Last season the average Pacific League game took 3 hours 23 minutes
to play; Central League games finished in 3:17 on the average. Even for
those of you who believe that there's no such thing as too much baseball,
these are not inspiring figures. After all, you're not getting more baseball--just
being asked to spend more time watching people stand around.
With all the non action in today's game, it's no wonder we look at baseball as a pastoral sport--the games progress at the speed of cows standing in a pasture.
"Baseball is the very symbol, the outward and visible manifestation of the drive and push and rush and struggle of the raging, tearing, booming 19th century," said Mark Twain.
Although society has continued to rush onward like Kazuo Matsui lighting out for second base, baseball games have become mired in details, discussion and delays. The action is there but in between there are numbing numbers of throws to first base, batters standing out of the batters box adjusting themselves, and more conferences at the mound than a U.N. convention.
"We have a lot of problems," CL Planning Director Masaaki Nagino told The Hot Corner on Monday. "We have to find ways to make the games more attractive to fans. One idea is to find ways to make the game faster."
To that end, both leagues will, take the drastic step of enforcing the rule book in 2002, at least so far as the strike zone is concerned--hoping a larger zone will result in more action per pitch, thus speeding up play.
"It (adopting the rule book strike zone) was one of the suggestions to speed things up," said Nagino. "The popularity of the game is in trouble if you go by TV ratings, and the ratings, at least those for the Giants games, are down.
"There are just too many games where the climax gets cut off (because of the time limit on the broadcast)."
There's nothing like having the announcer give the audience his humble apologies for having to break away from the game with the tying run on third base with two outs in the top of the ninth. "We're sorry to have to cut off now."
No kidding. Japanese baseball has accepted this sorry nonsense for far too long.
In 1952 when the CL played extra-inning games to their conclusion or until midnight, its average game lasted 1:52. That's a far more attractive length than the three hours we've become accustomed to putting up with.
While it is always a positive step to either enforce the rules as they are or modify them to suit our needs--as opposed to just making them up as we go along--just enforcing the rule book strike zone will not make much of a dent in the length of games.
In 1986, after years of rapidly expanding power numbers and a second straight triple crown season by a foreign slugger, Japan expanded the strike zone downward by the diameter of one ball.
The bigger zone struck a grand total of nine minutes from the average
length of each league's games.
!!!
The effect in the score book was dramatic. The ratio of strikeouts to total outs jumped and the ratio of strikeouts to walks also improved in the favor of pitchers.
The zone currently in use here begins at the knees and ends at the belt, but the local authorities intend to raise it to the uniform letters.
The majors adopted this change last season, but for different reasons--the
intention was to achieve compliance with the rules. This forces one to
ask why the strike zone deserves so much attention when numerous other
rules, the phantom double play and fielders interference at home plate
are so blatantly ignored.
!!!
Although the PL also wanted to play by the rules a year ago, that circuit could do little more than state its policy. A few umps opted for high strikes at the expense of low ones but that's as far as it ever got.
Last season, the CL had no intention of taking such a rash step.
But now commissioner Hiromori Kawashima has the bit between his teeth in an effort to shake up the game and he is to be commended. Kawashima brought all the teams together and laid down the law. The strike zone will be enforced and the leagues will come together on rules and policies designed to put more life in the game.
At an unusualy productive and active managers' conference on Monday, Yokohama BayStars skipper Masaaki Mori suggested having umpires publish lists of players who appear to be wasting time. "Not to offend the player," Mori was quoted as saying in the Nikkan Sports, "but there are things players do that they themselves don't notice... It would be a form of guidance."
More than just suggestions, which might shave minutes off of each game,
the significant news is the consensus among the game's opinion leaders
that change is absolutely necessary. This is a big step.
!!!
Baseball analyst Bill James recently published some suggestions to help speed up games that Japan's baseball overlords ought to consider. James argues that baseball needs new rules, not to make to make the game something new and different but, to restore the game to what it once was: a contest of speed and daring.
Other sports, he reasons, have made rule changes to preserve the spirit and pace of their games by banning overly time-consuming tactics. Baseball hasn't taken this approach in 100 years.
Those of you who are interested can find all of his suggestions in "The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract."
Essentially James wants rules to eliminate tactics that teams and players are forced to employ only because their opponents can. Because everyone employs them, there is little or no benefit to anyone, but there is a considerable cost to the pace of the game.
Here are three of his suggestions that pertain to the speed of the game:
1) Stop calling time out whenever a batter steps out of the batters box. It is in every batter's selfish interest to disrupt the pitcher's timing so nearly every batter does this.
If a batter does not distract the pitcher when the rules allow him to, he is throwing away an advantage. If nobody is allowed to do it there's no advantage to be lost.
2) Limit the number of times a pitcher can make a pick off throw. James suggests that the third unsuccessful toss in an inning would count as a ball to the batter at the plate.
Balls and walks were introduced to the game to prevent pitchers from wasting time. This rule would have the same effect. It would confer some advantage to speedy players and good base stealers, but would you prefer to see, guys trying to steal bases or endless throws to first base to keep fast guys anchored to the base?
This rule change needs some work as pitchers would resort to standing on the mound and watching base runners like a cat studying an out-of-reach sparrow.
3) Prevent managers from making more than one mid-inning pitching change unless a pitcher has allowed a run in that inning.
This would not only speed up the game but prevent the constant and predictable disruption of the final innings when the game is often at its most exciting.
Japan has always waited for the majors to take the lead on rule changes. But there's no reason why, in a time of crisis, Japan shouldn't do whatever it can to make its baseball the most exciting in the world.
The Hot Corner appears each Thursday in The
Daily Yomiuri .