by Steven Dugan
Editor’s note: With the 2024 Major League Baseball season kicking off tomorrow night with a two-game series in Seoul, South Korea between our hometown Los Angeles Dodgers and our southern rivals, the San Diego Padres, this seemed an opportune time for Steven Dugan from our staff to offer his latest baseball-related post concerning recent changes to encourage a speedier flow to contests. Enjoy the post and we’ll see if the gargantuan financial investment in superstar Shohei Ohtani pays off for the Dodgers!
When the Texas Rangers defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks 4 games to 1 last November, capturing their first World Series championship in the 62-year history of the franchise, baseball historians were able to reduce the list of teams that have not won a World Series from six to five. Teams left on the list are the Colorado Rockies, Milwaukee Brewers, San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners, and Tampa Bay Rays. Only the Mariners have not yet made it to the World Series. This also ended the first season of new rules that were implemented in Major League Baseball (MLB) to speed up the game and increase interest.
Changes made included enlarging the bases by three square inches, limiting pick-off attempts during an at-bat, and the elimination of a defensive strategy called “the shift,” in which three or more of infielders are on either side of second base to limit hits by opposing batters pulling the ball one direction or the other. The most publicized and controversial new rule, however, was the pitch clock, limiting the time between pitches to either 15 (with the bases empty) or 20 seconds (with runners on base). This was enacted to shorten the length of the games, which had ballooned to over three hours. The chart below shows the average game length from 1920 – 2014. Game lengths from 2015-22 remained over 3 hours.
Beyond the Boxscore.com, Accessed 4 March 2024.
So-called traditionalists felt the game does not need to be shortened and preferred to leave the game alone. These fans also believed that spending a leisurely afternoon at the ballpark is the charm of the game. They would agree with writer Roger Angell who wrote in his book, Summer Game: “Since baseball time is measured only in outs, all you have to do is succeed utterly; keep hitting, keep the rally alive, and you have defeated time.” The late Vin Scully would even invite his listeners on radio to “pull up a chair” while he called Los Angeles Dodgers games. The hidden message being, “we’re going to be here for a while, don’t leave—you might miss something exciting.”
In a March 2023 online article in The Ringer, author Ben Lindbergh shares that, in baseball’s infancy, the allure of the game was its speed. He writes that, in an 1866 article in the Brooklyn Daily Times, a contest was described in this manner: “In base-ball [sic], action is continuous and rapid, it is a fast game, full of change and excitement and not in the least wearisome…there is no drag, but all activity from beginning to end…” It appears that from the very beginning, baseball provided a quick and exciting respite from everyday life, even if only for 1 hour, 47 minutes in 1920, as shown in the graph above.
Those in favor of the pitch clock, however, suggest the game is boring, as nothing much happens, and the players stand around most of the time. A 2013 study by the Wall Street Journal discovered that MLB games have only about 11 minutes of action (by comparison, the action in an average NFL game is also about 10-12 minutes long). Criticism of the game being boring is understandable given one is at the ballpark for 3 hours plus, all for 11 minutes of action.
Traditionalists would also ask: “Why are you messing with the game of baseball? There has never been a time limit between pitches!” The answer to that declaration may surprise you. Going back to Lindbergh’s article: “A limit on the time between pitches has been on the books almost since time immemorial—1901, to be specific. That year, the National League (followed in short order by the brand-new American League) adopted this mandate: ‘The umpire shall call a ball on the pitcher each time he delays the game by failing to deliver the ball to the batsman for a longer period than 20 seconds.’”
Among the Homestead’s collection is a copy of the Los Angeles Times Baseball Rule Book, 1926 from the Los Angeles Times. Rule 33 covers the 1901 proscription about the time in-between pitches. In addition to the 20-second pitch rule (not as strictly enforced as it is today), Rule 33 also says there are no strict time constraints when a pitcher is warming up after relieving another pitcher, or at the beginning of an inning.
In an ironic twist to this story, baseball fans, sportswriters, and baseball officials were beside themselves in 1928, when the average length of baseball games increased 12 minutes, from 1 hour, 47 minutes per game to 1 hour 59 minutes! This was seen as such an urgent issue that it warranted an editorial in the July 1928 edition of Baseball Magazine. This edition was on exhibit in La Casa Nueva in Walter Temple Jr’s room this past summer and early fall. It was a fitting example of comparing the past and present, something that we do frequently here at the Museum. And, with the hot button issue that the pitch clock was this past season, it was surprising that the same issue was causing headlines in Major League Baseball 95 years ago!
The editorial begins by supporting American League President Ernest Barnard (1874-1931) in his efforts to cut down on the unnecessary, non-baseball activities which slowed down the game. Unfortunately, those delays were not identified in the editorial, but research suggests that things like frequent pitching changes (i.e., after only one batter), along with on-field delaying tactics (i.e., stepping out of the batter’s box after every pitch), were among the culprits. In the editorial, this 12-minute increase in game length only affected the American League for some reason. Again, since the editorial is vague on details, it would be pure speculation as to why this increase did not affect the National League as much as the American. It would not be surprising if the same delays affecting the one did so in the other.
So, how did the pitch clock work in the MLB for the 2023 season? Surprisingly well. The average game length was 2 hours and 42 minutes, 24 minutes shorter than games in 2022 and the shortest average since the 1980s. Minor League Baseball implemented the pitch clock for the 2022 season and the results were about the same; games averaged 2 hours, 39 minutes in 2022, a minute longer in 2023.
To many critics of long baseball games, the almost 30 minutes shaved off the average length has been a welcomed and remarkable success. Some contests did take longer than 3 hours, due to high-scoring ones, the usual pitching changes, challenges to rulings on the field, and television time-outs—especially during the playoffs. Regulating pick-off attempts, delays by batters between pitches, and taking no more than 20 seconds to deliver a pitch has had the desired effect.
The rules committee has made a few adjustments for the 2024 season. Namely, the pitcher has 18 seconds now instead of 20 with runners on base and the clock begins when the pitcher receives the ball after any play instead of when he is on the mound. Other adjustments include a wider running lane for batters to first base, a reduction of mound visits from five to four, and that any pitcher must face at least one batter before a relief pitcher enters the game.
So, the pitch clock is destined to stay, but it has been there all along. Only now it is more strictly enforced. Fortunately, it has not taken anything away from the excitement of the game. This past season, there were still plenty of dazzling defensive plays, miraculous come backs, 4 no-hitters (including a perfect game), exciting playoff series, and a new champion of baseball with the Rangers winning their first World Series.
It is safe to say that the enforcement of the pitch clock has been successful. But traditionalists shouldn’t worry. Games were shorter in length last season, but they were still 9 innings long, each half of an inning still had three outs, and “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” was still sung after the top of the 7th inning (see a previous blog post written on that tradition here). As this new season begins, perhaps players should remember Roger Angell’s suggestion that “baseball is measured in outs, and the way to defeat time (and maybe the pitch clock?) is to keep hitting, keep the rally alive, and to succeed utterly.”