The Yankees and Red Sox are two of the most popular teams in baseball. They routinely pack the house for home and road games and they draw the biggest ratings on TV. They have the best players and they both are extremely successful. Oh yeah, and when they play, their games take forever.
Their games have averaged nearly three and a half hours this season according to the New York Times. Even Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira acknowledges that’s pretty ridiculous.
“It’s brutal. I can’t stand playing a nine-inning game in four hours. It’s not baseball. I don’t even know how to describe it. If I was a fan, why would I want to come watch people sitting around and talking back and forth, going to the mound, 2-0 sliders in the dirt? Four-hour games can’t be fun for a fan, either.”
Maybe the high-powered offenses account for the lengthy games. The longer it takes to get 27 outs on each side the longer the games will last. You also have to factor in how significant each Yankees-Red Sox game is to the teams. Because each game can affect the playoff picture, each manager will make every move necessary to give its team the best chance to win. The result is the fans are stuck watching marathon games. Maybe the solution is what Bucky Dent told us — put pitchers and batters on a shot clock to make them work quicker. That at least would ameliorate the situation.
Forearm bash to NESN for the story
