Farewell Red Schoendienst

Copyright Baseball Hall of Fame

This past week one of my St. Louis Cardinal childhood favorites passed away at the age of 95.  Albert Fred "Red" Schoendienst was nearing the end of his career when I first saw him play as an eight year old in 1961 at Busch Stadium I.  I wasn't old enough at the time to realize I was seeing a Hall-of-Fame second basemen.  Schoendienst had a long distinguished career including four years with the Milwaukee Braves in the late 1950's,  During that period the Braves went to the World Series twice and won it in 1957.  Red was recognized as one of the best second basemen of his era for his hands and range.

Later in his career he managed the Cardinals to the 1967 and 1968 National League pennants.  In 1967 the Birds won it all beating the Boston Red Sox in seven games.  Schoendienst worked and consulted with the Cardinals until earlier this year.  RIP in Red.

I have been a frequent critic of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, but not this weekend.  Writer Rick Hummel, who is also in the Hall-of-Fame in the writers wing, wrote the following article looking back at how Mr. Schoendienst was remembered by those with he whom he came into contact.  The copyright on the following article is with the Post-Dispatch.  Here is the link to the article.

MLB Games are Just Too Long and Boring

Greetings oh  blog reader.  As I write this I am watching the St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds play a divisional game from Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati.  The game is being played at a snail's pace and honestly isn't any fun to watch.  It just moved into the top of the 5th and is almost two hours old.  Major League Baseball is boring because the games are too long.  I was offered tickets by a friends to a Cardinals game earlier this week and fortunatly I had other plans.  Fortunate because it was 93 degrees and I knew the game would last over three hours.  The seats were great seats, but also in the sun.  So while I love the game of baseball I was glad I didn't go to the Cards and Marlins game.

I've written about these long games on several occasions.  The average game time is well over three hours in the National League and even longer in the American League.  There are several reasons that the times have gotten out of hand.

For starters, umpires are not calling the strike zone as it is written in the rule book.  The book says a pitch over the plate from the letters to the knees is a strike.  But, for must umps, the strike zone exists between the waist and knees.  Batters take extra pitches looking for a free pass.  This results in more pitches seen in each at bat, which results in a longer game time.  For most hitters and pitchers the game is a cat and mouse contest.  The pitcher gets the ball back from the catcher and he steps off the rubber and does any number of things from rubbing up the ball, to walking around the back of the mound to blowing on his hand to God only knows what he will do next.  While the pitcher is wasting time the batter is stepping out of the batters box.  The hitter goes through a litany of tightening his gloves, looking down the foul line to the base coach for signals, knocking dirt out of his cleats, taking a couple of practice swings and then stepping back into the box.  If you're lucky the pitcher will throw to the hitter and the game resumes for one pitch.  If not they go through this routine again. Each at bat is too long, the inning becomes even longer and the fans get bored waiting for something to happen.  This could be resolved by the Commissioner of Baseball, Rob Manfred, issuing an order that the hitters will stay in the box and the pitcher on the rubber.  If they don't the pitcher is assessed a ball for each violation and the hitter is assessed a strike each time he steps out of the box.  It wouldn't take long for them to learn their bad habits won't be tolerated.  The commissioner also needs to order umpires to call strikes as they are written in the rule book.  If not they get a warning, that if repeated enough could result in suspension or termination.  The commissioner needs to realize fans do not go to the games to watch the umpires call balls.

If MLB is serious about picking up the pace it would also limit the amount of times between innings to 90 seconds.  As it is now MLB allows some networks to run up to three minutes of commercials each half inning (ESPN/ABC is a prime offender).  Baseball makes a ton of money off of TV rights so its TV partners need to show as many commercials as possible.  But, if the TV networks went to a grid system, they could charge more for each spot and reduce the number between innings.  MLB has to remember the fans in the stands who have to sit and wait every time TV shows a commercial.  These are the same fans who in some cases are paying over $100 per ticket to get into the ballpark. Baseball needs to show some consideration to those paying for tickets and not roll over for broadcast rights holders. If baseball would reduce the amount of time between innings it could result in a savings of at least 24 minutes per game.

If baseball is serious about shortening its games it's not that difficult.  My guess is nothing will change any time soon because of the amount of money being made by MLB and its business partners the way things are at this time.