Yeah, Bud says a lot of things. One of them is that baseball needs to find a way to shorten it's games. He's right, the games do drag on to long, from the time between pitches, the batters continuously stepping out of the box, to the endless mounds visits and pitching changes, the average game is now over 3 hours.Bud isn't really doing anything to shorten the games, but one league, the Korean Baseball Organization, is actually go to do something about it:
South Korea will speed up its baseball games and install energy-saving equipment at major parks as part of a "green sports" plan to cut emissions, officials said Friday.One of the reasons for shortening the games:
Rules to shorten the duration of professional games will also make them more appealing to spectators, a baseball official said.These guys just don't have a clue. Actually doing something FOR the fan? I can't believe it. Didn't they get the memo from Bud? It's not about the fan, it's about making as much money as possible, and then claiming poverty. Oh wait, Bud doesn't actually know baseball exists outside North America and Japan.
Some of the changes:
When the new season starts next month, a pitcher will have a maximum 12 seconds to throw the ball after the batter is ready.Part of the idea also, is that shorter games will require less energy to be used. That's where the green aspect of it comes in. I'm not against that, by any means. And that would be a by-product of shortening the games in the states also.
If he breaches the time limit, a warning will be given the first time and each subsequent warning will be counted as a ball.
The park cleaning break after the fifth inning will be scrapped and replaced by short cleaning intervals in the third, fifth and seventh innings.
Of course, as a sidenote, if Bud really wanted to shorten the games, he could do it easily. Just have less time between innings when they show all those commercials.
Anyhow, nice to see the Korean league actually understands the need to do something, and realize the fans want this also.
2 comments:
Didn't Bud implement changes after the 2000 season? Hitters had to have extra bats in case one broke, pitchers had 12 seconds to pitch or a ball was called, new innings had to start after 2 minutes, managers had to signal for a relief pitcher before ambling to the mound.
With these initiatives, he shaved 12 minutes off the average game between 2001 and 2003.
Thomas,
You're right about that, but it's just like every other time something like this comes up.
It lasts for a season or two, and then disappears again. Remember the balk rule in '87?
They started, but no one really enforces the rules anymore.
Bud is good at the puclic relations part of the game, but he never really forces the actual issue.
In my opinion.
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