[greymule]

If when I was between 8 and 25 you had told me that I would lose interest in Major League Baseball to the point where I watch only one or two games a year, I would have said you were nuts. But you would have been right.

The pace of the game is a big part of it. Nine-inning regular-season games that last 5 hours don't help. It's also the steroids, the overexpansion, the meaningless division championships, the weakened team identities. . . .

I last owned season tickets (Phillies) in the mid-1990s. When the inning ended, the players would sit in the dugout for a minute or so before walking out to their positions. Even then, they stood around until the signal came down from the box that the TV commercials were over. The advertising delays between innings must add half and hour to every nine-inning game.

Maybe something like the rules you're suggesting would help, but I remember well when nobody was hurrying the games along, yet they still were over in two hours. Everybody expected the game to move along, so it usually did.

In the meantime, I'll take NCAA softball over MLB any time.