Baseball They say baseball is America’s favorite pastime, a decent, fun sport that everybody loves to play whether it is on an actual team or just playing for fun with friends. But, having watched just one Major league baseball game made me think about baseball and why people actually like it. It is the slowest sport I have ever seen and on top of that, a team might not score the whole entire game. Every year, the average time for each MLB baseball game increases each year. So, do Americans really enjoy watching this sport? This is my take on how an average baseball game is played.
First off, the game is started off with the defensive team running fiercely onto the field. Then, they start practicing even more as the pitcher starts throwing warm up pitches. If you ask me, I am already starting to get bored. Next, the batter steps up to the plate and the pitcher picks out which pitch and then right before he is about to finally pitch the ball, the batter calls time out and starts fixing his batting gloves and take more practice swings. Really now, I could have already played an entire basketball game at this point it feels like.
I know what you are thinking now, when will this game finally start? Well, next thing you know the batter is back in the box and the pitcher is ready to pitch. He throws the first pitch and the batter just watches it go by for a ball, then the batter steps out of the box, takes even more practice swings, fixes his gloves, and looks down at the third base coach all before the next pitch. So, if the next pitch is another ball or a strike, the same batter has to do that whole process again which just keeps dragging the game along.
After this process is repeated for every single batter in that one half of an inning, the game already feels way to long. Yet, a baseball game is 9 innings which means each team needs to make 27 outs. Now you can see how baseball is slower than a turtle race. As the game goes on, the score should keep going up and up right? Well, in baseball, it is not uncommon for a team to score 0 points the whole game. 0 points! I have seen many scores where it is 1 – 0 after the 9 innings. Now doesn’t that sound exciting, you play for more than 3 hours to have 1 team score only 1 run.
I would say the NBA averages at least 100 more points a game than the MLB, now that sounds like some more excitement. Another thing about baseball is that is a non-contact sport. Are players really scared to get close to each other? Where is the excitement in the baseball? Every single game is played the same and they are all around the same, long, boring length. People may say that my version of a baseball game is a little too slow and boring but when it comes down to it, that’s how games are really played.
I’m just trying to tell everyone what the problem with baseball is so there can be changes. The MLB, (major league baseball) needs to do something to shorten the lengths of each baseball game. There are many options; they could shorten the game down from 9 innings which would take a good chunk off the game. Or, the umpires could work on speeding up the game by giving less time out to the batters and pitchers. Overall, baseball is America’s favorite pastime but it has just got to be too slow and too boring.
