Quote:
Originally Posted by steve B
Speeding the game up is mostly about the complaints of people unfamiliar with the game - in other words potential new customers. Other sports are simpler to watch, with more "action" for example soccer where someone is running somewhere pretty much all he time. Same for Hockey and basketball. Football has more obvious activity than baseball, but with lots of brief breaks.
The interesting aspects of baseball are less obvious, and it takes a pretty good commentator to point them out. Jerry Remy does a good job of it as do some others. His book about how to watch baseball is a good read as well.
I think of it more as an effort to make the game match the modern lifestyle where everyone wants quick results handed to them, and can't /won't pay attention to anything that isn't consistently flashy.
Oddly, while tennis has lots of action I find it nearly unwatchable. (At least since Nastase retired) Golf is also painfully slow, and there isn't much call to speed that up.
Steve B
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I couldn't disagree more with this. Older fans grew up watching baseball games that never took longer than 2 and 1/2 hours. Game 6 of the 1935 World Series (no, I'm not that old!) which the Tigers won 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth took 1:58 to play. Today that game would have taken 3 hours at least. How can this be when the rules haven't changed? Pitching changes, commercials, batters constantly stepping out of the batters box, visits to the mound, etc. All these little strategy ploys that do nothing but delay the actual game.
There was once a time in baseball when the pitching coach didn't feel the need to visit the mound every time a pitcher walked a batter, and the game was better for it, not worse. The same thing happens at my son's high school games. If a coach or player can delay the game in an effort to help his team, he will. It doesn't mean it should be allowed. A hockey coach can't just call time in the middle of a period and walk out onto the ice to talk strategy with his goalie while 20,000 people are watching in the stands. Why should I have to watch a 60 year pitching coach waddle out to the mound for a 5 minute visit to talk strategy? Strategy should be discussed during natural breaks in a game.
Baseball games are practically unwatchable without doing something else at the same time - like reading War & Peace. GET ON WITH IT!!!