Play Ball Please

Play Ball Please

         In any given year roughly 70 million people will attend major-league baseball games.  Our Detroit Tigers could draw more than 3 million fans attending their home games.  Many of us attend Tiger games and more watch especially since we are currently in first place in the Central Division. 

         There is one thing every fan is guaranteed to see and that is a bunch of grown men standing on the field doing absolutely nothing.  The Wall Street Journal recently did some calculations.  The baseball fan will see 17 minutes and 58 seconds of action over the course of a three- hour game.  A similar study on NFL games found the average action time for football games was 11 minutes.  So in baseball where does all the time go?  The time “between batters” averages 33 seconds.  The time “between innings” averages 42 seconds.  By far the most time consuming period of inaction is the “time between pitches”.  This took an average of 1 minute 14 seconds.  A home run trot averages 23 seconds. 

        So what is the bottom line?  When compared the total action to down time was 17 minutes 58 seconds.  The average game lasts 2 hours and 58 seconds. 

        My guess is a study of NBA basketball will be next.  I would assume there is probably more action in an NBA game than an NFL and MLB game combined.  What about soccer? 

                               Enjoy your summer