October 29, 2007 5:50 PM | Link to this
In my research on baseball in the 1950s, the Sporting News commented frequently on the excessive length of the games. Games have gotten intolerably long and boring because too much time is void of any meaningful action. Most of baseball’s rules were set and codified in the 1880s and 1890s when the delaying circumstances of today were non existent. Surely, if a batter got out of the batter’s box to readjust every piece of clothing in 1890, the ruler makers would have addressed that issue in the off season.
Here are some suggestions to speed up the game: 1.Except for verifiable injuries, limit the number of pitching changes to 4 per nine innings and to two per inning. Who wants to watch pitching changes and warm-up throws?
2.limit the number of pickoff throws a pitcher can make to the bases to three per inning. There is nothing more boring than watching throw after throw to first base.
3.Once the batter gets in the box to bat, require him to stay in the box until he walks, makes an out, or a hit.
4.Insist that umpires call the strike zone from the top of the knees to the top of the chest.
Finally, I think baseball would be much more exciting if there were fewer home runs,walks, and strikeouts, and more doubles, triples, and stolen bases.
By Rob Thomas
October 29, 2007 6:02 PM | Link to this
It’s hard to take your criticism seriously when so many facts in your article are wrong.
A 35-minute Fox pre-game show? Fox’s pre-game show runs about 15 minutes. The rest of the time leading up to the game is filled by MLB with the first pitch, lineups and the national anthem. Three-minute commercial breaks? Try two minutes 25 seconds, a scant one commercial more per half inning than a regular season game.
If you want shorter games, remove the DH, eliminate multiple pitcher changes per inning and go back to un-juiced baseballs, which get scoring low.
By John Ramsey
October 29, 2007 11:21 PM | Link to this
Great article! I think MLB just does not care about the quality of the product it puts out in October. Attendance at regular season games is breaking records. TV has already paid its money. I guess baseball knows that it is never going to be THE big TV event that football is and will just happily accept the money that fans pay to see the game in person. It is sad that the biggest event in the baseball calendar will only matter to the fans of the teams playing in the game. Who else would suffer through these marathon affairs?