The start time of GM2 of the 2016 World Series was moved up an hour to 6:08p CT in the hopes that everyone would avoid a weather delay from a front predicted to roll through Cleveland around 10:00p CT.
The Cubs 5-1 victory to tie the series was able to be completed.
But not before 10.
The official game time ended up being 4:04. That’s right FOUR OH FOUR. A whopping 244 minutes to play 9 innings of baseball – an average of 27.1 minutes per inning. And that’s on the heels of GM1 which took a breezy (by comparison) 3 hours and 37 minutes.
It’s not you… these games are much longer than they were when you were growing up.
After the 2014 season, MLB decided to take action and started testing a number of changes in various minor and instructional leagues to try to speed up the game.
For the 2015 season, they introduced clocks between innings/for pitching changes and required batters to keep one foot in the box unless they foul the ball off.
Hasn’t worked.
Here are the 2015 World Series lengths:
- 5:09 (14 innings)
- 2:54
- 3:22
- 3:29
- 4:15 (12 innings)
And 2016 through 2 games:
- 3:37
- 4:04
I’m not naive enough to think that professional baseball games will ever be back to that perfect 2.5 hour-ish range. And I’m sympathetic to the fact that these are the most important games of the season. And I know that we aren’t going to see fewer commercials.
But dang.
4:04 for a 9 inning game that wasn’t even close? Let’s put our heads together and see if we can’t figure out some serious solutions to making baseball – and especially the playoffs – brisker.
Photo: JUGS Sports
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