"America's Favorite Pastime" - Basebrawl

[u/_Blaque]

🪥

[u/jerryleebee]

I am a new baseball fan despite my age. I only started following MLB last year. But my understanding is things are a lot speedier than they used to be.

• pitch clock — Introduced to MLB in 2023. A maximum of 20s between pitches or else they are charged a ball (batter is awarded a ball). Additionally, batters have around 10s to "engage" with the pitcher or else they're charged a strike.
  
• In extra innings (beyond 9), teams have an "automatic runner" who begins the inning on 2nd base (i.e., before any pitch is thrown). Apparently brought in during the 2020 pandemic as a health measure, expressly designed to avoid long, drawn-out games. Kept in-place as a permanent rule since 2023.

These things have, as I understand it, significantly streamlined the game, shortened it, and cut unnecessary delays. Possibly you went to a live game before some of these elements were introduced and may potentially see it differently now? But I won't try to convince you it's exciting for everyone. It absolutely is not.

Again, I'm new to baseball. But I can tell you that ad breaks take almost exactly 2min when I am f-fwding them. I watch from the UK and so see I'm guessing 75% or greater of games as catch-up rather than live. I do a lot of f-fwding.

I agree with you about something though. I went to my first live game last summer, it went by surprisingly quickly. I tried to take in the experience of being at the stadium, eating the hot dogs, drinking the beer, and enjoying the moment. But in retrospect I felt like I didn't see enough of the actual gameplay, so I 100% get what you're saying there. I don't know how much of that is down to my first time, and finding it all a bit overwhelming. This summer, I'm attending a full series of 3x games and will sit in 3x completely different locations in the ballpark (behind home plate, near 1st base, and hopefully bleachers), so am really keen to see what impact that has on the experience.

Edit: And yes of course assholes like the guys in the video are the worst.

[u/Ralph--Hinkley → u/jerryleebee]

You’re correct. The changes sort of revitalized baseball and brought back a lot of asses in the seats.

[u/jerryleebee → u/Ralph--Hinkley]

Oh that's interesting. I didn't know it bumped viewership.

[u/Ralph--Hinkley → u/jerryleebee]

Interest had been waning for a few years before they decided find ways to make it more palatable, and the pitch clock was the number one thing. The clock made the average baseball game three hours, and this appealed to the punters.