Baseball starts in 5 days. I repeat; baseball starts in 5
days. I played baseball for 15 years, and have been a White Sox fan for my whole
life. No, seriously, my dad agreed to raise me and my sisters Catholic as long
as we were raised White Sox fans. So, clearly, baseball holds a really special
place in my heart. But while I’m always excited for baseball season, there
seems to be an excessive amount of negativity baseball in general this year. As
the season sets to start Sunday night with a wonderful opening night match up of the Texas Rangers, who are good,
against the newly American League Houston Astros, who are horrendous, I thought
long and hard about some things that the MLB could do to truly revive this game
we love as the American Pastime.
Issue #1: The Pace of a Baseball Game
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| We get it, baseball can be boring sometimes. |
Most people who don’t like baseball complain right off the
bat- it’s boring! And to be completely fair and honest, while I disagree
completely, I can understand the argument. Even during my playing days, I loved
playing catcher because you were involved in every single pitch, as opposed to
left field, where you could go a whole game with only 2 plays coming your way.
For the casual fan who doesn’t understand pitch selections, hit and runs, and
other baseball strategy, spending 3 plus hours watching a baseball game may
seem like a waste of time. With the rise in popularity of hockey and its lightning
fast pace, hitting, and goal celebrations, fans find themselves less and less
interested in the deliberate pace of a baseball game.
The thing is, casual fans are never going to understand
pitch selections, or advanced metrics, or the pros and cons of trying to steal
second base. But what the MLB can do is institute some measures to make the
game more enjoyable, and move at a better pace for the casual fan. Then
hopefully we can stop Red Sox-Yankees games from lasting almost 4 hours.
