Baseball

[smc]

Originally Posted by dauls

But if you think baseball has a nice slow pace, try Test Match Cricket (the five day version of the game). You play roughly 6 hours per day, and after five days you can still have a drawn match. Sometimes, for one team, holding on for the draw actually feels like a win.

Hey, dauls, thanks for your post. I've actually played cricket. I went to college at a very, very small liberal arts school that happens to be just across the street from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. A high school acquaintance was at the Academy concurrently, so we kept in touch. There was a group of "exchange students" there who were junior officers in the Royal Navy, and they were looking to organize some cricket matches. They were having a very hard time getting U.S. Navy guys interested, so my friend came by and asked me -- he knew I am a big fan of baseball -- whether I wanted to learn and play. I said yes, enthusiastically, and helped find others until we were able to organize a first match over a weekend about a month later. We played Test and determined that we'd start on Saturday, play on Sunday as well, and at the end we'd decide whether to continue if the match "technically" wasn't yet over.

It was a great time. And we did it a few more times over the year.

An important point about "slowness": a large part of cricket's slowness is actually "duration." Breaks for lunch, tea, drinks ... those all make the game take longer. No one was slowing the match while waiting for some TV ad to be completed.

[dauls]

Originally Posted by smc

Hey, dauls, thanks for your post. I've actually played cricket...

An important point about "slowness": a large part of cricket's slowness is actually "duration." Breaks for lunch, tea, drinks ... those all make the game take longer. No one was slowing the match while waiting for some TV ad to be completed.

Funny to hear you've played cricket, that's not something I hear too many Americans saying they've done.

TV imposing on the game is one thing that appears to be different in England compared with North America. Over here TV doesn't dictate the play of the game and in cricket the TV company has to sneak advert breaks in at the change of ends between the overs bowled or during mid-session drinks breaks.

In North America play seems to stop when TV needs it to and won't restart until the ad break has finished.

Quite often a hurried return to the cricket happens just after the ball has been bowled, but then there is plenty of time before the next ball to show a replay of the delivery you just missed.


The 3rd Test Match has just finished and England have clung on for the draw again. We were down to our last wicket for the final 17 balls.

This draw happened in almost an identical manner to the 1st Test where England's last wicket survived for the final 19 balls.

The South Africans must be gutted that they have drawn two matches that they were only one wicket (out) away from winning the game.

So that leaves England 1-0 up in the Series with only one Test Match to go. So England can't lose the Series now, but a Series win away in South Africa will be a fantastic achievement for England.

[smc]

Major League Baseball has announced that Commissioner Bud Selig is going to in a week or so with the Special Committee for On-Field Matters, which has some veteran managers (Tony La Russa, Jim Leyland, Mike Scioscia, and Joe Torre), GMs, club owners, and team presidents. Among the topics are schedules, playoff formats, umpiring, game pace, and instant replay.

I'm hoping they address -- and fix -- the ridiculous postseason schedule, with all the wasted open dates.

[dauls]

Originally Posted by smc

Major League Baseball has announced that Commissioner Bud Selig is going to in a week or so with the Special Committee for On-Field Matters, which has some veteran managers (Tony La Russa, Jim Leyland, Mike Scioscia, and Joe Torre), GMs, club owners, and team presidents. Among the topics are schedules, playoff formats, umpiring, game pace, and instant replay.

I'm hoping they address -- and fix -- the ridiculous postseason schedule, with all the wasted open dates.

Those wasted open dates are surely down to the TV schedules. So I doubt your wish will come true.

The last three years has seen Game 1 of the World Series moved back to Wednesdays to boost sagging ratings. This avoids having a game on poorly watched Friday nights, and means play on both days of the weekend. I suppose the only TV schedule nightmare for comes on Monday when a Game 5 goes head-to-head with Monday Night Football.

In the earlier postseason rounds the teams wanted the extra days off for travel. But surely playing baseball in November can't be right.

[smc]

Originally Posted by dauls

Those wasted open dates are surely down to the TV schedules. So I doubt your wish will come true.

The last three years has seen Game 1 of the World Series moved back to Wednesdays to boost sagging ratings. This avoids having a game on poorly watched Friday nights, and means play on both days of the weekend. I suppose the only TV schedule nightmare for comes on Monday when a Game 5 goes head-to-head with Monday Night Football.

In the earlier postseason rounds the teams wanted the extra days off for travel. But surely playing baseball in November can't be right.

You are wise to doubt that the postseason schedules will be fixed, but I think the reason for some optimism is that players and managers -- without exception -- have complained. Usually, there are a few players and managers who "make a stink" about something, and everyone else has "no comment." But not on this issue. So maybe change will come, TV sponsors be damned!

[shadows]

Originally Posted by smc

You are wise to doubt that the postseason schedules will be fixed, but I think the reason for some optimism is that players and managers -- without exception -- have complained. Usually, there are a few players and managers who "make a stink" about something, and everyone else has "no comment." But not on this issue. So maybe change will come, TV sponsors be damned!

I hope that will be the case. Playing baseball into November(the last game the previous season was on November 4th to be exact) is ridiculous.