Are Baseball Games Too Long?

Yes.

Thank you for reading…

Seriously, I don’t mean to go on a rant here (who doesn’t miss pre-2001 Dennis Miller by the way?) but the game of baseball is too long.

I love baseball, as made clear by the focus of this page and my previous article on my issues with how Minor League Baseball has been handled.

Since 2009, organized baseball has lost five million fans at the ballpark. Five million less people went to a baseball stadium to watch a live game. Which is a shame.

Is it because of a lack of star power to that of decades prior? Maybe. Is it because the cost of a baseball game has become weird because of tiered pricing? This also makes a lot of sense. Maybe though, it could be that baseball games average over three hours now?

It may be time to shorten the game for the sake of all of us. The timed walks to the plate and warmups for new pitchers help, but when the end of each half inning has a commercial break, a mascot race, some sort of trivia, and/or the grounds crew dancing to something, that time adds up.

I do love and appreciate those aspects of the game, as they entertain or help draw interest in non-diehards who aren’t listening to the radio broadcast and keeping a scorecard that they’ve had since 1977, but… what if we just take away the last two innings?

Okay, baseball purists… You want to have me drawn and quartered in a public square, but let’s be real about the idea of a seven inning game.

It adds more drama to the game, it makes a better use of your bullpen when you don’t need 87 relief pitchers filling in the gap between the starter and the closer, it brings the much lauded “STRATEGY” back to the game, and gets people home earlier.

If you want to flaunt “tradition” or “THAT IS THE WAY IT ALWAYS WAS AND THAT IS HOW IT SHOULD STAY” arguments at me without any merit to why it should stay the same, I will ask you kindly to leave my home.

The crux of your argument may be based around stats… But, we already look at baseball as eras defined by rule changes, game modifications, and other variables defined by modernization of the game.

Baseball can not be defined in its totality, it is a game that has evolved over time and has to when competing sports are timed for defined periods and have specific endpoints. Also, it is a game based on patience in a world that… doesn’t have much of that anymore. So it is either work with what is presented to us, or watch the game we love be stuck in a vacuum that loses more fans every year.

Agree with me? Disagree with me? Let me know in the comments!

M. Robert Ryan is a professional sports yeller who currently complains to his dog and anyone who would listen about his issues with modern baseball.