Long Games and Low Scoring? Think Football, Not Baseball

People who don't understand baseball complain that a game takes too long and produces insufficient scoring. While the pace of the game is often unnecessarily sluggish -- weighted down by ceaseless pitching changes and bizarre batting rituals -- this criticism is more reasonably leveled at America's most popular sport.

Exhibit A this weekend was BYU's unfathomable 33-28 thriller over Nebraska. In case you missed it, the Cornhuskers led all the way until a last-second Hail Mary heave that they somehow failed to defend.

Sounds like riveting viewing, right? Except it suffered from all the maladies attributed to "boring" baseball:
1. The contest was completed in regulation and took three hours and 45 minutes.
2. Every single play was followed by, as George Will has pointed out, a committee meeting.
3. The final score was, in baseball terms, 5-4.

It's counter-intuitive but true: football involves less scoring than baseball. It just obscures its offensive anemia in two ways. First, when a team fails to do the equivalent of plate a run, it has a back-up option: kick a field goal. This is akin to baseball teams getting credit for half a run every time a runner reaches third.

Second, it awards crooked numbers for its scores. So Nebraska, which tallied four touchdowns (and four of those formalities called extra points, which are the equivalent of a butt slap from the third base coach), boasts a 28-point outburst. When a baseball team manufactures four scores per game, we decry their middling offense.

For its part, BYU crossed home four times (skipping the formality of the tushy touching at game's end) and reached third twice, for the margin of victory. Yawn.

That the game ended with a blown save by the defensive secondary in the most dramatic fashion shouldn't obscure the fact that the game suffered from the very characteristics that dog baseball in the public's eye.

Was that game an anomaly? At the very same time, , Alabama spent more than three hours defeating Wisconsin 4 1/2 - 2 1/2, Auburn held on for a three-hour-plus 4 1/2 -3 1/2 victory over Louisville, and Notre Dame needed more than three hours to smother Texas 5 1/2 - 1/2. And because there's a clock limiting late game possibilities, utter futility attended an entire quarter of that game. 

And all those yards they chew up? Cubbie third baseman Kris Bryant's latest bomb accounted for 185 yards on one play alone. Baseball is exciting. Football needs to speed up play.

A Long Strange Trip

Dear Bud,

If you're wondering why people growing up on the web and Facebook and Twitter and instant gratific -- is the game over yet? -- are bored with baseball, take a look at the seventh inning in the Giants-Marlins tilt on Monday.

Keeping in mind that both teams are on the periphery of the race and sport young studs that may form the frame of a strong edifice in the future. If you're a denizen of the Golden or Sunshine states, there's reason to invest some time and attention in your homeboys.

Ricky Nolasco comes out to start the bottom o' the seventh,  with visiting Florida ahead 3-0. He retires Juan Uribe and walks Pat Burrell, an offense so gross that it prompts  manager Edwin Rodriguez to bolt from the dugout for a chat, eventually pointing his left arm towards the bullpen. Taylor Tankersly trots in and fires his warm-up tosses.

Aaron Rowand turns around Tankersly's second pitch and it's quickly 3-2. Rodriguez argues its foulness and the umps review it, determining they made the right call. The skipper leaves the field, the PA announces Freddy Sanchez as the next batter and Rodriguez bounds back up the dugout steps for a tete-a-tete with Tankersly before signaling for northpaw Jose Veras. 

I know what you're thinking: yippee! Another pitching change, my favorite thing! Now we can assault the fans in the stadium with another insipid videoboard race among cartoon cheese products while the television audience is treated to the 11th airing today of a beer commercial. 

Sanchez singles on the second 94 mph fastball he sees. Bruce Bochy yanks Chris Ray and pinch hits Nate Scheurholz, who flies out. Next up, promising rookie Andres Torres, who watches two pick-off attempts, two strikes and four balls before walking to first base.

It's now been six minutes since Rodriguez has set foot on the field, a situation remedied by another conference on the hill. Jose Veras departs for a well-deserved shower, having dispensed 10 pitches and two throws to first. Brian Sanchez takes the long walk to meet with Rodriguez before limbering up with his requisite warm-up throws. 

At this point, the crowd has, en masse, checked Lindsay Lohan's Facebook status. Incarcerated. They wonder what Justin Bieber is up to, or perhaps, what Justin Bieber is.

Sanchez makes quick work of Edgar Renteria, who whiffs on four pitches. His brief tenure at the plate is a counterpoint to a half inning that dragged on for 27 minutes and involved four pitchers, only one of whom relinquished any runs.

In other words, the Marlins managed a bit of reverse alchemy, transforming an exciting 3-2 contest into a cure for insomnia and costing everyone paying a babysitter an extra Lincoln. The half-frame took nearly a half-hour without even a lead change.

Aren't you the commissioner who casts a wary eye on further replays for fear of lengthening the tedium beyond three hours? How about this instead: ban replacing any pitcher who didn't start the inning. That would end the endless shuffling on the mound that sends my wife to her book just as the contest should be building to a crescendo. 

Next, limit pick-off moves so that pitchers spend their time moving the action forward, rather than sideways. Now you'll have enough time to add instant replay and still get dad home in time to tuck in his kids.

Baseball is an entertainment product. You forget that at the game's peril. Boring may have worked for you in your car-dealing career, but doesn't sell today, Bud. Ditch the dull, drawn-out inaction and the committee meetings, the self-molestation and genuflection between pitches, and replace them with baseball. I think you'll find the Tweeting crowd a little more receptive.

Love,

Waldo the Braindrizzler

 b