CHICAGO — Here was the tweet that either made sticking to the very end entirely worthwhile or enough to make me want to re-evaluate…
CHICAGO — Here was the tweet that either made sticking to the very end entirely worthwhile or enough to make me want to re-evaluate the quality of my life. It was from Stats Inc. (@StatsBySTATS) and it arrived sometime before closing time Saturday morning:
“This game has now taken longer than the game time of the entire 1939 #WorldSeries.”
I was punchy, it was late, and so I looked it up to be sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks. And here’s what I saw (thanks to the priceless resource of baseball-reference.com) when I checked out that ’39 Fall Classic between the Yankees and the Cincinnati Reds:
Game 1: 1 hour, 33 minutes.
Game 2: 1 hour, 27 minutes.
Game 3: An unmanageable 2 hours and 1 minute.
Game 4: 2 hours, 4 minutes (but the game did go to extras).
Total: 7 hours, 5 minutes.
Time of game for Game 3 of the 2018 World Series, which began at 8:09 p.m., Eastern time, and ended at 3:29 Saturday morning: 7 hours, 20 minutes.
Now, OK: There’s a part of me that hates bringing all of this up, because it sounds like I’m the old man on my lawn shouting for the kids to go away and take that damned rock and roll music with them. Pining about two-hour games is like wishing upon a star for the arrival of the next 300-inning starting pitcher, or the next 40-home-run slugger who is also a proficient bunter: It’s a waste of time. Better to keep a bowl on your patio to feed the next stray T-Rex that wanders along.
And the responses I got when I retweeted that factoid were understandable. “Gee. I wonder why people are losing interest in baseball?” typed @Pemmons. “Perfect symbolism for baseball, 2018 version. Endless games, endless pitching changes. Unwatchable,” opined @maravillage44.
I remember years ago, when The National was born. There was never a better target audience than me for that. I was young. I was a sports fan. I was a sports writer, for goodness’ sake, and whenever I did get my hands on The National it was like taking a post-graduate class in the craft. Every day you would get an overload of Peter Richmond and Charlie Pierce and Norman Chad and so many others. I literally would have paid anything to read it.
But I couldn’t read it. I was living in some pretty remote outposts in those days, in Olean, N.Y., and then in Fayetteville, Ark., so unless I wanted to take a daily three-hour drive to and from the Buffalo airport, or 10 hours back and forth from St. Louis, I could never get a copy of The National in my hands. There was no internet. If you subscribed to it, you’d sometimes get five copies together, two weeks late. If that.
I remember writing a letter to Frank Deford, the editor. I wrote a lot of letters to Deford in those days, most of them containing résumés and writing clips, all of which I presume wound up in paper shredders unopened (or, worse, opened, read and then discarded). But this was a different one. This was pleading for a way to be able to read his paper.
You know: Help keep it in business.
I got a form letter back from circulation, and the tone was as sanctimonious as it was stupefying: Good luck, I’m sure you’ll have better luck in the future.
I was 23. I didn’t know anything about anything quite yet. But I knew one thing when I read that letter: The National didn’t have a prayer. It was dead within a year.
Now, baseball is stronger than that, been around longer than that, it’s going to take more than a tone-deaf circulation manager to kill it off. And look, I get it: Games have to be played at night. Business is business. And managers are paid to win games — business is business — so they will keep making pitching changes. And pitchers will keep stepping off the rubber 50 times a game, and hitters will step out of the box 70.
But something has to give. Something has to change, or else baseball stadiums in October will someday be like those haunting old National newspaper boxes you’d encounter for years afterward on city street corners. Empty and useless.
Here’s the riddle for me with the Mets and Brodie Van Wagenen: Today he has a fiduciary responsibility to demand every nickel he can get for Jacob deGrom. Tomorrow (or whenever) that will be exactly the opposite. I get it: Prosecutors become defense attorneys all the time. People change jobs. It just feels… well, weird to me.
I really do love the effort the Knicks give every night. I just hope that effort is still there when the record is in the 6-31 range.
I realize that the Bayou Bengals are my alma-mater-in-law, so I may be a little biased here, but is there a single soul beyond the borders of Tuscaloosa, Ala., who will not be rooting for LSU to slap Alabama around next week?
Frank Giordano: I remember for years the World Series was special. It didn’t matter what teams were in it, you just had to watch. Now its 2-3 innings and bed time. Part of it is your team not in it. The other is the game as I knew it is just not the same. Isn’t that really sad?
Vac: Especially given how terrific these games have been … yes. Very sad.
Alan Hurshberg: The Mets don’t need a GM who can sign a Manny Machado, they need one who can find a Max Muncy.
@mediamatt: I selfishly wish to hear “We Are the Champions” blaring everywhere as the Islanders recapture their Stanley Cup magic of my blue-and-orange youth. The Mets, too. Soon, very soon …
@MikeVacc: Dreams, big dreams, are always what sports are made of, right?
Robert Lewis: Wouldn’t it be a real hoot if the Giants released Eli Manning after the season and he signed with Dallas? Playing behind a real offensive line doing play action with Ezekiel Elliott he could lead the Cowboys to the Super Bowl. Think John Mara might be out of the country for that game?
Vac: If you could conjure John Mara’s worst nightmare, this would be a combination of the greatest hits of “Halloween,” “Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Friday the 13th.”
