Baseball Has Become an Exercise in Tedium

Baseball is the only sport that I watch regularly. One of the things I like about it is its measured pace, but in recent years it's gotten too measured. I don't mind it that much if I'm watching at home, where I am usually reading something at the same time, but it can get annoying at the stadium, when you're trying to figure out if the game will end before you have to leave to catch a train home.

I'm not the only person who finds the modern game too slow. Jack Todd of the Montreal Gazette published a spectacular rant about it last fall. Here's his description of a World Series game from 1957.

The game moved along, much as I remembered. Using my stopwatch, I had timed modern pitchers taking between 30 and 45 seconds to release the ball. But here was veteran lefty Warren Spahn delivering pitches to the Yankees at roughly 15-second intervals.

I had to time the top of the third inning four times on my stopwatch before I was certain the timing was correct: In that half-inning, Spahn went through a murderer’s row of Yankees (Tony Kubek, Hank Bauer and Mickey Mantle) in a grand total of one minute and 10 seconds. Spahn threw five pitches: two to get Kubek, one for Bauer, two for Mantle. All ground balls, three batters retired in less time than it takes some hitters today to adjust their batting gloves.

I'll try not to think about this too much when I'm watching games later this year.