Article Proposing Shortening The Baseball Season

[Mitchell]

Did anyone happen to see the article that proposed the major league baseball season should be shortened to 24 games, or 102 games? I was just surfing the net, and I saw this proposed.

24 games is ridiculous. 102 games would be too short as well, but there are times I think it might not be a bad idea to maybe, shorten the season to perhaps the 144 games they had in the strike season of 1995, or the 154 games it used to be in the pre expansion days, especially with three rounds of playoffs. With a 144 game schedule, the regular season would end in mid September, and the World Series would conclude in mid October, which would avoid having night games in places like Yankee Stadium in November. A 154 game schedule would have the World Series end when it used to before the advent of the division series format, which was usually no later than say, October 27.

Thoughts on this? Is the regular 162 game season too long? If so, should it be shortened, and if your opinion is yes, what should the number of games played in the regular season be?

Mitch

 

[milagros317]

Yes, a 162 game season, putting the World Series into November in some years, is too long. But the owners, eager for revenue, are very unlikely to agree to shorten the season, so it's not going to happen.

Some year the World Series is going be something like Twins versus Cubs, with snow on the ground in both cities.

 

[Mitchell]

Mils, I agree with you on both counts, and, with the Twins new outdoor stadium, and being contenders most years, a World Series in Minnesota could well happen.

I also agree that the owners likely won't agree to shorten the regular season. Ticket prices and stadium revenues are too high for each game, and the owners are too greedy, and have too much to lose, if say, eight to eighteen games each year was taken off the regular season schedule.

Mitch

 

[mass1926]

The season is fine the way it is. I don't think that needs to be changed. I think there needs to be something done to shorten the length of games. Something along the lines of number of pitching changes per inning should be reduced to 2 maximum. Nothing is more RIDICULOUS about the game than these "left handed specialists" that come in, throw 3 pitches, then get taken out. It's bad for the game, it's frustrating for the fans, and probably aggravating to the players that just want the damn game to end.

I also think that during the regular season there should be an "extra innings rule" where if after the 13th inning with no team comes out on top, the game is suspended and made up at the end of the season ONLY IF NECESSARY to determine a playoff spot. Nobody, including the players, wanna witness mutiple 15 inning game in the month of July when there's still 60 games left to play. That's too much on cathers, pitchers, the health of the players who need to travel or get adequate rest before the next game, and it's just boring for a game to go that long.

My only other suggestion would be that after the 11th inning if no team wins, they start out each upcoming inning with a runner on first base to start the inning. College football sped things up with the short-field overtime, so this is not a terrible idea I don't think. They player on first does not get credit with a hit or "on base percentage points" and the pitcher does not get charged with an earned run for that runner. He is simply serving the purpose of the "go-ahead" run for the team at-bat. Let me know your thoughts.

 

[ticklingfeet4fu]

Did anyone happen to see the article that proposed the major league baseball season should be shortened to 24 games, or 102 games? I was just surfing the net, and I saw this proposed.

24 games is ridiculous. 102 games would be too short as well, but there are times I think it might not be a bad idea to maybe, shorten the season to perhaps the 144 games they had in the strike season of 1995, or the 154 games it used to be in the pre expansion days, especially with three rounds of playoffs. With a 144 game schedule, the regular season would end in mid September, and the World Series would conclude in mid October, which would avoid having night games in places like Yankee Stadium in November. A 154 game schedule would have the World Series end when it used to before the advent of the division series format, which was usually no later than say, October 27.

Thoughts on this? Is the regular 162 game season too long? If so, should it be shortened, and if your opinion is yes, what should the number of games played in the regular season be?

Mitch

Once upon a time they played 162 games and the World Series ended on the 20th of October. Heck, when the Mets won in 1986 it ended on October 27th because of a rain out. Fact is...they screw with these series. If there is a four game sweep in the NLCS and ALCS...why do we have to wait a week before we start the World Series?

Let's look back in history...when they first introduced LCS in 1969 the Mets won the World Series on October 16th. Now we have added a max of 7 more games to the post season. ( Five for the LDS and two more games for LCS. ) That should take no more than 11 days which puts you at October 27th. Oh and by the way that was 162 game season. So why are we playing November baseball? Because of our $18,000,000 piece of sh*t Commissioner Bud Selig.

Here is a man who find his ass with both hands and he has completely destroyed this game. And for that he is rewarded $18,000,000 a season. Pay me $100,000 and I will straighten this mess that Bud Selig made. Absolute JERK!!!

 

[ticklingfeet4fu]

The season is fine the way it is. I don't think that needs to be changed. I think there needs to be something done to shorten the length of games. Something along the lines of number of pitching changes per inning should be reduced to 2 maximum. Nothing is more RIDICULOUS about the game than these "left handed specialists" that come in, throw 3 pitches, then get taken out. It's bad for the game, it's frustrating for the fans, and probably aggravating to the players that just want the damn game to end.

I also think that during the regular season there should be an "extra innings rule" where if after the 13th inning with no team comes out on top, the game is suspended and made up at the end of the season ONLY IF NECESSARY to determine a playoff spot. Nobody, including the players, wanna witness mutiple 15 inning game in the month of July when there's still 60 games left to play. That's too much on cathers, pitchers, the health of the players who need to travel or get adequate rest before the next game, and it's just boring for a game to go that long.

My only other suggestion would be that after the 11th inning if no team wins, they start out each upcoming inning with a runner on first base to start the inning. College football sped things up with the short-field overtime, so this is not a terrible idea I don't think. They player on first does not get credit with a hit or "on base percentage points" and the pitcher does not get charged with an earned run for that runner. He is simply serving the purpose of the "go-ahead" run for the team at-bat. Let me know your thoughts.

NO NO NO!!! I hate the way College Football plays overtime. You know once upon a time they played a 26 inning game in 4 hours. But games are long because of specialities ( like you said ) and because guys like Derek Jeter who take a pitch and then steps out of the box and take 20 minutes to get back in the box. It's not just Jeter either. Once in the box...stay in the box. Get out of the box strike one.

Pitchers...are called for a ball if they take more than 15 seconds to pitch a ball when nobody is on base. So do the same to the batters. Only reason to step out of the batters box is if you broke your bat. That should be the ONLY reason. You shouldn't have to adjust your helmet and your gloves and your shoes to take a pitch.

Also you can speed the game up if umpires called more strikes. The strike zone by the book is from the letters to the tops of a batters knees. If they called more strikes then the games would move faster.

Plus the stupidity of that idea of just putting a runner on first base is this...why should a pitcher get a loss for a runner scoring that he didn't even put on base? Also...why favor offense?

Here is what baseball has done to screw pitchers since 1968:

Lowered the mound from 15 inches to 10 inches.
They have made smaller ballparks
High Strike is NEVER called.
Strike Zone is a postage stamp
Allowed ballplayers after 1994 strike to use steriods.

What have the pitchers gotten in return? A screwing.

So let's put a guy on first base because Mass1926 thinks the game is too long. Well tell Jeter to plant his ARSE in the batters box and maybe games will go faster.

 

[Tickle Fiend]

I read something recently about Red Sox-Yankees games taking a lot longer because of all the BS that players from those teams do after each pitch.

Baseball games shouldn't average anything longer than 2:30-2:45.

 

[Tickle Fiend]

Marathon games between Red Sox-Yankees become fitting

By Mike Lopresti, Gannett

The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees meet again on a weekend in early May. Just in case you need to know the next time to clear 3 hours and 40 minutes from your daily schedule.

No doubt, you've heard by now that the two empires had their undershirts all in a knot because one of the umpires openly groused he is tired of their games moving like a glacier. But they're just the poster malingerers for a growing concern baseball-wide that too many games don't flow, so much as they ooze.

Hank Aaron checked in the other day on the matter, yearning for the good old days, when hitters did not step in and out of the box as if they were barefoot on a hot plate.

And the catcher did not go back and forth to the pitcher's mound like the tennis ball in a Federer-Nadal match.

The commissioner's getting antsy, too. "It isn't the time of the game, it's the pace of game," Bud Selig said to reporters this week in Minneapolis, adding he has a committee looking into the issue.

And it isn't the heat, it's the humidity.

Nothing wrong with compelling, action-filled games pushing the clock. Baseball is not short track speed skating.

But neither is it supposed to be 5 o'clock on the George Washington Bridge. Dawdling shouldn't be confused with drama

Which brings us back to the most conspicuous hour-eaters.

Since umpire Joe West has access to drinking water and a bathroom during games, it's hard to tell what drove him to pop off about the Yankees and Red Sox. But truth is an absolute defense, so nobody is suing him for slander. Last year, the average Red Sox-Yankees norm of 3:40 ran 45 minutes longer than the major league average.

Now the two teams are annoyed. Interesting. You can call them loose-spending consortiums, in a constant superpower arms race, trying to buy up all the American League pennants. They barely shrug.

Just don't call them slow.

Or at least, an umpire shouldn't.

Still, you have to admit, they do tend to drone on. We've been compiling a list of things you could do in the time it takes for an average Red Sox-Yankee game.

•The Space Shuttle could circle the earth 21/2 times.

•You could cook a 16-pound turkey. If the game went extra innings, you could even eat it.

•You could watch Gone With the Wind, and get all the way to the part when Rhett Butler tells Scarlett O'Hara, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn."

•The Kentucky Derby could be run — 110 times.

•Phil Mickelson would be coming up to No. 17 Sunday at the Masters.

•Last February's Super Bowl could be played, with room left for a half-hour postgame show.

•A fast swimmer would get halfway across the English Channel.

•Need a kidney taken out in a nephrectomy? You're awake and back in the recovery room in under 3:40.

•The only winner in the last 50 years to need that much time to drive 500 miles at Indianapolis was Al Unser Jr. in 1992; a race that had 13 yellow flags.

•Seen pictures of the famous Game 7 slugfest of the 1960 World Series, when Bill Mazeroski's ninth-inning home run finally won it for Pittsburgh, 10-9? That lasted 2:36. Terry Francona is barely into his bullpen by then.

•Remember Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, when the Red Sox beat the Reds 7-6 in the 12th inning on Carlton Fisk's homer? That needed only 13 minutes more than the Yankees used to beat the Red Sox 6-4 in nine innings on April 6.

•The Oscars show takes less time than the Yankees and Red Sox, and that's even including the interpretive dance numbers.

•In 3:40 next Monday, the men's winner of the Boston Marathon will run 26.2 miles, accept his award, and possibly shower and order lunch.

•In the next average length Red Sox-Yankee game, 1,650 new Americans will be born.

•Light will have traveled 2.4 trillion miles.

•And beer sales will have had all night to get healthy. The commissioner is concerned, but you'll never hear the concessions people complain about the time of a baseball game.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/lopresti/2010-04-14-lopresti-pace-of-game_N.htm