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Comment by codva | Hacker News Reader

A well played 1-0 baseball game that takes 2 hours to complete is an absolute joy to watch. A 1-0 game that lasts 3:30, not so much.

It's not the score or HRs or or the hits, it is the length of the game that is ruining baseball. Get the games back to 2 - 2.5 hours and it will be fine.

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I think pitcher pace is one area that the umps could enforce better. When you get a guy like Mark Buehrle pitching (avg 16 seconds between pitches) the games going to go a lot faster than somebody that averages 25 seconds between pitches.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/pitcher-pace-time-between-pit...

Is there an actual rule on how much time a pitcher can take? I'm not aware of such a rule, but I think it should exist.

Heres the rule that defines how much time the pitcher has to throw the pitch.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/official_rules/pitcher_...

8.04 When the bases are unoccupied, the pitcher shall deliver the ball to the batter within 12 seconds after he receives the ball. Each time the pitcher delays the game by violating this rule, the umpire shall call Ball. The 12-second timing starts when the pitcher is in possession of the ball and the batter is in the box, alert to the pitcher. The timing stops when the pitcher releases the ball. The intent of this rule is to avoid unnecessary delays. The umpire shall insist that the catcher return the ball promptly to the pitcher, and that the pitcher take his position on the rubber promptly. Obvious delay by the pitcher should instantly be penalized by the umpire.

you hit the nail on the head. watching a baseball game is like poking your eye with an icepick. there are too many breaks, too many commercials; thus too slow of a pace. they need to pick it up so that a game is shorter and the action is constant. viewers don't have that long of an attention.

We are framing it as a show but what about people who actually play baseball for the sake of playing a game ?

Major League Baseball is a business, nobody is playing it purely for the sake of playing a game.

What about them? What exactly are you trying to say?

Changing baseball rules because there are too many breaks and the viewer is likely to find it boring is an acceptable position to hold when you are in the "business".

But people actually playing the game and enjoying it (those that aren't on a TV screen) don't need this problem to be solved because they simply don't have it. So "their" game rules are being changed for the sake of baseball seen as an entertainment show, not for the sake of people actually playing it because they like playing the game more than watching it.

How is that a problem? Who "playing the game for enjoyment" is picking up every rule change from MLB? Who "playing for enjoyment" has strike cameras set up at their field?

I am answering to that comment, not the specifics in the article:

> watching a baseball game is like poking your eye with an icepick. there are too many breaks, too many commercials; thus too slow of a pace. they need to pick it up so that a game is shorter and the action is constant. viewers don't have that long of an attention.

I'd say the same about any sport for which rule modifications only benefit TV viewers or people with financial incentives.

When designing the rules for a spectator sport I think it makes sense to pay more attention to the experience of millions of viewers than to the dozens of players in a given game.

A classic take on the situation can be found at http://www.npr.org/2011/03/30/134960461/its-time-for-basebal...

From a related article:

"According to MLB.com, the average time for a nine inning game in the 1970s was around two hours and 30 minutes."

"In 2010, games lasted on average about two hours and 55 minutes, according to Baseball Prospectus. The average game has increased steadily in length every season since, and contests in 2014 have averaged about 3:08."

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/07/baseball-games-length-pitche...

And lots more delays here:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1271178-major-league-base...

Same situation with cricket in the UK. The newish 20/20 cricket is an evening's entertainment. Normal cricket can take all damn day.

Or even five days.

That's more a case of changed expectations due to shifts in demographics. Cricket used to be a sport for upper and middle-upper classes: people with a lot of spare time for whom filling whole days (or weeks) was actually a very attractive proposition. Now it's a spectator sport for masses of TV viewers who work for a living and only have a few hours of free time every day.

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