Gums up a baseball game with baseball. The can't look away from the cell phone crowd can continue to leave in the 6th inning, **** em in the ear.

News-MLB announces retirements of four umpires: Bob Davidson, John Hirschbeck, Jim Joyce and Tim Welke.

So long, Balking Bob.

Jim Joyce was known for his donkey-sounding strike calls

and of course blowing Armando Galarraga's perfect game

great handlebar mustache tho

Thanks for the analysis

Less than two hours from live baseball!

All riiiight let's play baaalllll goddaaaammmmitt!

Yankees throwing out a legit major league lineup! Oh I've waited the long cold months.

ahhhhhhhh welcome back - feels good man

How long until you guys admit spring training games are boring as ****. I do kind of like the college/mlb matches though.

I've never been interested in spring training games. happy to look at the numbers afterwards though.

They're awesome in person and awful to watch on TV. Kinda like MiLB games.

I just watched that whole game. Had a great time.

Now going to have an astounding fine time taking an afternoon nap listening to Jon Miller call a ballgame.

+1 to all this.

Pandas looking great. Expect a huge bounce back year


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Spring training games are great just because there's baseball on my tv while I'm hungover

Giants just walk off homered to win their first game of spring training. So happy that baseball is back!

i would probably watch more baseball if the games were shorter / pace was quicker, think most casuals probably feel the same way

think it's more of an intangible feeling thing than 2:45 good 3:00 bad or whatever

I like the change personally

it's probably for the best, but fairly cosmetic (will save like 35 seconds/game on average apparently)

doesn't really do much to address the issue

I've said this before but people don't seem to like it. If you want to speed up baseball, it's all the time between half-innings and between pitching changes where potential time can be cut. But that's advertising time....

Do outfielders really need to long toss between every inning? Could they maybe simulate some of that in the dugout when they aren't batting? Does the first baseman really need to lazily roll a few balls to each infielder? Does a starting pitcher really need to throw as many warm up pitches between each inning? Does a relief pitcher really need to throw 8 pitches off the game mound before he's ready to face a hitter while the infielders and outfielders meet up to chat? What if he just got 2 game mound warm ups? In other sports, players enter and re-enter the game regularly, and the game isn't forced to a stand still while we watch those players warm up. They do it on the sidelines and then they're ready to go. An NFL kicker for example doesn't take any warmups on the playing field, he gets ready on the side and then he gets in there and kicks. If a backup goalie enters an NHL game, they don't go and spend 5 minutes taking practice shots on him. In baseball when a pinch runner or pinch hitter enters the game, there is no real delay. But for some reason when a reliever is entering, who had plenty of time in the pen to get fully ready, the game needs to stop for 2-3 minutes while he throws off the mound. There is a clear and inefficient way that time in between innings and time on pitching changes is used. If significant time needs to be cut out of the game, that's where it can come from. The game itself is fine.

For the IBB thing? 35 seconds seems high. A lot of pitch outs come with a couple of balls already in the count.

ya if they really wanted to speed things up i think there are good cuts they could find, but i'm really in no position to say what they are

also the pace of play is really put into frame when you see some pitchers working 2:00 games or whatever, unfortunately most prefer to work deliberately

ya, just what they were saying on tv the other day
(per some nerd who crunched the numbers or whatever)

could be wrong, idk

MLB is gonna take a cue from the NFL and eliminate rounding the bases on homers just to be not fun. Just walk to the dugout and save like 14 seconds per homer

If they made it like softball, 3 balls is a walk and 2 strikes including fouls is an out, the games would go a lot faster! There would still be 1.5 hours of commercials though.

It's pretty much necessary to keep the arm loose and warm and prevent injury, as well as sharp enough to play at the highest level. You can't give 100% if your arm gets cold or if you haven't touched a ball in 3 innings. Otherwise players could go a long time without throwing the ball and then throw their arm out trying to make a play, also since they always need to be ready to hit they cannot plan staying warm into their dugout routine, and if that became an expectation pretty much every stadium would need to be rebuilt with a different design if that was to start being expected. Catchers already keep half their gear on so they can go catch pitches ASAP. Where are ~6 players going to play catch while people are hitting?