West right: Baseball goes from leisurely pace to slow
So umpire Joe West recently complained about how long Red Sox-Yankees games take to play – “it’s pathetic and embarrassing,” he said – setting off a minor firestorm about baseball’s slow pace. Now, I’ll let you be the judge about Red Sox-Yankees games – there’s undoubtedly one on TV at this very moment – and let me be the judge about baseball’s slow pace.
The line at the post office is slow. Baseball is slower.
Granted, complaining that baseball is too slow is like complaining that Too Tall Jones is too tall. Part of the game’s appeal is its leisurely pace. But there’s a fine line between leisurely and languid, just like there’s a fine line between comatose and dead.
Defending his turf, Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon said last month, “Have you ever gone to watch a movie and thought, ‘Man, this movie is so good, I wish it would have never ended’? That’s like a Red Sox-Yankees game. Why would you want it to end? … If you don’t want to be there, don’t be there. Go home.”
Now, I’ll give Papelbon the benefit of the doubt here – after all, he’s a relief pitcher, not a customer relations specialist – but I wish he’d understand that a really long movie might run 21/2 hours while Red Sox-Yankees games routinely approach 21/2 days. I wish he’d understand there’s a difference between sitting in a movie theater and sitting in 42-degree weather.
Most of all, I wish he’d just wind up and deliver. Papelbon once had a ball called on him because he took too long to pitch. He wanders around the mound so much, I half-expect him to build a gazebo out there.
West said it succinctly and correctly: “They take too long to play.”
Frankly, I haven’t watched a baseball game on TV start to finish since the advent of the remote. I used to click away between innings, now I click away between pitches. I once watched the entirety of Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary during a single Jason Bay at-bat.
(Speaking of which, this reminds me of an NHL TV problem that it will not address: two intermissions. You cannot give viewers two 15-minute opportunities to wander away. Heck, Elvis could rise from the grave and be in concert for the first time in 33 years, and if his show has two intermissions, half the crowd would be at IHOP by the time The King came out for his third set.)
Hey, I like watching pitch after pitch fouled off as much as the next guy, but I cannot stand to watch strikes called balls. The strike zone is like the Bermuda Triangle: You hear a lot about it but nobody knows exactly where it is.
And how many precious seconds are lost to hitters messing around with their batting gloves? You know, I’ve never seen a surgeon ask for time, step away from the operating table and adjust his surgical gloves.
Then there are the endless mound confabs. In Game 4 of last year’s World Series, Yankees catcher Jorge Posada and pitcher CC Sabathia met at the mound eight times in one inning; I thought one of them was trying to refinance his second mortgage. Frankly, all mound meetings should be banned – unless you’re Crash Davis and need a live rooster to take the curse off Jose’s glove.
Here are several other ways to speed up the game:
• Limit Tony La Russa to two double-switches per series.
• Credit teams with an extra half-run if home run trot takes less than 15 seconds.
• In extra innings, the hitting team starts with a runner on second. If the game reaches the 12th inning, the defensive team has to take one player off the field.
• Just as football stole the format for replay challenge from Scrabble, baseball should steal something from poker – namely, you should be allowed to fold. Example: Bottom of the eighth, two out and weak-hitting catcher Lou Marson is up for the Indians against Mariano Rivera. The Indians don’t have to waste time or a pinch hitter; rather, they simply fold and concede the out. Score it as an unassisted putout for the catcher.
• Build a moat around the batter’s box.
• Stop playing album version of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during seventh-inning stretch.
• No more Red Sox-Yankees games.
Ask The Slouch
Q. When youth baseball and softball games are over, players line up and shake hands with the other team. In Major League Baseball, the winning team’s players line up and congratulate only themselves. What happened? (Dale Jarvis; Medina, Ohio)
A. When you’re a kid, it’s a “Field of Dreams.” When you grow up, it becomes “Wall Street.”
Q. When your ex-wives departed via free agency, were you awarded compensatory picks? (Mike Herbert; Annandale, Va.)
A. I’ve never sought compensatory picks – I prefer to build the next divorce from scratch.
Q. Where did you have Jimmy Clausen in your mock draft? (Don Parks; Oakland, Calif.)
A. Since 2007, I only do a WNBA mock draft.
Q.Now that the NCAA men’s basketball tournament is set to expand to a 68-team field, how long do you think it will be before the National Heads-Up Poker Championship follows suit?(Nick Herman; Mauldin, S.C.)
A. Pay the man, Shirley.