Long gone are the days when baseball owners like Bill Veeck and Charlie Finley would take any idea that popped into their heads and give it a test run during a major-league game. (Little people as pinch hitters? Orange baseballs for night games?) It was fun, though not all of them were winners. In 1962, Veeck had some suggestions for speeding up the pace of the game, which has become even a sorer subject today, with seemingly endless commercials between innings and infinite pitching changes. His proposals were pretty poor. From David Schoenfeld’s fun ESPN post about Veeck’s mad scientist schemes:

“1. Widen the plate by 25 percent. 

Umm … if this was the case, would Clayton Kershaw ever give up a hit? 

2. Three balls for a walk, two strikes for an out. 

If you think we have a lot of strikeouts now, this idea would excessively increase strikeouts even more. It’s hard enough to hit with three strikes to work with. Imagine just two. 

3. A limit would be placed on the time permitted for throwing the ball around the infield, or eliminated altogether. 

And batters should have to run up to the batter’s box from the on-deck circle! 

4. The pitcher would be limited to one warm-up toss between innings. 

Of course, Veeck’s book came out before the wide increase in number of games broadcast on television. I suspect that a large chunk of the increase in game time from the 1960s to now isn’t just the pace of game but the time between innings — when baseball makes money by showing commercials. If the average break between half innings is 2:15 (longer for postseason games), multiplied by at least 16 breaks, that’s 36 minutes worth of commercial breaks/inactivity. A generation ago it was probably half of that, and in Grover Cleveland Alexander’s time he was probably throwing his first pitch as he ran out from the dugout. 

(I wonder: If you simply add up the commercial breaks and all the mid-inning pitching changes, how much of the 30 extra minutes per game since 1980 are tied up in just those two elements and not slow pitchers or batters scratching themselves or adjusting their batting gloves?) 

Anyway, good luck telling baseball, ‘Sell fewer commercials on TV broadcasts.'”