Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving Day to you and your loved ones!

I am thankful for all that has been given to me.  I have been so richly blessed I sometimes take those gifts for granted. I cannot begin to express my thanks for the love shown to me by family and friends. I live in a nation where I am free to worship Almighty God as I wish without fear of reprisal from the government; a nation where I am free to come and go wherever I want and whenever I want.

I have a roof over my head and a warm comfortable bed to sleep in each night.  My home is filled with much more than I could have ever imagined. My safety is made possible by the sacrifices of others who put their lives on the line to protect me 24 hours a day. When I open the refrigerator there are way more food and beverages in it than I have ever done anything to deserve.  If I want for anything, I have been given the means to buy it by the jobs that were given to me during my working years.

For all of these blessings and all past blessings I say thank you Lord!

Game Six = 3:18

It's over and done for another year.  Thankfully.  One of the least entertaining World Series I can recall in the last 60 years came to a merciful conclusion last night in Houston.  For the record the Astros won the series four games to two.  The score last night was 5-2 obviously in favor of the Astros.

The game will not go down in history as memorable except for Houston beating a mediocre Philadelphia team and bringing the series to a close.  This game featured 17 strikeouts and seven walks.  Add to that five pitching changes and well, you get the idea.

According to those who think it's a big deal Jeremy Pena was named the series MVP.  And according to yours truly, Rhys Hoskins was the least valuable player of the Series.

The average time of game this year was 3 hours and 36 minutes.  (That includes game one which lasted ten innings, but that opening game also lasted an ungodly four hours and 34 minutes.)  Game one was the longest game of this year World Series and game three was the shortest coming in at three hours and eight minutes.

Both of my predictions prior to the start of the series were on the money.  I picked the Astros to win in five games (it took six) and I wrote the average time of game would be 3:35.  I missed that forecast by one minute.

Game Five = 3:57

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This game started just after seven p.m. and was so long it didn't end until after eleven where I live.  Three hours and 57 minutes is a very long time for a 3-2 game that was won by the Astros in Philadelphia.

The game featured lots of boredom as 24 batters struck out.  That's 44 percent of all of the outs recorded last night.  Chief of the strikeout artists was the Phillies Rhys Hoskins who whiffed four times in five at bats.  That shouldn't be too surprising as this Phillie has struck out 23 times in post season in just 69 plate appearances.  Hoskins also hurt his team in the eighth inning when he booted a ball that ended up giving the Astros a run that turned out to be the game winner.

Here is a look at the times of games for every ten years going back sixty years.

Game 5 - October 10, 1962 = 2:42     Yankees 5 - Giants 3

Game 5 - October 20, 1972 = 2:26     Reds 5 - Athletics 4

Game 5 - October 17, 1982 = 3:02     Brewers 6 - Cardinals 4

Game 5 - October 22, 1992 = 3:05     Braves 7 - Blue Jays 2

Game 5 - October 24, 2002 = 3:53     Giants 16 - Angels 4

In 2012 there was no game five as the Giants swept the Tigers in four games.

As you can see the trend is games have gotten longer and longer as pitching became more specialized, pitchers and hitters failed to stay on the mound or in the batter's box and umpires failed to call the strike zone as it is written.

For baseball more time at the ballpark does not mean improved quality.  If anything it drives the public to other forms of entertainment.  At the same time baseball's popularity has waned the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League have all seen huge increases in attendance and rising television ratings.  You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see where baseball is headed.

Game Four = 3:25

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The fourth game of the 2022 World Series lasted 185 minutes with the Astros shutting out the Phillies 5-0.  Four Houston pitchers led by Christian Javier held the Phillies hitless.  (The game was a no hitter, but to me a true no hitter is one pitcher throwing a complete game, not four guys joining together to keep the other team hitless for nine innings.)  It marked the first time a team had gone an entire World Series game without a hit since 1956, when the Yankees' Don Larsen pitched a perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers in game five.

As a comparison, that game in the 1956 series lasted two hours and six minutes.  This game lasted one hour and 19 minutes longer.  The Phillies also managed to strike out 14 times, while the Astros whiffed another eleven times.  That means 25 of the games 54 putouts (46%) had absolutely no action on the field except for the batter failing to make contact.

The reason for this is MLB's infatuation with the long ball.  Singles hitters don't get paid their worth, while hitters that strike out over 100 times a year and hit 30+ home runs are getting huge contracts.  MLB is trying to put butts in seats and believes fans would rather see home run derbies than games featuring pitching, speed and defense.  And a whole generation of fans has bought into that mentality.  That has led to more pitching specialists and more money being paid to big league pitchers.  With teams investing in pitchers arms they are more protective of those arms, thus the shortened pitching stints in a game for big league and to a certain extent minor league pitchers. The bottom line is, and it's been this way for a very long time, is the game is big, big business.  The fan can either take it or leave it.

Apparently, more fans are opting to leave it.  The latest ratings reveal that more than 300 thousand TV viewers chose not to watch game two this year compared to the second game of the 2021 World Series.  Why you ask.  The game has become so specialized at the big league level it's boring.  While MLB believes changing rules to implement a pitch clock will speed up the game next year, it must still deal with too many pitching changes and too many plate appearances where nothing happens.

Unless a strong commissioner comes along, who is given the power to make drastic changes, the game will continue to die a slow death.

Game Three = 3:08

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The third game of the World Series was completed last night with Philadelphia winning 7-0 in a boring lopsided affair.  The time of the game was three hours and eight minutes, which based on today's standard is not that long.  But in the long history of the game it is very long.  For example game three of the 1962 World Series between the New York Yankees and the San Francisco Giants was completed in two hours and six minutes before a crowd of more than 71 thousand at Yankee Stadium.  The Yankees won that game three to two.

Last night's game was marked by the same lack of activity as the first two games of this series.  In total there were 23 plate appearances where the ball was not put into play.  There were "only" six pitching changes this game which helped to speed it up slightly from the first two games.  Still, how dull is it to sit at the ballpark and watch pitchers warm up?  Very dull.  So much so I did not watch the game.

And while I'm ranting, Astro pitchers needs to drill a Phillie slugger in the back after the hitter stands at the plate and admires a home run they've just hit.  Philly you may be the National League champ in the Series, but you've proven yourself to be a bush league team.