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A unique take on sports news, updated several times throughout the day.
Time could be on our side
1. A batter can step out only once per at-bat. No more will the likes of Nomar Garciaparra frantically adjust each body part and article of clothing after every pitch like a chimpanzee grooming himself. Stay in the box and swing the bat. 2. Just one visit from the dugout to the mound. The only reason a pitching coach or manager should be allowed to waddle out to the hill is to change pitchers, and we're keeping that anachronism solely because of the possibility for confrontation when the pitcher is unhappy about being pulled. Don't these professional pitchers have some idea what to do without the constant coddling? If you need to relay a particular message, that's what the catcher is for. 3. No more than one day off between NBA, NHL and MLB playoff games -- and only for travel. The NBA, of course, is the worst offender. Somehow a seven-game, first-round series can be spread over three weekends. The NBA playoffs last about as long as American Idol and, perhaps unsurprisingly, draw only a fraction of its viewers. (Aside: Sorry, Melinda, I forgot to vote.) 4. When an NBA team is fouled in the final two minutes, it should have the option of taking the ball out of bounds rather than shooting free throws. No longer will the end of games be reduced to hack-a-thons that make the final 90 seconds last 90 minutes. There's already a 24-second shot clock, so the team that's ahead can't simply take the air out of the ball. One exception: A foul on Steve Nash will result in a suspension. (Kidding!) 5. In the NFL, the clock should keep running after an incomplete pass. Let's get this straight -- the clock keeps ticking on a running play and after a completed pass, yet an errant throw essentially results in the reward of more time for the offensive team? How does that make any sense? This change will put even more of a premium on passing accuracy, while enabling 60 Minutes to actually start on time. What am I missing, besides my mind? (UPDATE: Plenty of good reader suggestions, such as fobidding relief pitchers from throwing warm-up tosses on the mound (that's what the bullpen is for, David Cone!) or making relievers pitch to a minimum of three batters to cut down on the constant pitching changes. See the comments.)
posted by SI.com | View comments |
Comments:Any relief pitcher must face a minimum of three batters.
In football and basketball, if a second timeout is called immediately after a first TO, the second one is only half as long. The seventh inning stretch lasts only as long as the song "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." A relief pitcher entering a game should not get to throw warm-up pitches from the mound, unless the preceding pitcher left due to an injury. For cryin' out loud, what the heck was the guy just doing in the bullpen? (I realize this could be a loaded question if one is talking about David Cone.)
There needs to be more time, not a clock stoppage, after a passing play. Since running plays average 5 yards a play, it takes less time for the players to huddle and reset. A passing play averages 10-15 yards and the time to reset take a bit longer. Especially with the size of today's NFL lineman.
Let's just go the full George Carlin route- if a batter is hit by a pitch, he's out. That would move things along.
If my grandmother can throw a guy out trying to steal 2nd then no pick off throws to first.
In college football overtimes, the play clock between downs should be 5-10 seconds less; they already start on the 25 as it is so it's not like they're running long drives
Steve in NY,
Props to your grams for being able to throw our baserunners. That is very impressive. Are the pitchers at least helping her out with a slide-step? -- Pete NFL and NBA shorten the play clock/shot clock and the clock never stops (can even add injury time at the end of each half if you want to get fancy)
Christopher - How about a maximum team weight limit for the NFL. That takes care of the big players taking more time to get back to the line, reduce injuries and make the game a bit more exciting. All good suggestions. Mark this day on the calendar Pete.
I'd add no TV time-outs. If the pitcher is ready to throw, throw it. You'd make a good politician. The other day you thought it was a good idea to have more MLB games for the World Series so corporate big whigs could wine and dine and celebrate spending their employees retirement money on a trip to a neutral site. Today your list is to shorten everything.
But seriously if anything needs to be shortened in sports it's the opening and closing boramonies in the Olympics and the halftime show at the Superbowl. Anon. 11:36, I believe it's important to stay flexible. And to cut taxes. Plus increase spending on education and national defense. And balance the budget. -- Thanks, Pete
I agree, cut down on the days off in the NBA Playoffs. One off day between games. Too many back to backs would just wear out all the teams and we'd be left watching clunkers clang off the rim for 48 minutes, so give them a day.
On to baseball, let the batters step out of the box, but if they wander out of the dirt area, the pitcher can go ahead and pitch. This would at least speed up the AL games, the NL games don't seem to last as long... Pitcher gets 15 seconds from the time he gets the ball back to throw the next pitch. If he fails to throw a pitch, or attempt a pickoff, then the batter is credited with a ball in the count.
If the batter is not ready in that time period, a strike is credited into the count. 2 pickoff attempts per batter. Taking the ball out of bounds in basketball probably won't help much in terms of speeding up the game. How about the time comes off of the game clock equal to remaining time on the shot clock plus the team still gets to shoot the free throws.
In soccer (the poster sport of the 10 Spot), eliminate the "extra" time arbitrarily added to the end of the game. It doesn't take that lone to reset the ball for penalties (certainly less than "real" football). And certainly, the 5-10 fans who actually attend the games won't all have to leave at the same time. A sport with time management problems - cricket - but who cares? If only 2 pick off attempts,would a runner still be able to steal?
Can you really limit the number of pick off attempts? The base runner will just wait for the pitcher to throw over twice (or whatever the limit may be) take a huge lead and steal the base
I disagree on removing clock stoppages with incomplete passes.
When a clock continues to run in football, it means that the previous play had some sort of success (which is why I don't like the NFL's current rule of not stopping after an out-of-bounds run - though balanced with a shorter play clock). That "success" is that the play ended with a tackle. If it doesn't, then the clock stops. Can't believe this hasn't been mentioned yet...
In college football let the game clock continue to run after a first down. The NCAA tried to fix the marathon length of their football games by running the clock after... a change of possession? But not after a first down? Which would dramatically alter the course of a game more? Lunacy. Since most people harp on how the NCAA is just the NFL's minor leagues, they might as well play by similar rules. Some good ideas here. In fact, I proposed the single step-out per at-bat rule during the discussion on extending the World Series. ("You could look it up.") But you forgot the other side - you have to concurrently limit the pitcher to one step-off per at-bat. How to enforce the former? Automatic strike. And the latter? Automatic ball.
The NCAA and NBA should adopt international rules regarding time-outs. Let 'em play! Furthermore, no back-to-back time-outs, ever! I also like the idea of not stopping the clock after an incomplete pass in football. No need for extra time on the play clock after a pass play, either. It isn't allowed now. If it were, offensive teams would use it to run out the clock. Hockey and soccer need to drop the offsides rule. It's effectively allowed in basketball, but you rarely see cherry-picking in the NCAA or NBA, because of the disadvantage at the other end. Besides, what's the worst that could happen? More scoring? Heaven forbid! How about cutting down on the number of timeouts basketball teams get (college and pros)? Five per half is WAY to many. The last few minutes of a basketball game shouldn't take half-an-hour.
Another thing I hate is when teams run out the clock in football. I think any play that results in lost yardage in the last 2 minutes should stop the clock. Then we won't have to watch the QB take a knee for the last two minutes. Its such an anticlimatic end to good games. How about no TV timeouts...every half inning, every four minutes in basketball, after every change of possession in football...
No, wait a minute, that would be soccer. Nevermind. While on the topic of speeding up the games...how about ways to fix the schedules? The World Series final game now is in November! The world series should clearly finish the day before the regular season for the NFL starts. The NBA playoffs should start the day after the SuperBowl, (since the actual season doesn't matter) and end the day before opening day for baseball.
Any player in any sport that goes down on a play and needs the trainer to come out and give assistance is out for the remainder of that quarter, period, or inning. Enough with these guys acting as though they've been shot with and elephant gun only to return to action moments later.
Anon 12:31 PM -
The reason the kneeldown is allowed is to prevent unnecessary injury when the game is decided. And, incidentally, making them play football would take -longer- than running out the clock, which kinda runs counter to this whole discussion. As far as ways to save time in sports, this one comes from hockey. How tiring is it to watch 3 straight faceoffs when a goalie grabs a puck and holds on for no good reason? It would increase scoring and force goalies to work on developing their puck handling skills if they were only allowed to hold the puck when other players were in their crease. Anon 12:48 -
Um... so you want the NBA playoffs to run opposite of March Madness? The world might implode if that were to happen. Fully agree'd on baseball ending before opening day of Football, and NBA ending at some point, but ideally it should be shoved in there before March Madness. What's the reason to always need to speed up the games? What the desired length for an NFL, MLB or NCAAF game?
Also, baseball should never have a clock of any sort, or anything timed. That's the beauty of baseball. Get rid of baseball .. the whole game is waiting around for a few minutes to see 3 seconds of action.
Basketball: Once a Free Throw Shooter is handed the ball, no one can leave or enter the lane or circle until BOTh free throws are attempted.
The execs running the major sports will ignore ALL these comments. They want the games to run long so more commercials can be shown. An NFL game has to be at least three hours for enough beer ads to be shown.
Why do you people insist on running the clock on every play to speed up the games. The commercials is what slows down the games. They finally admitted it last year with the college football clock changes. The data showed that televised games lasted twenty minutes longer than non-televised games. Greed has caused the games to be longer, don't change the game so you can watch more commercials!
Leave football alone. The NFL already sucks because it depends on how fast those chubby refs can run the ball around. I love NCAA - it never seems to last too long because every single play something huge and game altering could happen.
The NBA is also fine - however baseball really needs tinkering with. Anything to speed up baseball would be great... Anon 1:30
I fully agree, that if a player is so hurt that the play must stop and a trainer come out, that they must stay off for the remainder of the period, quarter. If they can come back 60 seconds later, I think they should have had enough energy to get thier butt to the bench. I would also like to see less days between games for playoffs for hockey and baseball. home games should be back to back, a day for travel, and then back to back again Joe -
"Um... so you want the NBA playoffs to run opposite of March Madness?" March Madness can fit in with NBA playoff games..or better yet can just replace the entire first round. How about in the NBA games if a team intentionally fouls, the offended team gets two or three shots depending on the area of the foul, i.e. 2 pt or 3 pt range, then after the shots the shooting team also gets the ball? Talk about putting a stop to the foul-a-thons!
How about this: during the last two minutes of each quarter (and overtime period, if necessary) the shot clock is reduced to 15 seconds. Offense will still have 5 seconds to get the ball past half court, but if they take that long they'll only have 10 seconds to make a shot attempt. Defensive rebounds will reset the shot clock to 15 seconds due to change in possession, but offensive rebounds will only give 10 seconds for a second or subsequent shot attempt. May not shorten the length of the game, but with a potential minimum of 4 possessions per team (barring fouls), a team behind by 10 to 12 points will still have a chance to catch up in 2 minutes. Plus, it takes away from the team ahead by that much the option of "milking the clock." Shoot it or give up the rock.
Intentional walks - just tell the ump you want to walk the guy and forget about throwing the ball 4 times.
And to TC at 12:04 - last time I checked India was the largest democracy in the world and hot for cricket, so somebody out there cares... I don't know about anyone else, but I'm perfectly happy for baseball and football games to take a while. Having paid an arm and a leg for a seat, my first thought is rarely "I hope they get this game over with quickly."
Am I the only one who thinks the lenght of NFL and NCAA games is just fine (with the exception of NBC televised ND games)? Why is everyone in a rush to shorten the greatest sporting events on earth? I wish the clock stopped after every play so we would have more of them! Am I alone in this?
Stoppages=commercials=money. If anything, expect changes to lengthen games. I personally think there should be a one timeout per half rule in both football and basketball but that will never happen because of the above.
For baseball--
Every player in the field should be required to pitch one inning. Can you say ENTERTAINMENT? Taking a page from football communication techniques, a batter's helmet could have a receiver that would permit him to receive the pitch-by-pitch signals (bunt, hit-and-run, etc.). This would eliminate the batters needlessly stepping out of the batters box to check the third base coach sign.
Similarly there would be a receiver on the catcher's helmet so he could get the pitch-by-pitch signals from the manager (or pitching coach)and minimize the time between to a 45 seconds maximum. These, along with the previously mentioned suggestions to a more pleasantly viewable games to 2.5 hours. L. Tamah Kuhn WNBA quarters last three seconds so I don't accidentally stop my channel-surfing thinking I'm stopping on actual basketball.
Also force Joaquim Noah to at least attempt to look male. (Nothing to do with time, but a good idea nonetheless). I can only assume most of the folks with baseball recommendations never played the game, because these ideas are ridiculous.
No warmup pitches from the game mound? As a former pitcher, I know that EVERY mound is different. The previous pitcher(s) may have dug up the mound, or created holes for landing. You have to get a feel for it. Timed pitches? Don't be ridiculous. What if you have to tie your shoe? I know it's all in fun, but come on.... Re: #5. A Incomplete pass gives the defense a chance to get the ball back and penalizes the offense. I thought this one was pretty obvious. The reason teams run the ball is to kill the clock. If you keep the clock running on incomplete passes, you reward bad offenses by and penalize good defenses.
Taking this away would take away so many great drives we have seen as incomplete passes allowed those teams to stop the clock. NBA: Limit the amount of time outs in the last two minutes to one per team. Let the players decide the game instead of the coaches.
I also like the previously mentioned rule of choosing an out of bounds throw in instead of foul shooting. MLB: simple. Enlarge the strike zone; especially the high strike. Too many batters working the count; make em'swing the bat!  |
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