Let's Make Baseball Games Six Innings, Or Maybe Even Four Innings, Possibly Not Play Them At All
By Kyle Koster
As a sports blogger, the one thing I am passionate about is convincing the world that there is too much sports. Take baseball, for instance. Teams play way too many games and those games take too long to play. Fans of the sport would obviously be thrilled if there was less baseball. That’s a major complaint one hears from baseball fans — that there is too much baseball.
One easy way to fix this problem, and perhaps save the dying national pastime, is to play less of it. One-hundred sixty-two regular season games are way too many. Halving that number would do the trick. What is Major League Baseball trying to prove, anyway, with such a long season?
No one likes a showoff.
Also, let’s do away with the antiquated notion that baseball games are nine innings in length. Whoever decided that in the first place? Surely a worthy winner can be decided in seven innings. Or perhaps six. Maybe five. Hell, wouldn’t three-inning games be super exciting?
Think of the drama and razor-thin margin for error.
But if shorter is better, why employ a half-measure? One-inning games would definitely appeal to attention-deficient Millennials. Again, think of it. No more three-plus hour games. The result could be decided in a half -hour or less and everyone could go about their day with minimal inconvenience — especially important on weeknights.
Outside of completely changing the roster structure of every organization, costing dozens upon dozens of relievers their jobs, decreased ticket and concession sales, and alienating a vast majority of sensible fans with a modicum of respect for tradition, there’s no downside.
Look, we all understand that in a perfect world, there’d be no baseball. But for the time being, it appears that we’re stuck with it. Let’s face that reality and do what we can to ensure that as little of it as possible is played.