Did I Call It?

At the risk of offending you by patting myself on the back, did I call the World Series and it's winner early or what?  On July 19th I wrote the Dodgers and the Red Sox would play in the World Series and the Red Sox would win it.  Go to the third paragraph and you will find the prediction that called the outcome of the World Series three months before it was played.

I did well with this forecast, just don't go back and read all of the bad ones I have made over the past dozen years.

And the Series is Over. Game Five = 3:00

Funny how when you thought the Dodgers, who were facing elimination, would pull out all of the stops, they didn't.  This was the "fastest" game of the 2018 World Series coming in at three hours.  Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox on their latest World Championship.  The Red Sox now own nine baseball championships.  They still trail the Cardinals by two World Series championships and the Yankees by 18.

The five games of this series took a total of 21 hours and 21 minutes to play 53 innings or a little over 24 minutes to play one full inning.  The average time of game was four hours and 16 minutes.  If you consider the 18 inning game as two games the length of each game averaged 3:33.

Baseball moves at a snail's pace and if the game wants to thrive it must do some soul searching if it is serious about speeding up the game.  This generation of fans will not put up with long periods of inactivity when it wants instant gratification.  MLB you can do the right thing if you really want to speed things up.

Game Four = 3:57

The Red Sox won the game 9-6 after having fallen behind the Dodgers 4-0.  But, with big seventh, eighth, and ninth innings the Red Sox are now on the verge of clinching the 2018 World Series.  There was nothing special about the game, it was just another overly long baseball game played by two teams at a snail's pace.

So far it has now taken a total of 18 hours and 21 minutes to play 44 innings or about 25 minutes to play one inning  The Red Sox lead the series three games to one.  Game Five will be played this evening in Los Angeles.

Game Three = 7:20

OK, OK, I know this game lasted 18 innings and was the longest game in World Series History.  But, if we look at it as if the 18 innings were two games; each of the games lasted three hours and 40 minutes.  I live in the Central Time Zone and the last thing I remember seeing was the game was tied at 1-1 in the eleventh inning.

To be honest I did not watch the game(s) because it was too long and boring.  Instead I fell asleep in the middle innings and then woke up later when the game was tied in extra innings.  My guess is not many people in the country watched the entire seven hours and 20 minutes.

So far it has now taken a total of 14 hours and 24 minutes to play 35 innings or a little over 24 minutes to play an inning.  The Red Sox lead the series two games to one.  Game Four will be played this evening in California.

Game Two = 3:12

Relatively speaking Game Two was a quick one; well for Major League Baseball.  Relatively is the key word here.  It took three hours and 12 minutes to play an eight and a half inning game in which Los Angeles had a total of three singles.  The Red Sox won 4-2 and used four pitchers.  Meanwhile, the Dodgers used six pitchers to go down two games to none in the series.

So, thus far it has taken a total of seven hours and four minutes to play 17 innings.  That's a lot of wasted time for the people at the game in Boston where the Wind Chill Index was 42 at the start of the game.  Way to go MLB!

Game One = 3:52

I estimated it would take about three hours and 45 minutes to play Game One of the 2018 World Series.  Well, I missed it.  But, by only seven minutes.  The time of the game was 3:52.  And keep in mind that was for an eight and a half inning game.  A boring almost four hour long baseball game that was never in doubt when it ended at 12:03 Boston time.  But, for some reasons the Dodgers and Red Sox used a total of 14 pitchers between them.

Let's see what tonight brings.  My guess is it will be around that 3:45 mark.

Just Another "Who Cares World Series"

In a little under an hour the 2018 World Series will begin in Boston.  I predicted Boston would win it all earlier this summer and missed when I incorrectly chose Milwaukee to beat the Dodgers in the NL Championship Series.

But, honestly I don't plan on watching much of what Major League Baseball (MLB) calls the "Fall Classic".  I am not invested in either of the teams and both clubs have an unfair advantage over their smaller market opponents.  But, the real reason I won't watch is I just don't have three and a half to four hours a night to devote to the games.  Thiis is why I call it a "Who Cares World Series".  This was the headline of an East Coast newspaper prior to the start of the 1985 World Series between the Kansas City Royals and the St. Louis Cardinals.

The average time of the National League Championship Series games was 3:33.  And if you add in the 13 inning game between the Brewers and Dodgers the average time becomes 3:53.  This is too long and much of the time there is no action.  (Unless you want to say batters stepping out of the box and adjusting their gloves is "action".)

And the American League is worse.  The average time of the AL Championship Series games was 3:57.  Three hours and 57 minutes on the average to watch a nine inning game.  And while MLB would tell you it was a classic, Game 4 lasted 4 hours and 33 minutes.  The final score was 8-6 and it was a nine inning game.  That amount of time for a baseball game is way, way, way too long.

And what makes this all worse is grade school kids won't be able to see the end of most games unless they live in the Pacific time zone.  Based on the average times of the NLCS and ALCS contests, games in this World Series games will take about 3:45 minutes to play.  For those living in the Eastern Time Zone the games probably won't end until several minutes before midnight.  For the Pacific Time Zone it is a little more manageable for children in that the games should end about 8:53.

MLB brags about record attendance figures every year but the bottom line is the people who will be paying for tickets in ten to 15 years will be shut out from seeing the World Series games to their conclusion.  MLB my advice to you is wake up! (No pun intended.)

Rants and Rambles

Happy October!  The weather has finally cooled off to more seasonable temperatures and fall has finally checked in where I live.  Instead of highs in the low 90s temperatures are now in the upper 50s.  I welcome fall, but wait until this winter and I will bitch about how cold it is.

In no particular order here are a few things I have been thinking about.

-NCAA Football.  My beloved Missouri Tigers are 3-2 on the young season and play at Tuscaloosa this Saturday night against the top rated team in the country; the Alabama Crimson Tide.  'Bama is a 28 point favorite and the over under number is 74.  I think if I were a betting man I would take the over number.  Mizzou has generated offense in every game it has played this year, but it's secondary leaves a lot to be desired and will have a hard time getting stops against the Tide.

-Times of games.  The NCAA still needs to figure out a way to speed up its games.  They are way too long and I am getting tired of sitting in the stands at Mizzou games watching the teams stand around and do absolutely nothing.  For starters, when a 30 second timeout is called, make the teams stay at the line of scrimmage and start play 30 seconds after the timeout is called.

-Baseball has done absolutely nothing and despite all of the hype about limiting the number of visits to the mound the games are still way to long.  The playoffs have brought the games to a crawl, with too many now taking over four hours to play.  This is ridiculous.  As I wrote earlier this year, keep the hitters in the box and the pitchers on the rubber, and limit the number of commercials and the games will have more action.  Oh, and have the umpires call the strike zone as it is written in the rule book.

-Baseball Predictions.  I think it will be the Red Sox and Brewers in the World Series.  And I think the Red Sox will win it all.  The Sox won 108 games this year and seem to have it all.  I look forward to both of the League Championship series too. While I like the Sox and Brewers, I may be wrong since Houston and the Dodgers seem to be peaking at the right time.

Well enough for now.  But, I will leave you with a picture I took while on vacation of a spot I had always wanted to visit.  It is the new Yankee Stadium at 161st Avenue in the Bronx.  The view is looking down the first base side of the ballpark.  I hope you enjoy it.