When the baseball purists start calling for the heads of those who would buck tradition in finding ways to speed up the game, they might start with author Paul Auster.
Auster came up with brilliant idea of two strikes and you’re out and three balls, take your base.
The former is strictly two strikes, by the way. That is, you can’t keep fouling off pitches. Sounds like my 50-and-over softball league.
The independent Atlantic League gave this a shot recently. Figures. Anything for some publicity.
As per to this story in yesterday’s NY Times:
According to Rick White, the league’s president, the average length of a game was reduced to 2 hours 54 minutes from 3:01 in the second half of 2014 by making intentional walks automatic, enforcing the strike zone as written and limiting mound visits, among other changes.
Look carefully there. With all those “innovations,” they saved a whopping seven minutes. I’m curious as to how many times in each game an intentional walk is issued. Also what does “among other changes” even mean? How many changes and how much time do they take up? By all means, enforce the strike zone, but that’s on the umpires, not the dawdling players.
The Saturday’s author event at the Yogi Berra Museum, Sandy Alderson, the Mets GM and subject of a new biography by Steve Kettmann, addressed the topic, noting that the difference between a game played at less than two hours and forty-five minutes can be huge, psychologically speaking.
(I’m also trying to figure out how an indy league game takes so long? Lot of TV commercials, are there?)
The Times piece quotes Auster as saying, “I think clocks are anathema to the spirit of baseball.”
And changing the ball-strike requirements isn’t?
Here’s another look at Auster from the NY Daily News from last September.
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