Delay of Game

Baseball games take too long. Statistics show the games are longer now than they were at any time in its long history. The eye test, no the butt test is saying that games are just taking too damn long. And it’s not because hitters are hitting more and more runs are being scored. They are not. There are just too many pitchers taking too damn long between pitches. Too many pitchers throwing too damn many balls and not enough strikes. Something has got to be done about the games taking too long or people are going to stop going to baseball and instead will abandon the sport for something else.

One of the reasons baseball has held its fan base as long as it has is because there is no competition against it for much of the sports year. This is unlike hockey, basketball and either pro or college football, which have to compete against each other for large parts of the sports season, and yet are still doing very well fan wise. Do you think if baseball went its entire season with either football or hoops going directly against it that it would maintain its large fan numbers? I think it is getting its numbers largely because of its tradition, yeah, but also mainly because of their “time slot” of a summer without competition.

And for that matter, how many people are AT the game, but instead of watching it, they are “thumb pistoning” text messages to some friend in a far off place. As if they would rather be elsewhere rather than at the game. Ballparks are having to install wi-fi reception at their parks because of the demand fans have to want, to need internet reception to alleviate their boredom. Do you think people are texting during overtime of a Stanley Cup hockey playoff game? They are texting and checking on emails and looking up worthless trivia and nothing news at baseball games because basically there is nothing going on. Most of the time spent at a baseball game is either a pitcher getting ready to pitch, or a pitcher throwing a pitch that does not result in a batter making contact and hitting it anywhere. What can be done about this to at least knock some minutes off the total time of the average baseball game?

Here are a few ideas. The problem with baseball can be traced to its lax attitude toward the wasting of time. In baseball, there is no penalty for delay of game. If you delay the game in football, you get a five yard penalty. If you delay the game in hockey, you get a two minute penalty and your team is one man short for enough time to maybe give up a goal and really hurt the team. In basketball, you get one warning for delay of game, and then you get called for a technical foul which would give the opposing team a “free” free throw. In games that are often settled by a single point, that one point for the technical could be very costly. Needless to say, there is very little wasting of time in basketball and hockey.

Baseball, however, seems to reward players that waste time. Sometimes it’s batters that seem to waste a quarter to a half minute between each pitch, spitting, groping themselves, kicking dirt, adjusting their stance, sometimes stepping back out of the box and doing it all over again, as they nervously get ready to face one of many pitches that they might face at that at bat. And then there are the pitchers, who often themselves spend their own quarter to half a minute between each pitch, kicking dirt, tugging their cap, licking their fingers, sometimes re-gathering themselves and doing it all over again, as they look in at the catcher to gather their signs, before they finally deliver their pitch. And that’s when there’s nobody on base. Just one at bat could conceivably take up to five minutes. For ONE batter. No wonder there’s widespread texting and web surfing going on at ball games.

Then, when somebody’s on base, you see it slow down even more. Pitchers step off the mound to fake out a runner on first, they make throws over to first to keep the runner close, they call time out and meet up with the catcher to go over the signs. They step toward second and fake a throw there to try to slow down a runner on the base paths. And heaven help the fan in the stands waiting for some action when the bases are loaded with all of the time-wasting things pitchers do. All of this, of course, is between pitches. It does not include the pitcher throwing a pitch towards home plate.

When they finally pitch to the plate, the sport has half a chance for some action. When it’s a strike, it’s even better, cause then a batter might swing. When someone hits the ball, puts it in play, the game is at its best. Shortstops make dazzling plays in the hole. Outfielders make diving circus catches. Batters hit the ball into the gap, start racing around the bases, and fun things start to happen. I guarantee you that the most memorable plays in baseball history have included the act of a pitcher throwing a strike (not a ball), a batter hitting the ball (not taking the pitch), and something exciting happening on the base paths, in the field or up against or over the fence. This is all as a result of an action pitch with a hitter putting his bat on the ball.

So, here’s some of my suggestions. Have the umpires make the pitcher make a pitch in a reasonable amount of time. If he takes too long, he gets a warning for the first time. If he takes too long a second time, give the umpire the power to call an automatic “ball” much like they can now do when the pitcher goes to his mouth and lathers up the ball like a spitball. Enough times having an extra ball called would deter time wasting and could speed up the game immeasurably. Also, give the same type of penalty to a batter that is wasting time. Someone takes too much time getting in the box, call an automatic strike on that batter the same way you’d call an automatic ball on a pitcher. People are not paying a batter to NOT be in the box and ready to hit. They want to see action.

The other thing that could speed up a game is to correct the pitcher’s “bad” behavior while there are runners on base. Here’s how to fix some of that. A pitcher should no longer be able to “fake” a throw to rattle a base runner. If You make any kind of motion to influence a runner on a base, be it a sudden stepping off of the rubber or a fake throw, you must throw over to that base, otherwise it’s a balk. That would stop a whole lot of wasted fakes and wasted time. Minutes could get shaved.

If each pitch could be delivered to the plate an average of four seconds earlier per pitch thrown than they do now, over fifteen minutes of excessive, wasted game time could be saved. Two seconds earlier for the batter to be ready and two seconds earlier for the delivery of the pitch could really make a difference. In other words, baseball needs to encourage faster games and deter time wasting. It needs to penalize delay of game the same way other sports do.

Just like when the commissioner and the powers that be in baseball allowed the steroid era to take place under their nose and then later tried to act like they were against it, they are doing the same thing with regards to ignoring the time wasting aspects of baseball. Baseball has got to start making it a penalty to excessively waste time in baseball games. They are wasting YOUR time when they do it. If baseball keeps allowing the games to be longer and longer, one day the people who attend these games will realize that they don’t have to drive these long distances to sit somewhere and text all their friends. They can go to the nearby Starbucks and do it there instead.