deuce

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These are all fricking horrible ideas.

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Fine, ignore the (mostly) joking items at the bottom which, you know, I labeled "terrible ideas". No, I don't want a rap version of Take Me Out to the Ballgame. I'm just wondering:

Do you think the quality of play would be drastically worse without warmups? Keep in mind pitchers can keep warm in the stadium facilities as needed. I realize familiarity/feel with the actual mound is an issue, but I'm not sure it's a deal breaker. A 1-2 pitch warmup each inning could suffice.

Do you think the number of viewers would hold better if average game times were reduced to the 2 hr ~35 minute range? It's all speculation of course, but it makes sense logically.

The big hurdle obviously would be for the networks to make up lost commercial time and dollars with alternative advertising methods. Again, just speculation and wondering if possible.

Perhaps 30 seconds per half-inning is over-doing it, but I don't think a drastic reduction is as outlandish/impossible as most seem to think.

With the current rules, warmup time for each half inning is supposed to be 2 minutes, 5 seconds for most regular season games. Assuming about 15.5 between-inning warmups per game, this results in about about 32 "added" minutes to the game time.

So let's say MLB makes a more drastic cut and reduces this warmup time down to ~30 seconds per half inning. Yes, the players might have to sprint (the horror) to meet the time limit. Fielders would not be able to go through their lazy warmup routine (who cares). Pitchers might be able to get a pitch in with the backup catcher.

If they could pull this off, game times could potentially be reduced by ~20-25 mins, with between-inning time down to ~8 minutes per game.

I'd even take this a step further and apply this rule to mid-inning reliever changes. I estimate that saving another ~5 minutes, which kinda sucks but it could keep eyes on the screen and the relievers would have to do the John Rocker full-on sprint to the mound just to get a warmup pitch on the actual mound.

Pros:
-Reduced game time
-Reduced between-inning commercial time for fans
-Higher long term attendance potential (debatble)
-Longer length of stay (inning wise) by fans
-Reduced hidden pitch count (warmup pitches)
-Reliever sprints

Cons:
-Reduced commercials for networks, but I feel like they could make this up with more viewers and ads during the other hundreds of minutes where no real action is happening
-Decreased pitcher accuracy (debatble)
-More errors in the field (debatable) could offset some of the time increase

Other terrible ideas I'd consider:
-Completely eliminate mound visits or reduce to 1 per game. Figure it out on your own, MLB pitcher.
-Add not only a pitch clock (e.g. 20 seconds), but also an "actual fricking pitch" clock (e.g. 60 seconds) to both add confusion and prevent long pickoff sequences.
-Add DH to the NL (I used to be vehemently against this, but whatever) so pitchers can stay warm between innings if they need.
-If you strike out 4 times in the first 9 innings, you're out of the game. Bye.
-Rap version of Take Me Out to the Ballgame (e.g. Take Me 2 Tha Game, Bitch) so it's faster and appeals to the young, hip crowd.

I don't at all think he sucks at negotiating, but possibly too quick to pull the trigger (and of course that could have been highly influenced by win now imperatives).

Edit: I do think he could (potentially) have a bad negotiation/trade without us having to label him as a bad negotiator

There's no way of knowing, it's all just armchair speculation, although speculation based on recent league trends and the Sixers' tanking desires.

And I agree that Dell is not a pushover in negotiations. But that doesn't mean we can't question the (perceived/potential) value given up in his move. If we had given up 3 firsts, would it then be ok to question if we gave up too much?

Spoilers, obviously.

The Box scene

Would you qualify Pitt's overall acting performance/delivery in this scene as good or bad (if you had to pick one)?

My personal take is that while there are some strong moments in the scene for him, when he gets to the "oh goddd" the delivery seems so odd and out of place (perhaps this was his goal) that I'd have to go with bad acting (since any bad acting in an individual scene outweighs the good).

Now to be fair, perhaps I shouldn't judge: I have yet to stand next to someone in real life and observe his natural reaction as he finds out his pregnant wife's severed head is sitting in a box in front of him.

Regardless, I'm interested to hear what others think about his performance here.

8

Who do I start?

this game was responsible for my favorite commercial ever:

IT'S SOOO REEAALLL

about this...

shouldn't the game be over after the babe's walk-off? home team wins right?

maybe it meant the "home team is on top"...of their game?

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So im guessing when sawyer and them were traveling thru time the ones shooting at them in the boats were the ones that had the guns am i correct?

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i think that's a safe assumption for now.

i don't see why it took so long for you to notice this. it couldn't be more obvious that this guy is just fricking with everyone.