Max: Timing Is Everything To America's Pastime
By Jared Max
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Bud Selig scooped up Roger Goodell's fumble and is heading for the end zone.
The timing is perfect for this potential change of possession in popularity and public approval. Deep in the 11th hour, there has never been a better moment for Major League Baseball to defuse a problem that has been tick-tick-ticking for years: America's pastime takes too much time.
While the commissioner of the National Football League has been depicted by the New York Daily News as the devil — embroiled in a scandal he may not be able to escape the grasps of, seen by many as incapable of adapting to modern thought and practice — the aging grandfather of America's second-most popular sport is doing something to win fans. Young fans. Short-attention-span sports fans.
In football, everybody is aware of the deadline for when each play must be initiated. More times than not, the fourth quarter features the game's climax. The concept is similar on the ice — another reason why sudden-death hockey is so compelling, even to those who do not identify as NHL fans. One reason the NBA fails to grab me as it used to is because the point of each game which should be most exciting tends to be arrested by frustration, reminiscent of driving in stop-and-go traffic.
Monday's news points to progress. It is ever-welcoming on the heels of two trudging weeks for sports fans -- when few were able to resist being distracted from the joy of the games. Thanks to non-sporting, violent actions (and, subsequent media coverage) of people who happen to play professional football, this watershed realization by MLB could lead to a shift in power for supremacy among sports giants. While it can be said that Selig caught a proverbial pitcher in a daze Monday and bolted for the plate, stealing home, time will tell if he regained possession of sports' remote control.
Like Roger Goodell last Friday, Bud Selig announced that he is forming a committee — a "pace-of-game" committee. Unlike Goodell, Selig presented details of how he plans to better his league. Promoting substantially more than Roger's rhetoric of a kinder, gentler NFL, Selig announced that he established an eclectic group of baseball lifers to figure a way how to inject speed into a snail's pace of an untimed game, which, this season for the first time eclipsed a three-hour-long average (20 minutes longer than games 20 years ago). Selig formed a committee represented by the players' union, ownership, team management and MLB's executive office. While he will be replaced by Rob Manfred next January as MLB commissioner, Selig wants the pace and timeliness of the game to improve for 2015 and beyond.
How can one not feel invigorated by Selig, an 80-year-old retiring commissioner, Velcro-ing his batting gloves, kicking dirt from his old metal spikes to portray a modern Roy Hobbs, stepping to the plate for one last swing at the fences. What a pleasant surprise -- to see somebody who I thought had so little spunk left be a breath of fresh air, displaying sharp, competitive wits. The former Milwaukee Brewers owner-turned commissioner of 22 years reminds me of fictitious old-time football coach Nate Scarborough in "The Longest Yard" (the 1974 original, of course), dropping his clipboard, strapping on a helmet for one more play: "You didn't think I was gonna let you guys have all the fun, did you?"
Listening to the Giants-Texans game on WCBS 880 while driving Sunday, I thought about one element of football that makes the game ever-dramatic to its fans: its sense of time. Giants broadcasters spoke about how one TV network began showing the NFL play clock operating in reverse fashion while the Eagles were on offense, counting up instead of down to illustrate how quickly the offense operates. This idea sparked a thought in me about baseball — how the sport can be painfully slow, reducing its chance to hold its audience, let alone attract younger fans.
While some people have unlimited, welcomed time to dedicate to watching baseball games that may last four hours or longer, the key 25-to-54 and 18-to-34 male demographics of sports fans (which advertisers base the majority of their spending on) are unlikely to dedicate limited leisure to a game which will be played no fewer than 162 times in a given year. Using this knowledge, Bud Selig is adding a final chapter to his legacy as a baseball innovator. While I hold minimal faith in Goodell's league creating a healthier culture, I hold stock in Selig's relatively bargain-priced three-letter symbol, MLB.
Can you recall an outgoing head-of-state who created a major initiative within such proximity to leaving office? For me, personal pet projects come to mind in these parts, like trying to ban extra-large-sized sodas or opening borders of Manhattan's clogged, chaotic roadways to accommodate bicyclists (without creating necessary real estate to accommodate a safe infrastructure). By MLB opening this iron-steel door -- dead-bolted for decades and recently doused with "As Seen on TV" water-seal — Selig has given baseball fans reason to look forward to next year. This "pace-of-game" initiative speaks volumes in a league known for its stubbornness to stray from its simple roots, long criticized for its stone-age beliefs.
Showing America that baseball is not a dinosaur destined to be a museum artifact, Selig has delivered a concussive, metaphorical trash-talking hit to Roger Goodell, asking, "Now, whose American sport is the greater underdog to become extinct?"
Jared Max is a multi-award winning sportscaster. He hosted a No. 1 rated New York City sports talk show, "Maxed Out" — in addition to previously serving as longtime Sports Director at WCBS 880, where he currently anchors weekend sports. Follow and communicate with Jared on Twitter @jared_max.
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