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Play baseball faster, it's good for the environment?
2008-03-18 06:16
by Bob Timmermann

The Japanese major league (NPB) is aiming to cut the playing time of its games by 6 percent (12 minutes) in effort to reduce carbon emissions used for lighting and other things. Setting aside the idea that I can't figure out what stopping 12 minutes earlier will accomplish, here is what NPB plans to do to shorten games:

  1. Teams will have just 2 minutes and 15 seconds to change sides at the end of each half inning.
  2. Pitchers will have just 15 seconds to make a pitch when the bases are empty.

Nowhere included is the greatest frustration of watching Japanese baseball, i.e., getting the pitchers to throw the ball over the plate. Also changing pitchers like Tony La Russa in a September game is the norm.

 

Comments
2008-03-18 07:05:02
1.   Gen3Blue
Do you mean Japanese pitchers tend to work deep counts and use their allotment of ball?
That would drive me nuts. Saito doesn't seem to be like that.
2008-03-18 07:42:35
2.   old dodger fan
Pet Peeve-Slowness of baseball games. I would love to see MLB at least try some things in ST to speed up our games (i.e. manager gets 1 trip to the mound per game without taking out the pitcher). Smarter people than I could come up with some better ideas but they ought to be able to play 9 innings in 2 1/2 hours.

Court today?

2008-03-18 07:58:27
3.   Bob Timmermann
You are looking live at the jury assembly room at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Courts building in Downtown LA!
2008-03-18 08:08:42
4.   old dodger fan
I was called to jury 1 time in my life. Federal court, no less!
The letter arrived about 2 weeks before I moved to China. I told them I would be glad to serve but since they paid 40 cents per mile for transportation the 16,000 mile RT might exceed the budget. I was excused.
2008-03-18 11:45:49
5.   Voxter
Stopping 12 minutes earlier, with thousands of baseball games being played every year, achieves many hours in which the lights are out, not being powered by coal reserves or taxing the country's energy infrastructure. Japan uses the least energy per capita of any developed nation, despite having the world's second-largest economy and a level of affluence similar to the United States. They achieved this without sacrificing the comforts of modern life. How? Incremental things like turning the lights out twelve minutes earlier is part of it.
2008-03-18 11:57:13
6.   Bob Timmermann
I just don't think they will turn the lights out earlier.
2008-03-18 13:05:09
7.   Linkmeister
Well, you've been to stadiums there, Bob; I suspect there aren't huge parking lots which need lighting, right? So there might not be as much of a need to keep lights on after game's end.
2008-03-18 13:28:43
8.   Brent is a Dodger Fan
They should just borrow a cue from Midnight Madness Bowling and see what they can do with advanced glow-in-the-dark technologies. Then, the pitchers could take as long as they like without fear of carbon emissions.
2008-03-18 14:58:51
9.   Bob Timmermann
I just thought they could play more day games. Except the domes make that hard.

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