[HN Gopher] Baseball durations after the pitch clock
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Baseball durations after the pitch clock
Author : zdw
Score : 47 points
Date : 2025-10-01 03:15 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (leancrew.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (leancrew.com)
| jm4 wrote:
| Anyone know why they are still so much longer than pre-80's? Is
| it all the pitching changes? That's maybe 12-15 minutes. More
| commercials?
|
| A game in 2 hours or less would be pretty awesome.
| 0x445442 wrote:
| My guess is higher run totals.
| carefulfungi wrote:
| Maybe surprisingly, total plate appearances per game is
| relatively stable. https://www.baseball-
| reference.com/leagues/majors/misc.shtml.
|
| Pitching has been dominating hitting the last few years and
| runs (and batting averages) are both relatively low at the
| moment.
|
| Total pitchers used, however, is up.
| thechao wrote:
| Assuming approximately 0 commercials in 1920 with a runtime of
| 110 minutes -> 140 minutes. I'm trying to decide if there's 30
| minutes of commercials, or not? I'm thinking about the standard
| sitcom (TV) commercial density which is a 23-24m show with 6-7m
| of commercials (25-33%). So... 30m seems in range?
| codingdave wrote:
| Commercials? I haven't been to a game since the 90s, but I
| don't recall them pausing for commercials. Do they do that now?
| mtillman wrote:
| Not during batting. For pitching changes they do and pitching
| changes are more frequent now that starters "only" pitch 100
| pitches or less. Time between innings seems to have a higher
| ad load though it's inconsistent from what I can tell
| depending perhaps on the market.
| mkovach wrote:
| The time between half-innings increases, so the radio and TV
| could play commercials on the broadcast. Pitching changes are
| longer, etc. You don't see it much at the game, but if you
| are one of the folks who used to listen to the game on the
| radio, at the game itself, you get a feel for how the flow of
| the game is affected by the broadcasts.
| toast0 wrote:
| > You don't see it much at the game
|
| I haven't paid enough attention at baseball games. At
| hockey games, if you can see the scorekeeper, they have a
| lamp at the glass that will come on during a stopage to let
| the refs know it's time for a commercial (if you watch for
| this, you can get a jump on the crowd if you need a
| bathroom break or refreshments). You can usually predict a
| commercial timeout, they've got guidelines that are pretty
| consistently applied [1]
|
| [1] https://nhlofficials.com/know-the-rules/week-20-need-a-
| break... search for "Commercial's time-outs should be taken
| at the first whistle"
| mkovach wrote:
| A summer afternoon, static on the radio, the low hum of an
| announcer calling balls and strikes like he's reading scripture
| in a Midwest church. Baseball used to be stitched together with
| silence. You heard the game as much in the pauses as in the
| plays.
|
| Then the voice came in. Once the game hit the airwaves, it
| slowed. Had to. The ball waited for the broadcast.
|
| Out of the dead-ball fog came the home run. No more bunting, no
| more clever thefts of second. Now it was swing, admire, trot.
| Alongside the homers came the walks and the strikeouts. Fewer
| balls in play. More staring, less running. Time thickened, and
| the nature of the game was trending towards longer games.
|
| World War II shaved minutes from the clock. With so many
| players overseas, the talent pool shrank. The games got shorter
| because they became simpler. When the talent came back, the
| games got longer, largely because, after 1947, the game was
| flooded with previously segregated talent and players who were
| returning from overseas.
|
| In the 60s, pitchers took over. Dominance from the mound. ERAs
| dropped. Batting averages plummeted. In 1968 they called it the
| Year of the Pitcher, then called the rulebook to fix it.
| Scoring came back, and with it, longer games.
|
| Television followed with commercial breaks and camera angles.
| The game had to pause for sponsors. The seventh-inning stretch
| now came with a soft drink.
|
| In the 70s, the bullpen became a revolving door. Specialists.
| Situational matchups. Every pitching change added minutes.
| Coaches walked the mound like they were heading to confession.
|
| And the game kept expanding. OPS rose. More runners meant more
| pitches. More strikeouts meant more throws. Every batter became
| a saga.
|
| If you look at the graph, you can see a trend that matches well
| with changes in baseball. We could probably break down every
| high and low to describe the shift based on rules, personal
| changes, etc.
|
| Then came the pitch clock. No more dawdling. No more meditative
| pacing between pitches. And now a reliever has to face at least
| three batters in an inning. No more one-pitch exits.
|
| It's not that baseball got lazy. It got layered,
| commercialized, optimized, and strategized, but it forgot about
| time management.
|
| The graph shows an outline, with the trends representing a
| chapter in baseball history, which is very cool.
| drivers99 wrote:
| You're a wonderful writer. It made me curious enough to look
| at your previous comments. (Your comment about your grandma
| who baked was also like a wonderful short story but in fewer
| words.) Do you write books as well, by chance? Or a blog, or
| anything like that? Sorry to anyone if this seems weird. A
| simple upvote didn't seem enough.
| mkovach wrote:
| Thanks for pointing that out, seriously.
|
| For a while, I was inflicting baseball history on the
| unsuspecting readers of Pitcher List[1], until the twin
| boulders of professional and personal life demanded I focus
| on pushing them.
|
| One persistent frustration is that my writing voice never
| quite captured how I meant to express myself. So, this past
| year, I've been working (sometimes stubbornly) to close
| that gap, assuming I take the time to think and edit. Your
| kind words mean a lot.
|
| Most days, pray for a recent sabbatical, I try to post a
| daily baseball history note[2]. I hope to resume this
| ritual after this weekend, assuming the stars (and
| schedules) stay in proper hyperdrive alignment and maintain
| the boulder automation.
|
| As the chaos of my life dwindles, a blog, or book (or both)
| remains a possibility.
|
| --- [1] https://pitcherlist.com/author/mat-kovach/ [2]
| https://bsky.app/profile/siddfinch.xyz
| Mistletoe wrote:
| I thought this was some famous passage about baseball. Bravo.
| mkovach wrote:
| Kind and humbling words, thank you. As a Cleveland
| Guardians fan, I need a boost!
| BearOso wrote:
| > It's not that baseball got lazy. It got layered,
| commercialized, optimized, and strategized, but it forgot
| about time management.
|
| This is why I can't stand modern basketball. Deliberate
| fouling in the last quarter is optimal and strategic as far
| as winning. I'm sure those extra commercial slots are
| enticing to the networks as well. But it's boring as hell
| when the last 5 minutes stretch out to an hour, and the final
| result now boils down to a lucky draw instead of skill. Any
| sense of fun has been lost.
| spiesd wrote:
| I wouldn't say they're "so much longer" now (since the pitch
| clock was implemented, that is). This year, 9 inning games
| averaged 2:38. In 1960, they ran 2:33. There are lots of
| factors that contribute to longer gametime. A couple that
| correlate with the general trend for longer: -
| pitchers/game: 2025: 4.29, 1960: 2.45 - strikeouts/game:
| 2025: 8.36, 1960: 5.18
|
| Commercial breaks are currently limited to 2 minutes by rule,
| and it takes some time just to run on and off the field, so I
| am dubious of the impact of that. (Though the rule has changed,
| and I forget whether there were an additional 20 minutes
| because of that back in the 1990s/2000s.)
|
| That said, unless it were a stellar pitching duel, I'd really
| despise constant sub-2 hour games.
|
| https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/misc.shtml
|
| https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/bat.shtml
|
| https://www.mlb.com/glossary/rules/warmup-pitches
| mkovach wrote:
| Yes, the pitch clock and the relievers' requirement to face
| at least three batters in an inning have done a very good job
| of handling game times.
|
| At some point, as the game continues to evolve, I think we'll
| see an upward swing in game times in the future, but I don't
| believe it will trend as high as it has before. I think that
| sub-three-hour games will remain the sweet spot going
| forward.
|
| Now, for sub-two-hour games, this is one I wish I could watch
| and re-watch
|
| https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1908/B10020CLE1908.htm
|
| In the middle of a pennant race, Addie Joss pitched a
| 74-pitch perfect game against Ed Walsh, who had already won
| 39 games that year. The game kept Cleveland in the running
| for the pennant. Game time? 1:40 minutes. The minimum number
| of batters for a nine-inning game is 54, this game had 56.
| jamesmontalvo3 wrote:
| Wouldn't the minimum be 51? 9 _3_ 2 =54, but if the team
| batting second is winning after the top of the 9th then
| they don't need to play the bottom of the ninth, so
| subtract 3? Not a baseball person.
| mkovach wrote:
| You are correct. I should have clarified that for this
| game, Cleveland was visiting Chicago, so they got to bat
| in the ninth.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| I thought the same thing.
|
| And if you have rain , they can call the game "complete"
| if the losing team had 5 half innings at bat. So that
| could be 28. Assume 27 outs and one home run by the home
| team.
| mkovach wrote:
| Not for no-hitters, perfect games. The pitcher has to
| complete nine innings.
| hluska wrote:
| The game has changed dramatically since the 1970s. My favourite
| example is from 1979.
|
| In 1979, Phil Niekro lead the major leagues with 342 innings
| pitched. In 2025, Logan Webb lead the majors with 207 innings
| pitched.
|
| Modern pitchers throw about 2/3 the pitches that pre-80s
| pitchers threw. Part of this is player safety - baseball
| destroyed some amazing arms. And part of it is the fact that
| relievers today tend to throw 98+.
| dgs_sgd wrote:
| Until recently I had only ever been to one baseball game.. saw
| the Jays when I was 10. I remember falling asleep at the game
| because it was so slow and boring, and never really watched
| baseball after that.
|
| But in the last couple years I've seen the Mets and Phillies
| multiple times, and it's now one of my favourite sports to watch
| thanks to the pitch clock increasing the pace of the game. I'd be
| really curious to see data on how many new fans the league got
| after the change.
| jfengel wrote:
| It's too soon to tell. Here's total attendance data:
|
| https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/misc.shtml
|
| COVID did such a number on attendance that it's hard to
| separate anything else out. It has been increasing since it
| bottomed out but is still below the peak.
|
| The best I can say: it was falling before the pandemic and it's
| now above where it was even before everything shut down. So...
| maybe?
| toast0 wrote:
| > I remember falling asleep at the game because it was so slow
| and boring, and never really watched baseball after that.
|
| If you listen to people talking about how they loved going to
| the game with their family, it's usually about what they did to
| pass the time during the boredom. It was America's pastime,
| because you needed to figure out how to pass time during the
| boredom.
|
| The pitch clock is nice though, gives a rythym to action.
|
| That said, minor league baseball is a lot more fun to watch
| because there's a lot more variance, and they have a lot of
| stuff going on between the innings to keep you awake ;)
| jackconsidine wrote:
| The graph shoes interquartile range, so this wouldn't be a
| factor, but worth noting: baseball also changed its rules on
| extra inning games in the past few years which speeds things up.
| A runner starts on second base which reduces the 0-run extra
| innings that are responsible for the 19 inning game I remember as
| a kid. [0]
|
| [0] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jul-10-sp-
| alrdp...
| jrockway wrote:
| What is shorter games doing for attendance, concession sales, ad
| sales on the TV broadcast? Seems like you want people stuck in
| the park for as long as possible (well, at least until they make
| them stop selling alcohol) but if that's too long, people simply
| won't go. Meanwhile, I have no idea whether longer or shorter
| games are better for TV. I would guess shorter is better? After
| an hour of the same insurance commercial over and over, you're
| either going to switch insurance companies or you're not. Seeing
| the ad 3 more times probably isn't worth very much.
| jghn wrote:
| Where I am, the people I know are spending a lot less on
| concessions & alcohol. Not because of the shorter game but
| because the beer prices have become astronomical and the food
| quality has become terrible.
|
| So instead we pregame nearby, maybe have a beer, and then go
| out afterwards.
| gdulli wrote:
| That's one of the reasons inflation doesn't scare me as much
| as it does other people. When it gets out of hand I always
| find easy ways to adjust some unnecessary spending. I'm
| eating healthier since I decided to spend less money on food
| by cooking.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| I went to a Metallica concert at a large basketball stadium
| this summer. The concession stands were charging $22 for a
| beer. I can get that same can of beer at my grocery store for
| $1.25.
| kentonv wrote:
| Well, speeding up the gameplay doesn't affect the number of
| commercial breaks. There are 18 guaranteed commercial breaks
| per game (two per inning). I suppose the density of ads goes
| up. Good deal for advertisers.
|
| (Additional commercial breaks may happen due to mid-inning
| pitching changes, and I suppose it's possible that the pitch
| clock affects the number of pitching changes, but it's not
| obvious to me whether they'd become more frequent or less
| frequent.)
|
| (Though separately, they did make other rules to reduce the
| frequency of pitching changes. But OTOH pitching changes have
| been gradually becoming more common for decades, with starters
| hardly ever completing a game anymore.)
| whartung wrote:
| Anytime the inning ends, or the pitcher changes, there's a 2
| minute pause. Save for the mid-7th inning, when it jumps to 3
| minutes. I believe they are longer during the All Star Game,
| and, maybe, the WS. I didn't notice them longer during the
| recent Wild Card.
|
| They typically jump to commercial on every break. I watch all
| my games on delay, and for local broadcasts, it's 3 clicks on
| the skip button (1.5m) and we're back in the ball park. On
| national broadcasts, it's 4 clicks and we typically return
| with the ball in flight or the batter swinging at the first
| pitch. They cut it really close.
|
| During things like mound visits, they'll slip in an
| interstitial ad, that's about 10s. There's also voice over
| ads from the announcers during short pauses (between batters,
| say), which is almost always team related vs a sponsor, but
| not as bad as on the radio. On the radio its "First pitch
| brought to you by...", things like that.
|
| My nits on advertising are the shoulder patches for the
| players and the stencil on the mound. I particularly hate
| when a national broadcast layers in something over the
| batters eye, the locals do not do that. Last year, the
| Umpires were carrying sponsor patches (some crypto company),
| I honestly can't recall if they were wearing anything this
| year. The rotating banners in the back that are in park or
| green screens overlayed by broadcast behind the plate don't
| really bother me. I always find it amusing when they turn
| almost entirely Japanese when the Dodgers are playing.
|
| The pitch clock and shift changes have been great, I love the
| game. Yankee/Red Sox series last week was a nailbiter. Being
| at the the local park when the Yankees are in town is a
| blast.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| Yes, you want people around for longer. But it's bad if people
| don't tune in or attend because of the time commitment. So it's
| a tradeoff.
|
| It's amazing how much non-action time there is an NFL
| broadcast. Some people don't watch because of it, but I suppose
| enough do.
| jrockway wrote:
| Yeah, NFL games are kind of crazy. I missed a MNF game
| recently and saw it on YouTube the next evening (and somehow
| I hadn't spoiled the score for myself). It was less than 2
| hours without a single play or comment edited out. Aired
| live, it was closer to 3:30. Literally 1/3 commercials. It's
| a little excessive.
| eszed wrote:
| If I get into a rhythm with the "advance ten-seconds"
| button between plays I can get down to around an hour,
| without missing any plays, or pre-snap action. It'd be a
| lot less, even, but there are times we want to see the
| replays, and other times I "miss" and have to jump back.
| It's amazing how much dead time there is in American
| football.
| Djonckheere wrote:
| Apparently less than 15-minutes of athletic action in a
| typical 3-hour game, with ~45-minutes devoted to advertising:
| [2020] How Much American Football Is Even in an American
| Football Broadcast?
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22218909
|
| This explains why NFL RedZone exists.
|
| Fun comparison, a typical Formula 1 Grand Prix clocks in at
| ~1.5 hours. Live race broadcasts (e.g. Sky Sports F1) will
| typically show the entire race with no commercial breaks or
| interruptions. Same goes for MotoGP (e.g. TNT Sports), where
| a sprint race (~10-12 laps) takes just 25 minutes, not
| including post race podium and interviews.
|
| English Premier League game durations come in at just under
| 2-hours with a full hour of athletic action, the remaining
| 50% occupied by a 15-minutes halftime, substitutions, free
| kicks, and a mere 10-minutes of commercial interruptions.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| My experience from going to giants games is that people leave
| when they want, not when the game is over (unless it's a nail
| biter). Same with arriving.
|
| I will say, our personal experience and the comments of many
| fellow fans. The games seem more engaging, fun, and it's easier
| to be present and attentive for the whole game. That mentality
| and experience makes for better attendance in future games and
| a general attitude of "its worth the time".
| glitcher wrote:
| > Games are now roughly as long as they were in the early '80s,
| so the powers at MLB have cut about four decades of fat from the
| game. And they did it without reducing the number of commercials,
| because they'd never do that.
|
| The commercialization of baseball is really ruining the game for
| me at times.
|
| Company billboards and logos are in almost every square inch of
| empty space inside the stadiums now, making them look like giant
| versions of race cars with way too many tacky sponsor stickers.
| And just like race car drivers, these sponsor logos are creeping
| into the players' uniforms more and more each year, now placed
| prominently on one of the shoulders. If they made it into the
| jerseys I guess the hats are next to get ruined.
|
| One of the worst examples are the led ad screens behind the
| batter, which sometimes in the tv broadcast they digitally
| overlay a _different_ advertiser than what the folks in the
| stadium see, and it creates this messed up outline around the
| batter /catcher/ump that makes it look like the entire game is
| fake.
|
| Then there are the tv announcers who are now required to
| attribute the replay on every exciting play to a different
| sponsor, like "this homerun replay is brought to you by Hefty!
| ... blah blah blah". They do it for homeruns, doubles, stolen
| bases, great catches, pitcher changes, even manager challenges!
|
| But probably the most insidious practice is during an active game
| mid-inning, sometimes after a strikeout before the next batter
| gets to the plate, the tv broadcast will shrink the game down
| into one corner of the screen and play a regular, albeit
| shortened, commercial on most of the screen. No more announcer
| analysis about who is coming up to bat, or any other talking
| points relevant to the moment. Instead it's garbage commercial
| audio all the way up to the moment the pitcher is about to
| release the next pitch.
|
| It's almost like they're trying to ruin the integrity of the
| sport. But I know the truth is simple corporate greed.
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| Advertising is a cancer on society. It makes everything worse.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| It almost allows people to create their own real estate and
| rent it out at growing prices as the crowds increase. And
| when they max out at what one would pay for one piece of that
| real estate, they just rent off other pieces of real estate
| (more ads)
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| The best concert I ever saw was one I only knew about from a
| TV commercial.
|
| And I realized after become aggressive about skipping all
| commercials that I'm no longer seeing movies other than the
| most mainstream franchise ones that it's impossible not to
| learn about. I used to come across trailers for movies and
| now I never do.
|
| As with all things, the far extremist take (advertising is a
| cancer) is misguided.
|
| Advertising is information. We're smart adults and can
| separate the facts (a new pizza place opened in town) from
| the bias (it's the best pizza place in town!)
| resize2996 wrote:
| "Advertising is a cancer" is the moderate position, in that
| it assumes the patient can be saved. My personal view is
| that art that has been infected by advertising should be
| taken out back and shot.
|
| I'm glad you enjoyed the show! Again, my personal opinion
| is that we gather more enjoyment out of these things if we
| spend a modicum of effort to curate our experiences rather
| than being spoon-fed the slop with the largest marketing
| budget.
|
| As for "we're smart adults": The research on cognitive
| biases wrt advertising is settled. No, we're really really
| really not smrt.
|
| Edit: I realized I am criticizing without offering a
| solution to my 2nd para. Think about the art (music / games
| / movies / comics) you like. Find those artists on the
| internet and see what art they recommend, and then consume
| that.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| Nightmares on Wax doesn't have a huge marketing budget,
| but okay.
| hluska wrote:
| There is nothing remotely moderate about saying
| "advertising is a cancer". It removes a massive industry
| from relevance, and condemns a whole lot of performance
| artists to unemployment. Advertising creates space for
| artists and sponsored performance spaces are the only
| performance spaces in many cities.
|
| This reads like elitism. There is amazing art being made
| with a zero dollar ad budgets and amazing art being made
| with massive budgets. Those of us in small cities only
| get to see art because of advertising.
| jghn wrote:
| > Company billboards and logos are in almost every square inch
| of empty space
|
| This isn't new. Have you ever seen pictures of stadiums 100
| years ago? I can recall people being upset a while back that
| the Green Monster was starting to be covered by ads. And yet
| one can find photos from way back when of it pretty much full
| of billboards.
| _factor wrote:
| For the record, I have managed to limit advertising for tykes
| to near 0. Young enough where control over electronics is
| viable.
|
| As soon as a game pops up, the only unfiltered ad exposure
| basically, and it's glue. The bright colors, the subconscious
| techniques, the hidden waveforms, whatever magic sauce they use
| to steal attention WORKS.
|
| It's like seeing a fairy tapping kids on the head and stealing
| all of their attention as they become droolingly attentive
| zombies to whatever drivel reserves the sales screen real
| estate for that time slice.
|
| It is concerningly effective, and I can bet most everyone grew
| up saturated with it. Bordering on harassment/abuse since it
| can not be entirely avoided.
| hluska wrote:
| This is why I didn't keep my child away from ads. Kids have
| extremely plastic brains and I wanted to get that neural
| plasticity to protect my kid for the future. The ad industry
| spends more money figuring kids out than the education
| industry - hiding ads makes ads exciting.
|
| My kid is nine and they're ad proof.
| Marsymars wrote:
| > But probably the most insidious practice is during an active
| game mid-inning, sometimes after a strikeout before the next
| batter gets to the plate, the tv broadcast will shrink the game
| down into one corner of the screen and play a regular, albeit
| shortened, commercial on most of the screen.
|
| It's common for curling broadcasts to do this for lead stones
| (so a quarter of stones thrown). Rage-inducing.
| oldandboring wrote:
| The pitch clock is undoubtedly the most impactful of the changes
| made recently to speed up the game. However, other changes were
| implemented alongside it that have contributed in meaningful
| ways:
|
| - Limit on the number of times per plate appearance a pitcher can
| "disengage" by stepping off/calling time or making a pickoff
| move.
|
| - Limit on the number of times per plate appearance a batter can
| "disengage" by stepping out/calling time.
|
| - Minimum of 3 batters must be faced by an incoming relief
| pitcher (or must finish the half-inning)
|
| - Limit on the number of mound visits per game
|
| - Larger bases
|
| - Elimination (mostly) of the defensive "shift"
|
| - Team at bat starts with an automatic "ghost" runner on 2nd base
| in extra innings
| lc9er wrote:
| I like the 1, 2, and 4 changes. My feelings about 3 and 6 are
| mixed. Absolutely dislike the last.
| oldandboring wrote:
| While I also dislike the ghost runner, I can't deny that it's
| been a net positive for the game. By mostly eliminating
| marathon extra-inning slogs, not only does it speed up the
| game, but it also makes it much harder for teams to run out
| of pitchers they can safely use, which reduces injuries and
| ensures that we are not subjected to watching two backup
| catchers throw 48mph Eephus pitches in the 17th inning, long
| after they stopped selling beer.
| tiahura wrote:
| Nothing cooler than staying up till 1:30 am with a radio
| under the covers to listen to the end of a 14 inning game.
|
| All that baseball they've stolen from us just so the
| degenerate gamblers can get their fix quicker.
| musictubes wrote:
| Long extra inning games are pretty rare. I too hate the
| "Manfred Man" but the players and coaches overwhelmingly
| approve of it. I think that using the ghost runner at the
| start of the 12th inning would be a good compromise.
| voidfunc wrote:
| I think I would be more OK with the ghost runner of it
| kicked in for beyond the 10th or 11th inning.
| nsavage wrote:
| I hate the removal of the shift. I thought it was such an
| interesting innovation to the game, and the fact that
| baseball allowed for such things part of its magic.
| radpanda wrote:
| To be pedantic I don't think the 3-batter rule mentions relief
| pitchers. If a team wanted to use an opening pitcher to face
| only the first batter and then replace him, that would also be
| against the rules.
|
| https://www.mlb.com/glossary/rules/three-batter-minimum
| hluska wrote:
| If you're going to be pedantic, don't rely on a glossary.
| 5.10 (g) specifically mentions both starting and substitute
| pitchers.
|
| It's truly a shame that I had to mention this because it adds
| nothing to the conversation.
| badlibrarian wrote:
| Amusing to see "dos2unix" pop up in the middle of the article.
| Python and Pandas can handle newlines directly, one pattern is:
| with open("gametimes.csv", "r", newline="") as f: df =
| pd.read_csv(f)
| zahlman wrote:
| The standard library `csv` used to expect files in binary mode
| in 2.x and it annoyed me to no end.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| Sorta related: I feel instant replay challenges have sucked the
| life out of the game. Arguing with the ump over bad calls has
| never accomplished anything, but it's entertaining, it gets the
| blood flowing; it always made me feel more connected to the game
| and other fans. Now, managers just request an instant replay
| challenge, we wait a few minutes, and that's it - accurate, but
| boring.
|
| For example, I watched around 100 games this season, but I can't
| recall a single instant replay challenge. However, ask anyone
| from St. Louis about "game 6" (typically, that's all you need to
| say!), and they'll get fired up, ranting about this:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyt1xEvqqow . Forty years later,
| people still remember that blown call like it was yesterday.
| alexpotato wrote:
| The wildest thing about this chart is that it shows that from the
| 1920s to the 1940s you could conceivably watch a baseball game:
|
| - that took less than 2 hours
|
| - was in the afternoon
|
| One baseball writer theorized that part of the decline in
| interest in baseball amongst kids is b/c they moved to night
| games so kids couldn't watch anymore (bed time etc etc).
|
| e.g. many older people speak fondly of getting home from school
| and listening / watching a baseball game of their home team.
| voidfunc wrote:
| A few problems:
|
| 1. baseball competes in a sea of media and multimedia options
| and its competition has been growing ever since TV moved into
| the cable-era. Now it also has to compete with internet, games,
| social media, etc. Theres only so much time and attention for
| people to focus on it.
|
| 2. Long season. I love baseball but you can go 2-3 weeks not
| watching a game and have missed nothing.
|
| 3. Cost to go to games plus location of stadiums in car-centric
| areas often means painful commutes to the games for most
| Americans and then bringing two kids is like making it a $400
| affair between parking, food, souvenirs etc. That's expensive
| for a lot of people.
|
| The exit of people from the cities into the burbs in the
| mid-20th did a lot of damage to the idea of going to a game.
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