What's Wrong with the Game of Baseball? Part I

The answer to this question as far as the game on the field is not much.  Yes, studies indicate that a four-man rotation is more economical and causes no more injuries than a five-man rotation and the position of "closer" is totally bogus, but I can live with those deficiencies of the modern game.  What is becoming unbearable, however, is the length of the games, a problem that is traceable to a strike zone that has shrunk considerably in the past 40 years.

As my good friend Al Smith has pointed out, a two hour game is a beautiful poem, but add an extra hour (or two if Daniel Cabrera is pitching) and you've got a Russian novel on your hands.  Certainly, commercial breaks between innings have become longer , but more than anything else, the smaller strike zone has resulted in more pitches thrown which has resulted in more pitchers used which has resulted in longer games.

In today's game, there is no reason for the batter to assume that the pitcher can throw the ball into the narrow strike zone with any consistency and so he goes to the plate looking for the perfect pitch to hit.  He's got a good chance of getting it, too, because it just about has to be perfect to be called a strike.  Deeper counts produce longer games.

The game of baseball has a delicate rhythm to it.  Tension builds slowly throughout an at-bat, throughout an inning, and throughout the entire game.  That tension depends on the players, the situation, and the score.  Destroy that rhythm with an endless stream of full-counts, mound visits, and pitching changes and the game is reduced from athletic work of art to just another form of entertainment.

No one, however, has done more to reduce baseball to just another form of entertainment than today's baseball hierarchy, both at the major and minor league level, and that is our discussion for Part II of What's Wrong with the Game of Baseball?

Comments

[Jesse Dice]

I totally agree, this is part of the reason why I didn't get into baseball until later on in my life. The strike zone that they expect pitchers to hit consistently is ridiculous.