MLB Players Strike Out

The news came down this past week that the Major League Baseball Players Association rejected all but one initiative proposed by management that were aimed to speed up the pace of play of baseball games for the upcoming season.  By turning a deaf ear to these proposals, the players have said that they don't care about games lasting well over three hours (four hours once you get to the post season).  They don't care that lengthy games with loads of dead time will continue to turn off younger people, people who are needed to replace old guys like me when we, you know, die. They really just care only about themselves, but, hey, I guess that that is no real news flash.

Oh, one proposal did get approved: A pitcher will no longer be required to throw four wide ones when intentionally walking a batter.  When such strategy is called for, the batter automatically be awarded first base.  As John Mehno put it in his column today, that ought to cut off at least two, maybe three, minutes from the length of the season.

So, baseball fans will continue to be treated to the following:

• Josh Harrison stepping out of the batter's box, tapping his spikes with his bat, and taking two practice cuts after every pitch.
• Antonio Bastardo and Felipe Rivera taking 40 or so seconds to deliver every pitch.  It's a fact.  I timed these two guys at a late season game I attended last year.
• Just about every batter in MLB stepping out and adjusting his batting gloves after every pitch.
• Watch a manager take a slow walk to the mound, conferring with his infielders, catcher, and pitcher, wave in a left handed reliever, watching that reliever take a slow walk to the mound, take eight warm-up pitches (after he has been warming up for ten minutes in the bullpen; a relief pitcher should get one warm up pitch, two at the max, when he comes in just to get the feel of the mound), see that pitcher face the single left handed batter he was brought in to face, then watch that same manager do the same thing all over again when he removes that lefty relief specialist and brings in a right hander.   That is a LOT of time expended to face one single batter in a game.  It's why a lot of people bring books to the ball park, if they even come at all.
• And let's not even begin to talk about the time spent in replay reviews.

Before the Purists start screaming the usual "you can't put a clock on baseball" b.s., no one is saying that baseball should be anything less than a nine inning, twenty-seven out contest.  And there is a distinct difference between the "length" of a baseball game, and the "pace" of a baseball game.   Having a batter stay in the batter's box or having a pitcher deliver a pitch within a prescribed time limit is NOT putting clock on the game.  A three hour game played at a brisk pace is a lot different from a three hour game spent watching Josh Harrison tap his cleats time and again, and watching Clint Hurdle and Joe Maddon doing the continual dance with pitching changes described above.

Of course, the biggest culprit for these lengthy games are the interminable commercial breaks, especially during national telecasts and post season games.  That, however, is where the money comes from so it's not going to go away, so it behooves baseball and its players to figure out other ways to solve the problem.  Management seems willing to try.  The players, not so much.

Oh, and one other thing.  Post-season games and the World Series, the showcase events and the most important games of the season, will continue to end well after midnight in vast swatches of the country, and, as a result, will not be seen by millions of people. If that is not a concern to baseball and its players, it should be.

Some Baseball Thoughts...and One Football Thought

Spring Training camps have opened across Florida and Arizona this past week, so how about a couple of baseball thoughts and a cold and very snowy Pittsburgh morning?

Major League Baseball is very much in the news today because of procedures that will be implemented this season aimed at increasing the pace of play, which will eliminate some dead time in the course of a game, and, perhaps, shorten the average length of time it takes to play a major league game these days.  Personally, I am all for these changes, but, predictably, people who just want to take shots at whomever a sport's commissioner happens to be at any given time, and so-called Baseball Purists, are outraged.

"Baseball is the only game without a time clock.  You just can't DO this.",  seems to be a common response.

First of all, no one is suggesting this:

Baseball is still a nine inning game.  A team will still have to record 27 outs to win a ballgame.  No one is proposing four fifteen minute quarters or three thirty minute periods for baseball.  Strictly enforcing the time between innings, requiring that a pitch be delivered in a certain amount of time, and, most importantly, not allowing the batter to step out of the box after every pitch to readjust their batting gloves and protective cups, and eliminating the slow stroll by a manager while his bench coach decides if a replay challenge should be requested....these measures ARE NOT PUTTING A TIME CLOCK IN BASEBALL.

Will these measure reduce a 3 hour and twenty minute game to 2 hours and forty minutes?  Not likely, but even a three hour plus game will not SEEM that long, if there is not so much interminable dead time in game.

********

In an move that is also no doubt related to the length of time it takes to play a ball game, the Cleveland Indians have announced that their home night games (not sure if it is all night games or just the Monday through Thursday games) this season will start at 6:10 PM, instead of 7:05.  In a town where the ball park is located in the downtown business district, this will be an interesting experiment.

Recalling the days when I was working, I can say for sure that I would have stayed in town after the work day ended at 5:00 and walked across the Clemente Bridge for a 6:00 game a lot more times than I ever left work, drove back home, changed clothes, and drove back into town for a ball game.

Plus, these games will end, give or take, sometime between 9:00 and 9:30, which is a big difference than between 10:00 and 10:30 to someone whose alarm will be going off at 5:30 the next morning.

I am guessing that a lot of teams, including the Pirates, will be paying attention to this experiment in Cleveland throughput this season.

********

And now to football....

Speaking of Cleveland, is there a more dysfunctional franchise in all of professional sports than the Cleveland Browns?

Just this week, GM Larry Farmer, when he was not fessing up to illegally texting his coaching staff during games, announced that the Browns will strongly consider drafting a quarterback early, if not in the first round, of the upcoming draft. The is coming on the heels of the fiasco that was the Johnny Manziel experiment this past season, and on the heels of the news that QB Brian Hoyer, who has had a winning record as the Browns' QB, by the way, will not be re-signed by the team.  ( It should be noted that in the sixteen seasons since the Browns rejoined the NFL, they have started twenty-two [22!] different guys at QB.)

All of this is overseen by owner Jimmy Haslim, who was, briefly, a minority owner of the Steelers.  Neutral observers always will tell you that the Steelers are one of the NFL's model franchises in the operation of their team.  Either Haslim never hung around the office to see how things were done, or he wasn't paying attention when he was there, during his time with the Steelers.  He appears to be cut from the Dan Snyder Cloth, just another rich guy with a shiny toy who gets to hang out with real football players.

Too bad for the loyal fans in Cleveland.