Why do FP games last so long

[Andy]

Nobody has hit on my first thought yet....so here it is.

I umpire FP only, but a few years ago, I did some volunteer work at a major co-ed slowpitch tournament helping out the umpire coordinator.

One of the first things I noticed was how quickly the games moved along. After thinking about it, I came up with three reasons:

1) No signals from the coach to the catcher, then the catcher to the pitcher. If the pitch was not hit, throw the ball back to the pitcher and pitch it again.

2) Since there was no stealing or bunting, there is no need for the base coach to go through a gyration of signals between each pitch.

3) Not a lot of at-bats that go much past three pitches.

Most of the games that I saw in that tournament were 7 inning complete games finished in less than 60 minutes.