I will never forget the many games I watched, as a 12-year-old, in San Francisco’s PacBell Park.
I was lucky enough to witness the season Barry Bonds broke Mark McGwire’s home run record. I vividly remember the smell of hot dogs and the sound of the crowd every time the Bay Area’s hero came up to bat. His skills at the plate were so great that he was often intentionally walked by pitchers who feared his powerful swing. I loved booing those pitchers as they threw the four pitches to walk Bonds rather than risk another one of his famous homers. I enjoyed those moments almost as much as I enjoyed cheering with the rest of the crowd whenever his bat connected with the ball, sending it flying out of the park and into the San Francisco Bay.
That season I came to understand that baseball is more than a game; it is an experience, and those experiences built up my passion for the game.
With these fond childhood memories in mind I recently read Doug Robinson’s column “The quest for a shorter game” and found myself saddened as Robinson applauded the new Major League Baseball intentional walk rule.
In a misguided effort to speed up the game that many of us love and cater to the shorter attention span of some fair-weather fans, MLB changed the intentional walk forever. Now, instead of the pitcher being required to throw four pitches outside of the batter’s box, a dugout signal is used to signify an intentional walk.
Intentional walks don’t happen every game so the rule change actually only gives fans an average of 30 extra seconds per game. Thirty measly seconds: that’s all!
Like the league, Robinson also takes issue with the length of baseball games. In his column he points out that baseball games are on average about 3 hours and 9 minutes long. He then offers up a number of additional potential rule changes to speed up America’s pastime.
When people discuss the length of the game, baseball is often compared to its rival, football. But football games are an average of 3 hours and 12 minutes long. So in reality, baseball games are shorter than football games.
Speed of play isn’t a problem for the league; in fact, the longer a game goes the more opportunities there are for concessions and merchandise sales at the ballpark.
Beyond the technicalities of length and pace, baseball attracts more fans to live games than any of its rival sports. In 2015, the NFL sold 17.5 million tickets, the NBA sold 21.9 million and MLB sold 73.7 million. That is almost twice as many as the NBA and NFL combined!
What people like Robinson fail to see is that baseball isn’t struggling. Baseball doesn’t need this intentional walk rule change. It is we, the fans, who lose out on priceless experiences when the league changes such time-honored rules. My children will never have the chance to see a batter, recognized for his skills at the plate, take four balls outside the batter’s box. They will never have the opportunity to do as I did and jeer at an opposing pitcher as he intentionally walks their favorite ballplayer.
Baseball will still be the game I have always loved, but the flawed thinking of MLB execs and columnists like Robinson are a threat to the game's future. After nearly 150 years of play, and countless pages of columns, you would think they would understand: Baseball is so much more than just speed of play; it is more than television ratings, and it is more than column inches. Baseball is about experiences. For many fans those experiences are cherished childhood memories. That is why baseball is, and will always be, America’s pastime.
Andy Pierucci is a lifelong baseball fan and is passionate about America's pastime.