Why the baseball pitch clock's success is more than just faster finishes

Baseball's new pitch clock is the greatest invention ever, with the exception of the wheel.

Check that. The wheel gave us two blights on American life: traffic jams and Pat Sajak.

There are no such negatives attached to Major League Baseball's adoption of the pitch clock, unless you miss egregious scratching, copious spitting, extended bouts of standing still, excessive Velcro adjusting and needing more than 20 hours a week to watch your team.

Thanks to analytics and Paul O'Neill, baseball had become something like chess — long bouts of staring interrupted by one arm moving.

The installation of the pitch clock has transformed the sport, making it look something like … a sport.

What's best about the pitch clock, which requires pitchers to begin their windup and hitters to be prepared to hit in the allotted time or face a penalty, is that it is both modern and nostalgic. It is a modern way to solve what had become an awful problem — three-and-a-half hour games in which nothing interesting happened — while providing a reminder of the way the game used to be played.

Pitchers used to pride themselves on working fast, to keep hitters off-balance and their own fielders literally on their toes. Former Twins manager Tom Kelly always believed that a crisp pace led to excellent fielding and a more entertaining game.

When modern analytics determined that long at-bats designed to wear down opposing pitchers were the best way to win, baseball became a slog. What might have occasionally been exciting when O'Neill, the former Yankees star, was filibustering in a big game at Yankee Stadium became excruciating when it was Rich Becker lollygagging in a meaningless blowout loss in the Metrodome.

As of last week, the average MLB game was lasting 2 hours, 36 minutes, down from an average of 3:04 in 2022.

Baseball had become Seinfeldian. It was a game about nothing, without the laughs.

This year, baseball has proved that less is more, and much less is much more.

Baseball had become one of those Amazon boxes that looks like it holds a snow shovel, but you rip it open and all you find are tweezers. The pitch clock has removed the empty space from the game.

The obvious benefit is the lessened length of the game. Now you can go to a Twins game that begins at 6:40 p.m. and usually now you can be home by 9:30, or 10 at the latest.

What might be even more important than average length of game is the way the game now moves. With the pitchers and hitters remaining engaged instead of loitering between pitches, there is no time or motivation to distract yourself from the game. You know the next pitch is coming soon, so you are less likely to check your phone or send an email. The game now compels you to watch closely.

Long ago, I coined the phrase "suspense mechanism'' to explain why American sports viewers generally like American football more than soccer. In American football, there is a suspense mechanism every couple of minutes — a third down, a change of possession, a scoring opportunity. There is always an obviously important play looming.

While soccer can be beautiful and riveting, there is no guarantee that something meaningful will happen at a certain juncture of the game. This is why soccer in America succeeds as a youth sport and draws fans to stadiums but doesn't thrive on television, where we expect constant entertainment.

Baseball had become soccer without the bodies in motion. Now baseball is more like American football: There is guaranteed to be a result in the near future, so you'd better not look away.

On Sunday night, ESPN showed a clip of Padres slugger Juan Soto preparing to bat in 2022. It took him 30 seconds just to enter the batter's box, and the pitch was delivered a handful of seconds later. That's 35 seconds of nothingness, the opposite of modern entertainment.

Baseball was my first sporting love, and I can't remember going to a game and being thrilled that it lasted a long time, unless it was a well-played and important classic. My favorite memories were watching Jim Palmer of the Orioles work over the Yankees in two hours and 10 minutes.

With the pitch clock, I enjoy watching games in person more, and I watch more out-of-market games on television. Baseball hasn't been this routinely entertaining for many decades.