MLB: Three Little Birds sing too long

[Sprowl]

MLB thinks the game takes too long, so walk-up music will now be restricted to 15 seconds.
 

With the new 15-second rule, Victorino’s walk-up music will barely get into the best known part of what had been about a 20-second clip. “Don’t worry” will creep in under the allotted time, but the lyrics, ‘’about a thing. Because every little thing gonna be all right” will not make the cut. (The “Because every little thing gonna be all right” often is echoed by the fans without music.)

I see a solution -- just leave out the introductory verse and go straight to the sing-along chorus:

Rise up this mornin',
Smiled with the risin' sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin', ("This is my message to you-ou-ou:")

Singin': "Don't worry 'bout a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right."
Singin': "Don't worry (don't worry) 'bout a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right!"
 

 

[Reverend]

Even if they start at the normal point, I guarantee Fenway explodes with the lines even after the music stops.

I can see it as being potentially pretty awesome, actually.

 

[IdiotKicker]

They never said the walk-up couldn't be more than 15 seconds. Take as long as you want, Shane.

 

[Beomoose]

Yeah because that extra 5 minutes of entry songs per game is what's dragging on the sport.

 

[IdiotKicker]

Yeah because that extra 5 minutes of entry songs per game is what's dragging on the sport.

I'm actually kind of surprised the Sox aren't going to play carefully orchestrated music throughout the entire game to make it seem more dramatic. All while announcing balls and strikes as well as flash sales at the concession stands over the PA, and going to per-inning pricing for the seats for those late-inning comebacks.

 

[Rasputin]

MLB thinks the game takes too long, so walk-up music will now be restricted to 15 seconds. 

 
Until they start talking about eliminating time between inning halves, none of their attempts to shorten the game should be given any respect whatsoever.

 

[Adrian's Dome]

 
Until they start talking about eliminating time between inning halves, none of their attempts to shorten the game should be given any respect whatsoever.

 
And instituting a replay system that isn't a joke, actually enforcing the "time between pitches" rule, perhaps doing something about batters who step out of the box between every pitch, or a hundred other things that are far worse for game time than a player's intro music.

 

[TheYaz67]

Was watching youtube vids of drunk fans singing his walk up music, and stumbled across this one that purports to be of his first Fenway at bat - the Marley song in this clip is amusingly different - anyone know when he switched over to 3 Little Birds?
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc492bJjJpI

 

[AbbyNoho]

Modern baseball games take longer than did previous generations because hitters now focus on driving up pitch counts and value long at bats, plus games are all broadcast on television and there are longer commercial breaks.
 
Why is this so hard for some people to understand? I don't care one way or the other about walk-up music, but do they seriously think eliminating  a few seconds per batter is going to add up to a noticeable difference? It is a max of like, what, 3 minutes of reduced time if every player had been taking too long to begin with? Remember, it's only the home team that's getting the music anyway. 

 

[Toe Nash]

We've had this discussion a few times. I think the focus on plain length of games is misguided. People are willing to spend over 3.5 hours watching an NFL game and while I haven't done a study the teams with the longest games probably don't do any worse in the ratings (since it's mostly a function of how much offense the team has and allows and how patient they are). I'm all for shaving a commercial off every inning, but that's probably a non-starter because $$$ and would be replaced with more in-game ads to recoup. 
 
What seems like it can definitely be improved is the parts of the game that are simply boring. You can wax poetic about the showdown between the pitcher and batter but guys stepping out of the box, stepping off the rubber, throwing to first multiple times, or simply staring at the plate like Beckett or Papelbon is all pretty unnecessary. These are often relatively short periods of time but they SEEM so long because you're waiting for something to happen. Like how waiting for a bus for 5 minutes seems like a lot longer than listening to a song you like of the same length. Or the end of a close NBA game with all the timeouts and free throws. Put another way, a long at-bat is fine if it's because there were a lot of foul balls with a 3-2 count, but it's not fine if it's long because Buchholz threw to first four times or Beckett just held the ball in a set position for 30 seconds.
 
It seems pretty simple to institute a pitch clock with a reasonable amount of time allowed between pitches. If time runs out you are penalized a ball. The ump has the power to do this now if a pitcher is really taking an unreasonable amount of time, I believe, but all that happens are fines sometimes, which pitchers happily pay if they think holding the ball allowed them to get through the inning. This would do what this walk-up music rule is trying to do -- I don't think they wait for the walk-up music to end if someone is ready to bat, they just turn it off (Maybe Three Little Birds is a weird exception if people are singing along). And it would do a lot more. I'm not quite sure what to do about throwing over -- I'm apt to say that it resets the clock, but not completely, but there would have to be something to make sure it wasn't abused.
 
The other change I would make is more aggressiveness regarding mound visits and pitching changes. Like the end of NBA games, multiple visits and pitching changes in the late innings really saps the tension out of the game, especially if you're at the park and they've stopped selling beer or your kids are tired. Cutting down on this stuff would also put a stop to stalling tactics that managers put on to get their reliever more time to throw, which is completely ridiculous -- why should we have to wait just because you made a mistake and didn't think ahead?

 

[mabrowndog]

I see a solution -- just leave out the introductory verse and go straight to the sing-along chorus:
Rise up this mornin',
Smiled with the risin' sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin', ("This is my message to you-ou-ou:")

Singin': "Don't worry 'bout a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right."
Singin': "Don't worry (don't worry) 'bout a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right!"
 

 
I've never heard them play the first verse or stanza either in part or in full prior to one of his at-bats. All I've ever heard are the four and a quarter introductory instrumental bars (just over 14 seconds, including the quarter-bar tom-tom lead-in) followed by the first iteration of the "Don't worry ... gonna be all right" phrase (about 10 seconds), and that often gets cut off or faded out, allowing the crowd to finish it.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaGUr6wzyT8
 
Your solution is on the right track, though I suspect they'd simply cut out the first two instrumental bars (saving ~7 seconds) and use a delayed fade-in for the last two bars to cut the remaining elapsed time from 16+ to the requisite 15 seconds. 
 
Like so:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu9KqtE192M
 
EDIT - Don't let the Youtube duration fool you. It's 15 seconds on the nose.

 

[Rice4HOF]

We've had this discussion a few times....
It seems pretty simple to institute a pitch clock with a reasonable amount of time allowed between pitches. If time runs out you are penalized a ball. The ump has the power to do this now if a pitcher is really taking an unreasonable amount of time, I believe, but all that happens are fines sometimes, which pitchers happily pay if they think holding the ball allowed them to get through the inning. .....

We have had this discussion a few times.
It is in the rule book. 12 seconds. Penalty is a ball. Enforce the rule you have in place and no need to do anything different. 
(I realize this is easier said than done.  I once tried to enforce this rule at a high school level game after repeated warnings and about30 seconds and that almost started WW3.)

 

[Curll]

Defy Authority. Go balls deep.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBr_Kz2MCrk

 

[teddywingman]

Was watching youtube vids of drunk fans singing his walk up music, and stumbled across this one that purports to be of his first Fenway at bat - the Marley song in this clip is amusingly different - anyone know when he switched over to 3 Little Birds?
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc492bJjJpI

Don't know exactly when he switched, but he was walking up to Buffalo Soldier well into the summer.

 

[Toe Nash]

We have had this discussion a few times.
It is in the rule book. 12 seconds. Penalty is a ball. Enforce the rule you have in place and no need to do anything different. 
(I realize this is easier said than done.  I once tried to enforce this rule at a high school level game after repeated warnings and about30 seconds and that almost started WW3.)

12 seconds seems pretty short to me. But regardless of the specifics, it's hard too enforce something when the clock is just in one guy's head... It seems arbitrary. Just display a play clock on the stadium along with balls and strikes.

 

[Papi's fan]

If they want to speed things up just lop off a ball & a strike. Full count, 2-1.

 

[Saints Rest]

12 seconds seems pretty short to me. But regardless of the specifics, it's hard too enforce something when the clock is just in one guy's head... It seems arbitrary. Just display a play clock on the stadium along with balls and strikes.

This does sound like the obvious move.  They do it in basketball and football, why not baseball?  (Aside from the usual rant about baseball being a game without a clock, blah, blah, blah.  To me this rant doesn't play since the rule is already in the books, as Rice4HOF notes, simply enforce the rule.)
 
But I see the problem of time between pitches as being almost equally the fault of pitchers AND batters, so there needs to be some similar methodology of enforcement against batters.  Get rid of Pedrioa's, Napoli's, Papi's (etc, etc, etc) pre-swing routines and you save a bunch of time.  Give the batter unlimited time to dig in for the first pitch -- let them go full-Nomar, or full Toby Harrah, but once the first pitch is thrown, make them stay in the box except when granted a timeout (and limit the number of timeouts per AB).
 
And while we're at it, get rid of all the Home Stadium shenanigans between innings.  Put a time limit on that as well.  No more "God Bless America," no more sausage races, no more YMCA, etc, etc.  Allow for the 3.5 minutes that the netowrks want/need and keep it to that.

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

And while we're at it, get rid of all the Home Stadium shenanigans between innings.  Put a time limit on that as well.  No more "God Bless America," no more sausage races, no more YMCA, etc, etc.  Allow for the 3.5 minutes that the netowrks want/need and keep it to that.

 
Aside from maybe God Bless America (because TV often shows it before going to commercial and players aren't warming up during it), what of those "shenanigans" isn't contained within the allotted commercial breaks?  I mean, how many times do networks come back from commercial and have to fill time because the sausage race is still going on?  If we're not cutting back on commercial break allotments, there's no need to cut out the "shenanigans" that are only witnessed by the people in the park anyway.

 

[terrisus]

While I'm normally against any of these "speed up the game" methods (I love long games), this is definitely a good idea. People are at a Baseball game to watch Baseball, not to listen to music. If it's used, music should just fill in gaps (between innings, while a batter is coming to the plate. Also, not the absurd during-batter chant things that the Yankees and Rays and such do either), and it shouldn't take you more than 15 seconds to walk to the plate.

 

[alwyn96]

Modern baseball games take longer than did previous generations because hitters now focus on driving up pitch counts and value long at bats, plus games are all broadcast on television and there are longer commercial breaks.
 
Why is this so hard for some people to understand? I don't care one way or the other about walk-up music, but do they seriously think eliminating  a few seconds per batter is going to add up to a noticeable difference? It is a max of like, what, 3 minutes of reduced time if every player had been taking too long to begin with? Remember, it's only the home team that's getting the music anyway. 

 
The average number of pitches per game has gone up about 10 pitches since 1988. I'm not sure that fully accounts for the difference in game length. 

 

[rundugrun]

I was at a college baseball game last week (Tennessee) and they had a clock on the scoreboard counting down between each pitch... it seemed to work.

 

[Saints Rest]

 
Aside from maybe God Bless America (because TV often shows it before going to commercial and players aren't warming up during it), what of those "shenanigans" isn't contained within the allotted commercial breaks?  I mean, how many times do networks come back from commercial and have to fill time because the sausage race is still going on?  If we're not cutting back on commercial break allotments, there's no need to cut out the "shenanigans" that are only witnessed by the people in the park anyway.

I've never watched closely enough, and certainly not with knowledge of what is going on at the park at the time, but my guess is that the TV broadcast can see (or maybe even knows in advance) that a given inning changeover is going to run long and they simply add another commercial or two to fill the extra time.  My guess (and this is just my cynical view) is that there is some variance on the length of commercial breaks, which likely accounts for the times that a broadcast comes back only to have missed a pitch (in other words, the broadcast added a break to cover some shenanigan and the shenanigan took less time -- fast sausage -- to fill the added commercial time).

 

[Saints Rest]

 
The average number of pitches per game has gone up about 10 pitches since 1988. I'm not sure that fully accounts for the difference in game length. 

Presumably, that is pitches per team, so we are really seeing an increase of about 20-21 pitches per game total.  Considering it seems like 20 seconds or so on average per pitch, that's adding about 7 minutes of game time.  I wonder if there is a graphic that shows the number of in-inning pitching changes, since each one of those adds about 5 minutes or so to the length of a game.

 

[cromulence]

While I'm normally against any of these "speed up the game" methods (I love long games), this is definitely a good idea. People are at a Baseball game to watch Baseball, not to listen to music. If it's used, music should just fill in gaps (between innings, while a batter is coming to the plate. Also, not the absurd during-batter chant things that the Yankees and Rays and such do either), and it shouldn't take you more than 15 seconds to walk to the plate.

 
What during-batter chant things are you talking about? Are you talking about stuff like clapping noises over the PA? I agree that it's a bit annoying but that doesn't slow down the game. I mean, if we want to talk about speeding up the game, it's ridiculously obvious. Enforce the rules on time between pitches and stepping out of the box between pitches. Done.

 

[OfTheCarmen]

12 seconds seems pretty short to me. But regardless of the specifics, it's hard too enforce something when the clock is just in one guy's head... It seems arbitrary. Just display a play clock on the stadium along with balls and strikes.

 
Doesnt that only apply with no runners on base?  And isnt the other side of that rule that batters cannot step out of the box after pitches that were not offered at with no on base with the penalty being a Strike added to the count? 
 
Obviously if you start enforcing one, you have to enforce the other.

 

[terrisus]

 
What during-batter chant things are you talking about? Are you talking about stuff like clapping noises over the PA? I agree that it's a bit annoying but that doesn't slow down the game. I mean, if we want to talk about speeding up the game, it's ridiculously obvious. Enforce the rules on time between pitches and stepping out of the box between pitches. Done.

 
The clapping, the "Day-O" stuff, and just in general anything that is intended to encourage "audience participation."
It's like, you're at a Baseball game, pay attention to the game.
 
Yeah, I know it doesn't slow down the game any, was just including it in terms of when it's alright to have music or something else going on (basically, keep it out of any time there's a pitcher on the mound and a batter in/around the batter's box)

 

[AbbyNoho]

 
The average number of pitches per game has gone up about 10 pitches since 1988. I'm not sure that fully accounts for the difference in game length. 
 

 
That percentage of increase more or less aligns with the percentage of increase in game length, though, so I don't think is disproves what I'm saying. I'm willing to admit there are probably other factors, but I don't see any evidence to dissuade me from thinking that the major cause of increase of game length is just that there's more game being played.
 
I also don't think going back to 1988 is going back far enough, because the people who wax poetic about really short games are conveniently thinking about ones from before we were tracking all the pitch counts.

 

[cromulence]

 
It's like, you're at a Baseball game, pay attention to the game.
 

 
This is a lost cause. Next time you're at a game take a look around you and notice the huge percentage of people glued to their phones.

 

[alwyn96]

Presumably, that is pitches per team, so we are really seeing an increase of about 20-21 pitches per game total.  Considering it seems like 20 seconds or so on average per pitch, that's adding about 7 minutes of game time.  I wonder if there is a graphic that shows the number of in-inning pitching changes, since each one of those adds about 5 minutes or so to the length of a game.

 
Yeah, I would guess that modern bullpen usage with LOOGYs and more frequent reliever changes adds a fair amount more time. I think the increase in game times is due to a bunch of things - batters stepping out a lot, pitchers taking time between pitches, control of the running game, commercial breaks, more relievers, more pitches, fewer balls in play - it all adds up. There's not much motivation for the players to play a faster game. It's a systemic problem that has a lot of causes. 

 

[terrisus]

 
This is a lost cause. Next time you're at a game take a look around you and notice the huge percentage of people glued to their phones.

I guess that helps explain people who want quicker games.
They're busy, and they have other stuff to do, darnit.

 

[cromulence]

I guess that helps explain people who want quicker games.
They're busy, and they have other stuff to do, darnit.

 
You really wouldn't enjoy quicker games? I mean I'm a baseball-loving Yankee fan and I would get SO frustrated watching Cano hit, going for a stroll between every pitch. That's how much it bugs me - it trumps laundry. To me, if you love baseball, don't you wanna actually watch the game being played instead of time passing between pitches?

 

[alwyn96]

 
That percentage of increase more or less aligns with the percentage of increase in game length, though, so I don't think is disproves what I'm saying. I'm willing to admit there are probably other factors, but I don't see any evidence to dissuade me from thinking that the major cause of increase of game length is just that there's more game being played.
 
I also don't think going back to 1988 is going back far enough, because the people who wax poetic about really short games are conveniently thinking about ones from before we were tracking all the pitch counts.

 
They're correlated for sure. With more offense comes more pitches, generally, But unless you think those extra pitches are taking 2 minutes each to throw, I think it's just part of a constellation of collinear factors.

 

[terrisus]

 
You really wouldn't enjoy quicker games? I mean I'm a baseball-loving Yankee fan and I would get SO frustrated watching Cano hit, going for a stroll between every pitch. That's how much it bugs me - it trumps laundry. To me, if you love baseball, don't you wanna actually watch the game being played instead of time passing between pitches?

I think that time-wasting stuff should be cut back on, sure. Cut down on songs, leaving the box, delaying to let a reliever warm because he wasn't ready, etc.

But, as far as the length of the game itself time-wise, the longer the better.

 

[alwyn96]

I think that time-wasting stuff should be cut back on, sure. Cut down on songs, leaving the box, delaying to let a reliever warm because he wasn't ready, etc.

But, as far as the length of the game itself time-wise, the longer the better.

 
See, I don't think the songs actually eat into that much game time. And, unlike stepping out of the box and pitching changes, they're actually fun and fans like it.  
 
Of course, for every Shane Victorino who has legitimately great walk-up music, there are 10 (or more!) guys who play some generic rap/country/metal song that no one really cares about. 

 

[Lose Remerswaal]

While I'm normally against any of these "speed up the game" methods (I love long games), this is definitely a good idea. People are at a Baseball game to watch Baseball, not to listen to music. If it's used, music should just fill in gaps (between innings, while a batter is coming to the plate. Also, not the absurd during-batter chant things that the Yankees and Rays and such do either), and it shouldn't take you more than 15 seconds to walk to the plate.

 
it's not like you have anything else to be doing
 
 

I guess that helps explain people who want quicker games.
They're busy, and they have other stuff to do, darnit.

 
Exactly.  You're just one guy.  Even though you post like a team.
 

I think that time-wasting stuff should be cut back on, sure. Cut down on songs, leaving the box, delaying to let a reliever warm because he wasn't ready, etc.

But, as far as the length of the game itself time-wise, the longer the better.

 
Again?  We got it the first time.

 

[AbbyNoho]

 
They're correlated for sure. With more offense comes more pitches, generally, But unless you think those extra pitches are taking 2 minutes each to throw, I think it's just part of a constellation of collinear factors.

 
 
If people want to get rid of toe tapping or whatever, I don't really care. Personally, I think it won't add up to much of a difference and such rules are essentially impossible to enforce, but if they want to keep trying maybe they'll prove me wrong.
 
However, I'm totally against anything that would involve forcing players or managers to become worse at the game in order to just speed it up. Batters see more pitches because it is the best strategy, so that adds more time based solely upon pitches. It cascades from there, as the opposing team's optimal strategy is then to bring in a fresh relief pitchers, which comes with the added time corresponding to a pitching change. I think this type of scenario is where most of the added time comes from (and why we don't see the complete games about which the old-school types reminisce), but I say tough shit to the media members who hate it because they simply want to go home sooner. Managers and players, as a collective, are better at the strategy game than they used to be. The byproduct is that it takes longer. That is how baseball is constructed, though, where time is measured in outs and not minutes. 

I don't see how you can "fix" that without either asking people to play more poorly or fundamentally altering the timeless core of the game in a way that changes like the DH never actually could.
 
I also think Bob Marley is awesome and I'm totally okay with hearing Three Little Birds chorus 4-5 times a game.

 

[Leather]

Leaving the box has to be the big one.   Every time Papi decides to take a step back and yank on his gloves and look around the infield before deciding to get back into the box, spit in his hands, wave the  bat 3 times, rock back, rock forth, rock back, get set, wait for pitch...
 
It takes EDIT: 15 seconds.  If every guy does that even once, even in a 1-2-3 inning, that's a full added 45 seconds per half inning, or 13.5 minutes of game time.  

 

[cromulence]

Leaving the box has to be the big one.   Every time Papi decides to take a step back and yank on his gloves and look around the infield before deciding to get back into the box, spit in his hands, wave the  bat 3 times, rock back, rock forth, rock back, get set, wait for pitch...
 
It takes EDIT: 15 seconds.  If every guy does that even once, even in a 1-2-3 inning, that's a full added 45 seconds per half inning, or 13.5 minutes of game time.  

 
Yeah, this is it for me. Like I said above about Cano, it just KILLS the rhythm of the game. The absolute worst, and this happens every game, is when the batter takes for-fucking-ever to get in the box, finally does, but then he decides they're taking too long to call a pitch and asks for time. So we start all over again and pray that the catcher doesn't have to go out to the mound. To me, if the pitcher is on the rubber and the catcher is in position, you need to get your ass in the box immediately. They should never have to wait for you since they ALREADY have to wait for you to get into your stance once you step in.

 

[joe dokes]

I was at a college baseball game last week (Tennessee) and they had a clock on the scoreboard counting down between each pitch... it seemed to work.

 
 
Maybe *that's* what the PA announcer should be doing instead of announcing the count -- counting down from 20.  And since it could be a taped loop, record diferent celebrities doing the countdown for each game.  See if the crowd can guess who it is. "If you said James Earl Jones you're ........................wrong.................it was Al Kaprelian."
 
Make it so, Dr. Charles.
 
 
 
And no timeouts once the pitcher starts his windup.

 

[The Gray Eagle]

If they enforced the rules on the books enough to save three or four seconds between pitches, it would shave 15 to 20 minutes off the game time. That is 15 to 20 minutes of boring nothingness gone, with no rules changes, no loss of revenue, just a faster pace.
 
MLB is doing all this other stuff that won't make much difference to try to shorten games, instead of just having the umps enforce the existing rules.

 

[AbbyNoho]

If they enforced the rules on the books enough to save three or four seconds between pitches, it would shave 15 to 20 minutes off the game time. That is 15 to 20 minutes of boring nothingness gone, with no rules changes, no loss of revenue, just a faster pace.
 
MLB is doing all this other stuff that won't make much difference to try to shorten games, instead of just having the umps enforce the existing rules.

 
I'm curious, where are you getting that number?

 

[reggiecleveland]

You could create a robot that speaks English with an Austrian accent and send it back in time to kill Tony Larussa. 

 

[The Gray Eagle]

 
I'm curious, where are you getting that number?

300 total pitches for both teams, save 3 seconds per pitch, that's 15 minutes. Isn't it? If it's not, I'm sure I'll hear about it.

 

[Dan to Theo to Ben]

You could create a robot that speaks English with an Austrian accent and send it back in time to kill Tony Larussa. 

Exactly. The 2nd most guilty party (after the time in between 1/2 innings, as Ras correctly points out) is the plethora of pitching substitutions in the middle (er, thirds? sixths?) of innings.  And as much I would like to see it on a spectator level, you can't limit pitching substitutions for game integrity reasons.