From today's TIMES and NEWS-STAR
“Buy me some
peanuts and Cracker Jack,
“I don’t care if
I never get back…”
I
do. I do care if I never/ever get back.
I
need the baseball game to be over, eventually. I’ll need to go to sleep or to
work or to the store. Something.
But
baseball is making it hard on people who don’t have anything to do but watch
baseball, and even those people have to go buy a stamp or to the ATM sometime,
surely.
I
bring this up because if baseball, unchecked, keeps getting longer, then
eventually our grandchildren are going to see the Fall Classic being played in
March, which is when spring training starts. There won’t be an off-season
because there won’t be time for it. Do you want your husband involved in a
baseball fantasy league every day of the year? Do you want people asking you
for a Padres score in January?
I
think not.
October
baseball began this week. Along with air conditioning, plumbing, cable
television, the wedge, the inclined plane and possibly Dolly Parton, October
baseball is one of man’s greatest inventions. But even it is being marred by
the length of time it takes to play a simple nine-inning contest.
In
the early ’60s, the time of the average major league baseball game was 2 hours
and 25 minutes. Today, the average length of the very same game is about two
minutes short of 3 hours.
Part
of it is advertising and part of it is an increased number of pitching changes.
But the main reason games are longer is because the pitcher and batters are, in
general, treating each pitch and swing as if the history of civilization as we
know it hinged on the outcome.
Every
…
single
…
pitch…
and
…
swing
…
There
are other things wrong with the game, sure. Nobody will pull their pants up
high enough to show socks anymore; (every rookie needs to see a picture of Lou
Brock around 1969 and be made to wear his uni like that. Man could wear a
uniform like Pavarotti could hit a high C.)
Plus,
concessions rival the cost of tuition, and people singing “Take Me Out to the
Ballgame” during seventh inning stretches are, generally, already physically at
the game so…does that make sense? (You do the math.)
But
none of that slows down Today’s Game. What does is the pitcher pretending to do
calculus in his head before delivering each one of the 80-to-110 pitches he’ll
throw during the game. Meanwhile, the batter takes more time adjusting his
gloves and digging in – after most every pitch – than most people take to buy
an automobile.
Throw
the ball already! Stay in the box! You guys aren’t teaming up to perform a
liver transplant. It’s a simple at-bat.
In
the corner I keep an old television, and often I have discs in there of
baseball games from years ago, decades ago, playing with no sound. I just look
over and feel comforted. Recently I saw Mickey Mantle of the Yankees come to
the plate against Vern Law of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Vern Law got rid of the
ball like it was on fire, and Mantle never left the batter’s box. It was a
beautiful thing.
And
this was during the seventh and deciding game of the 1960 World Series.
The
whole game was like that. It would have taken a pry bar to get Yogi Berra out
of the box.
So
it can be done. There are even rules in place governing pace of play, but
baseball does a poor, poor job of enforcing them. (By “poor job” I mean they don’t
enforce them at all.) Instead, almost every pitcher and batter are allowed to constantly
get ready for their “Sunset Boulevard” moment, their “close up,” another sad
example of how ESPN has changed the world.
October
Baseball is here, and I can’t wait…so throw the ball!
-30-
