data.3news-bydate.train.rec.sport.baseball.104660 Maven / Gradle / Ivy
From: [email protected] (Sherri Nichols)
Subject: Re: Game Length (was Re: Braves Update!!
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Lines: 45
In article <[email protected]> [email protected] writes:
> I agree that Hirschbeck was just doing what he was instructed to do
>and also that Gant should have listened to him. However, what is with this
>policy of trying to speed up the games. You are the first person
>( non-mediot ) I have seen endorse this policy.
I wholeheartedly endorse it.
I have no problem with the
>length of games at all and am tired of the ESPN crowd ( and other announcers )
>bitching about it. I have never been in a ballpark filled with people looking
>at their watches and shouting "Hurry up!" If I cough up big bucks for a
>ticket, I don't mind a game that last more than 2:10. I really don't
>understand it.
Haven't been to many A's games, have you?
Seriously, I don't mind a baseball game that lasts a long time if it lasts
a long time because there is good baseball being played. However, I don't
like 3-2 games that take 3+ hours, because there's a lot of dead time going
on in that game. I don't find anything exciting about watching batter or
pitcher wander around between pitches, or watching the catcher make a slow
walk to the mound, or watching lots of pitcher changes for no good reason
(Whitey Herzog used to be the master of this; the game could be way out of
reach, and he'd still be making switches for platoon advantage).
I want to see the game, not people standing around. I don't really enjoy
watching NFL football games in person, for example, because there's so much
dead time (you don't really notice how much dead time there is if you watch
it on television, because they're busy showing you replays). I don't like
that college basketball games have so many time outs at the end of the game
(the NCAA has made some moves to try to alleviate this problem for next
year: they're going to stop the clock after made baskets late in games next
year, and they're going to a 35 second clock).
There's also a difference in how tolerant I am of long games if I'm
watching them on the tube, and if I'm going there in person. For me, going
to an A's game has become a major commitment of time, one that I'm not
willing to make that often: the length of their games is costing the A's
revenue from me.
Sherri Nichols
[email protected]