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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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+.
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?
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:
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.
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
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.
Wouldn’t the minimum be 51? 932 =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.
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.
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.
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]
I meant to also say that the light doesn't go off until the commercial break is done, so they don't drop the puck before the broadcasters are ready. Typically an off-ice official holds a door open and stands in it to also signal not to start, if it looks like everyone is ready to go a bit early.
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.
A game in 2 hours or less would be pretty awesome.