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I Attended a MLB Game... I Was Bored Stiff!

By Ron Kuchler

pictured: Camden Yards, Baltimore
Credit: Shutterstock

After watching NHL hockey nightly for six consecutive months, I took in an MLB game. A few college fraternity brothers and I decided to attend a Major League Baseball game last month. My hometown New York Mets were in town visiting the Anaheim Angels. I refuse to call them the Los Angeles Angels. LA is as different from Orange County as Boston is from New York.

The Mets won. Although we stayed till the last painful out, I could not tell you the final score. I was tuned out of the game by the sixth inning. It was then I glanced at the right-field scoreboard to note the inning. I realized the game was already 2 ½ hours' long. I was so bored that I did not take a single photo of game play. My first MLB game since 2015 would approach 4 hours in stop-and-go play. Fortunately, the pace of the game quickened over the final three innings. It would only require 3 ½ hours from start to finish.

It was great to reconnect with the brothers. Our pre-game included a stop at the nearby Tilted Kilt, a few beers, and appetizers, reminiscing about college life in the 80s, and a search for the next Kandy girl. Who knew that would be the highlight of the evening?!

The drunk 20 somethings, in the row preceding ours, were more entertaining than the professional product on the field. As my fraternity brothers are fully aware, I am not one to shy away from orating my thoughts on a subject matter. As I stated that evening, the issue MLB has with attracting new fans, and keeping longtime fans such as myself, is the pace of play. NHL hockey is non-stop action, with very few breaks. There are fewer play stoppages in an NHL period than in a single at-bat in an MLB game. That is a problem for MLB. Compounding the problem, with the exception of the three television timeouts in an NHL period, the stoppage in play in an MLB at-bat is often more prolonged than the stoppage in an NHL game.

I purposely pointed out that the Mets versus Angels had consumed 2 ½ hours in the bottom of the 6th inning; that is the typical length of an entire NHL game, including the pre-game ceremonies and two in-between period 15-minute breaks. The average Mets game was 2 to 2 hours 15 minutes growing up in Sunnyside, Queens, New York. Back then, that was significantly longer than the average attention span of an adolescent. Today, our youth have a shorter attention span. With MLB games lasting three hours or longer, the game no longer captures anyone's attention.

MLB has recognized the problem. The pace of play has slowed due to the players. In the minor leagues, MLB is testing a pitch clock; it is receiving rave reviews. The pitch clock has trimmed thirty minutes off game time in many cases. The future appeal of MLB relies on implementing a similar pitch clock in the major leagues.

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