Lemme take you back right quick. So it’s September 8, 1998 and I’m in the back of my dad’s Nissan Pathfinder listening to KMOX because we were leaving my grandma’s house. If that day and radio station sounds familiar, it was the day that Mark McGwire broke the single season HR record at Busch Stadium #2.
Lemme take you back another date, October 5, 2001. On this day, my dad, brother and I were sitting in a Lee’s Chicken parking lot, this time, in a Yukon XL. Can’t remember the exact radio station but all I remember is the radio announcer saying that Barry Bonds knocked his 71st and 72nd HRs, breaking the single season HR record set by McGwire.
One more trip down memory lane. October 27, 2011, the single most stressful sports day of my life. This time I’m a little bit older, sitting on a beanbag chair in my North Pole, Alaska apartment nervous as all hell with my Cardinals down in the World Series 3 games to 2. All I remember is stress tweeting and seeing David Freese be his greatest. I love that man.
I love baseball. I’ve loved baseball most of my life and with most things loved things, you can acknowledge their flaws while still having a deep infatuation for them. Although baseball has given me so much enjoyment and heartache, I keep coming back like I’m that nappy headed kid at my grandma’s house watching games on channel 11.
Baseball used to be a lot of other people’s favorite sport as well. Let’s take ESPN l, for example. Back in the day, the nightly schedule was Sportscenter and Baseball Tonight. That’s it. No NBA or NFL Countdowns outside of major events. Baseball Tonight would even come on multiple times in a night. You’d get the early primetime web gems, aka the top defensive plays of the night, and you would have the web gems from the west coast games. Double dosages of glovework. That’s the way the sports nights ended.
Now, the roles have basically been reversed in relation to other sports. Almost any time you check ESPN, there’s a football or basketball emphasized show or a regular show that’s talking about them. In fact, it feels more likely that you’ll see more commentary about off-season NBA or NFL transactions than you’ll see about live MLB highlights. It’s absolutely different.
So I’ve been thinking, what has changed to where baseball is on the back burner? I’ve even had arguments with my dad, who’s also a baseball fan but a Cubs fan so it low-key doesn’t count (GO CARDS!) about the plight baseball has fallen into because he’s confused as well. Whenever we do have our convos, I usually point out the changing nature of society. Baseball is a methodical game in a non-methodical world. Everything is more fast-paced and with more things to have interest in (streaming sites, niche sports such as e-sports, etc.).
Baseball has made strides but hasn’t done much to make itself less time-consuming either. There has been the implementation of a “pitch clock” similar to the NBA and College Basketball shot clock and timer between innings to speed up the time. Even the players seem out of it. MLB games don’t look like much fun during play most of the time. MLB players have the same enthusiasm you have going to an office function. Yeah you might find the one or two co-workers you like and have a good time but for the most part, you don’t want to be there and they know it. It’s mandatory fun. Fuck mandatory fun.
There are plenty of people that are going to bring up many different options as to what will make MLB popular again. Some have said “magic at-bats” where a team could use to get a player a chance to hit when the game is on the line. Others, like MLB have tried to add “pace of play” rules to speed up the game. That’s cool and all but long games are not necessarily the problem. NFL games last about the same as MLB games on average but NFL has only grown in popularity as MLB has declined.
Something that the NFL has, along with the NBA and NHL has something that MLB might look to add, a game clock. Yes, there is overtime in all of those sports but game clocks bring a level of finality that MLB is looking to strive with its pace of play rules. MLB wants to get the average time of games down but what better way to do that than to add a time limit to the games themselves? If you want the games to be 2 hours, make the time length of the game 2 hours. Don’t worry about how many innings you need to have a full game.
My proposed idea goes like this:
- 120 minute time limit
- No more than three fouled off pitches per AB (4th foul counts as a strikeout)
- No game clock for playoff games as they are more exciting and have better ratings
- In the event of a tie, either it could be counted as a tie, one inning per team will be played or a HR derby of sorts will settle the game (MLB choice)
- Possible pitch clock given to pitches similar to a shot clock, to which I am wholeheartedly & vehemently against
Futbol games are roughly 100 minutes if you count stoppage times. MLB could adopt having a game clock to bring game time finality expectancy, if you will, so people can have a legit rough estimate of how much time they will invest into a game. I can’t quantifiably say if the pace will quicken with the new game clock but the games may be played with more of an accelerated pace than it usually does.
So for pros, I think the new game clock can, at least, get the games under 2 and a half hours. It seemed that the commissioner wanted to get the game under that specific time so this would be a step in the right direction for that. For day games in warm places, this would help with having people out there all day weathering the heat. This may also help save arms from going long innings. With the limiting of time, pitchers may not have to pitch 6 or 7 innings (even though the trend of “ironman” pitchers have seemed to diminish).
A con for having a game clock and the rules I’ve listed is the lack of long at-bats. I love seeing batters and pitchers duel in 10+ pitch at-bats. I don’t care if the at-bat ends with can of corn pop out, I love watching a pitcher and catcher try to fatigue a batter out. There’s so much drama with long ABs because you never know when they’re going to end and what the outcome will be.
Overall, my aim for this was to ask a question and start a conversation about my favorite sport. Again, I have no clue if the game clock implementation or these rule changes will help or make the game more watchable on TV (stadium viewing is always the best tbh) but I think this is a start. There’s more pros and cons but I felt like this blurb has been long enough. If the game clock implementation were to take place, I do think an interest would be sparked among past, present and maybe future fans.
