View from the plush EMC Club... not too shabby.
We hear it every year — baseball games are too long! The Red Sox are one of, if not the biggest offenders of long, drawn out games, routinely going past the three hour mark and occasionally hitting the four hour mark. The Red Sox and Yankees have been responsible for some of the longest games in MLB history — as a matter of fact, they own the record for the longest 9 inning game — a 4 hour 45 minute affair in August of 2006, which just happened to be part of a double header! My ass just fell asleep thinking about it.
I have mixed feelings about the game times. On one hand, when I’ve scored great seats, I want the game to go on forever. The one time I sat on the Monster, there were two rain delays and the game went into extra innings. I was up there happily forever! And there was the game where I had seats in the EMC Club — um, best seats EVER — and the stupid game barely lasted two and a half hours. Boy did that piss me off. But then nothing irks me more than when I’m sitting in Fenway on weeknight and the clock strikes 10pm and it’s only the 7th inning. Crap… I’ve got a two hour trip home!
Josh Beckett has often been singled out for his slow pitching habits. For good reason. Beckett averages 40.3 seconds between pitches with runners on base, and 25 seconds with the bases empty. MLB rules govern that a pitcher should take no more than 12 seconds with no one on base. Even new Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine called Beckett out (in the past) on his snail’s pace. Let’s see if he has the stones to do something about that this season. Except when I have good seats. Then I’m ok with it.
The umpires could also help with the tempo of a game. The definition of the strike zone is as follows (I often wonder if many umps actually know this):
The top of the strike zone is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the batter’s shoulders and the top of the uniform pants. The bottom of the strike zone is a line at the hollow beneath the kneecap. The right and left boundaries of the strike zone correspond to the edges of home plate.
When was the last time you saw a mid-chest strike called (and not in a Little League game)? By definition, it’s a strike, but it rarely gets called. Lately the strike zone has been the size of a postage stamp. No wonder the game takes so stinking long. In 1968, MLB increased the strike zone and virtually shut down the big bats. The AL teams averaged a paltry .230 batting average and only one player hit over .300 when Yaz hit .301. Pitchers recorded 339 shutouts that year. Ok, maybe that’s a bit extreme.
So what say you? Can’t we just meet in the middle? Call a few high strikes… but still enforce the rules, maybe threaten Beckett and other offenders with a fine or two to keep them on their toes, and get the Red Sox games down to an agreeable length. I do prefer to get home before 1am.
