Baseball Is Dying

[brass_rat]

Originally Posted by Yoda

While I agree a pitcher's clock would undoubtedly speed games up, what gets me are some, not all, batters who when before they bat perform their own personal ritual, which includes but is not limited to:

My understanding is that with the most recent pitch clock rules being tested this year, batters must be in the box ready to hit with 9 seconds left on the clock.

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by brass_rat

My understanding is that with the most recent pitch clock rules being tested this year, batters must be in the box ready to hit with 9 seconds left on the clock.

What would speed things up would be to cut 5 minutes of commercials every half inning. All the other stuff aside, that is how you speed the game up. But you can't do that, because you absolutely have to have the commercials.

I have close to 300 old radio broadcasts of complete games from the 1934 All-Star Game (oldest known to exist) up to the 1960s, and 114 TV broadcasts of complete games from games 6 and 7 of the 1952 World Series (oldest known to exist) up to today. Almost all the radio broadcasts are about 2 hours 30 minutes, + or -, with nothing cut out or edited, for 9 innings. The TV broadcasts are the same, until you get up into the 1970s, and then they start getting longer and longer due to numerous commercials.

Tinkering with the fundamental rules of baseball is not making the game better, in my humble opinion here. I do not know anyone, young or old, who like any of the rule changes, from 4-finger intentional walks to starting extra innings with a man on 2nd.

The only way to get games back to 2 hours and a half is to cut the commercials. But when Aaron Judge has to have $360 million (or more), it's not gonna happen.

[Shoeless Moe]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxengxwzZ8o

[Shoeless Moe]

and.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BWigolLwYU

[Shoeless Moe]

and......


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onBHcQgHA4s

[Deertick]

Originally Posted by jingram058

What would speed things up would be to cut 5 minutes of commercials every half inning. All the other stuff aside, that is how you speed the game up. But you can't do that, because you absolutely have to have the commercials.

I have close to 300 old radio broadcasts of complete games from the 1934 All-Star Game (oldest known to exist) up to the 1960s, and 114 TV broadcasts of complete games from games 6 and 7 of the 1952 World Series (oldest known to exist) up to today. Almost all the radio broadcasts are about 2 hours 30 minutes, + or -, with nothing cut out or edited, for 9 innings. The TV broadcasts are the same, until you get up into the 1970s, and then they start getting longer and longer due to numerous commercials.

Tinkering with the fundamental rules of baseball is not making the game better, in my humble opinion here. I do not know anyone, young or old, who like any of the rule changes, from 4-finger intentional walks to starting extra innings with a man on 2nd.

The only way to get games back to 2 hours and a half is to cut the commercials. But when Aaron Judge has to have $360 million (or more), it's not gonna happen.

I think you have stated several times that commercials are the cause. Removing "5 min of commercials every half inning" would result in approximately -2 minutes of commercials.

Here is an interesting study that was done to analyze whether a 20 second pitch clock would speed up games:
https://sabr.org/journal/article/tim...of-long-games/

[Hankphenom]

More frequent pitching changes must have added a ton of time to the games from earlier decades. What does it take, maybe ten minutes, to get a new pitcher in the game, from the departing pitchers final pitch, manager's trip to the mound, in from the bullpen, warmup, etc.? I'd guess there are something like five more pitchers in the average game now compared to, say, 1960 or earlier?

[brass_rat]

That's an interesting article, Jim, thanks.

The conclusion that 20 seconds didn't help is the reason for decreasing the clock to 14 seconds bases empty and 17 seconds with men on.

While the time decrease may not be significant there, it does reduce the recovery time between pitches resulting in pitchers not using max effort on every pitch and pitching to contact more, resulting in shorter at-bats and more action.

If they'd get rid of batter walk-up music, they could shorten that 1 minute lag between batters -- further reducing recovery time and keeping some rhythm.

[Carter08]

This may have been covered already but I think legalized gambling only helps interest in baseball overall.

[D. Bergin]

Interesting article in regards to length of games...specifically playoff games.

https://www.theringer.com/2021/10/20...h-clock-needed