A 9-Inning Race Against Time.

All my life, I've heard people complain about how slow baseball games are. "They take too long!" is the common refrain, although when asked to expand on that sentiment, it's mostly a lot of blustering and repetition of the phrase "It's boring to sit through an entire baseball game", which I suppose is true, if you have the attention span and cultural tastes of a chimpanzee in a diaper. But even I can admit that games are getting pretty lengthy. When an at-bat of 5 pitches takes twice as many minutes to end, there's a problem. Pitchers come off the bump halfway through their windup multiple times before ever delivering to the plate. Hitters step out and stare at their bats for 30 seconds at a time to "throw off [the pitcher's] rhythm," which seems counterintuitive when hurlers keep resetting on their own. And if there's a runner on base, especially first? Get ready for a half-inning with as much thrilling action as having Pride and Prejudice read to you by a bored septuagenarian.

In that vein, a pitch clock (or at least the implementation of one in Double-A and Triple-A beginning next season) makes a ton of sense. Limiting the amount of time players have to futz around between pitches should go a long way towards shaving minutes off of games instead of slowly adding them on. The clock would only go up to 20 seconds if someone(s) was on base, and would give the pitcher 12 seconds if the bags are empty, which is still a reasonable amount of time to throw a baseball, as long as you are not Jon Lester. Here's how the average length of a MLB game has steadily increased over the years, via Grant Brisbee of SBNation:

Average Time of Game
1950: 2:21
1960: 2:38
1970: 2:34
1980: 2:38
1990: 2:51
2000: 3:01
2014: 3:08

Over the past 6-plus decades, baseball games have gotten, on average, 47 minutes longer, or roughly the same amount of time it takes Prince Fielder to send a Golden Corral into bankruptcy. This belies all the games completed in a timely fashion, but also neutralizes those knockdown slugfests of the Steroid Era. You'll notice, in fact, that the second biggest jump comes between 1980 and 1990, right around the time Jose Canseco was slinking around clubhouse bathrooms with dripping syringes and that "I WILL STEAL YOUR SOUL AND CREDIBILITY" smile on his face.

Does this image make your skin curdle? If you answered yes, you might have a deep-seated fear of change.

MLB, perpetually a lock to drag their feet when there's a pressing matter at hand, had a departure from the norm and put together a pace of game committee back in September of last year, in the hopes of finding a resolution that would sit well with players, executives, and fans alike. At the time, it just looked like Bud Selig's death rattle, the last Hail Mary on a long list of attempts to restore his own tarnished reputation. However, it seems that, with the testing of pitch clocks, they may be the rare baseball collective that actually affects positive change in the game. That makes sense when you consider who the group is comprised of: commissioner-elect Rob Manfred (who can use this to earn a gold star early on in his tenure as Supreme Ruler of Base Ball), MLBPA director Tony Clark, executive VP of baseball operations and Hall of Fame manager Joe Torre, Red Sox co-owner Tom Werner, Red Sox partner Michael Gordon, Mets general manager Sandy Alderson, and Braves president John Schuerholz, the committee's chairman. These are all men who stand to benefit greatly from drawing in more casual fans, which is always of concern to an organization worth more than $9 billion.

Therein lies the true purpose of shortening games: to get Joe Schmo to switch the channel to a baseball game instead of football/basketball/hockey/soccer/curling/bowling/competitive needlepointing. Hardcore fans (including yours truly) will sit through anything resembling a baseball game purely on merit of it being played. We're a given, a constant. It's those people in flux, those people who are never sure how to answer the question "Which sport is your favorite?" that MLB is targeting with this move. If the creation and institutionalization of a pitch clock converts just one group of affluent human beings with as much money as time on their hands into fans of the hometown nine, it will have done its job exactly. Another benefit to be reaped here is that it has yet to face massive backlash from those through-thick-and-thin supporters of the national pastime. This is not the confusing decision to have the result of the All-Star Game determine which league has home field advantage in the World Series, nor is it the befuddling addition of a second Wild Card team in both leagues. It's a smart change that necessitates more smart change, which is precisely the kind of impetus baseball needs to keep the charge going against obsoletion.

To be fair, there are those who are not as enamored with this idea as I am. Some people, like Sportsnet.ca's Jeff Blair, are vehemently against the idea of tampering with the game in this manner. It plays well to the purists, bashing this advancement and writing it off as MLB kowtowing to perceived pressure to speed things up.  Blair calls it a "sop to the attention deficit generation", but that seems petty and reductive. I can't imagine that older fans, who currently make up a staggering majority (the most fans aged 55 or older of any sport that isn't golf) of baseball's fanbase, love the idea of spending so many hours watching Clay Buchholz readjust his cup 6 times between pitches. Are you telling me that parents who bring their young children to games aren't just as interested in a quick match as their unruly progeny? Plus, if MLB is indeed making a concentrated effort to draw in younger fans, or lure some people away from watching the NFL or NBA, why would that be a bad thing? There's no question that this endeavor already has its weak points, and more will probably be brought to light whenever it's up for adoption by the big leagues. But I don't see how that justifies doing nothing to abate those increasing game times.

What would a pitch clock look like, exactly? One was used during this year's Arizona Fall League, but keep in mind that this is/was in the early stages of the plan:

It's different, sure, but not invasive. You're aware that it's there, but it isn't all-encompassing. With any luck, you won't even see it on TV broadcasts (more likely, the networks will add their own, presumably next to the count). If you're at a game, you'll probably be more occupied with the action than the clock tracking it. It's not directly in the pitcher's line of vision, so any distractions they may claim it brings would be a result of their own susceptibility to lose focus. Hell, if it's really that big of a deal to have it on the field, put it on those multi-million dollar video boards. Remove one graphic of Benny the Bat crushing Barry the Ball or whatever and slap a big 12 or 20 on there as necessary. There are compromises that can be made at all junctures without diluting the benefits it brings.

Are pitch clocks vital to baseball's continuing success? Highly doubtful. Will they make everybody happy? About as likely as Josh Hamilton converting to Islam. Is this a good decision? Without question. Just because the game has thrived for 150 years without things like a pitch clock, video replay, or a comprehensive Hall of Fame voting structure doesn't mean that these processes can't improve both the quality and marketability of the sport. Embrace the chaos, folks.