This past Saturday, I got free tickets behind the home plate for the White Sox-Yankees game through a complex series of events that began last spring, and ended up involving baseball, a composition contest with a পুরস্কার 25 Paris baguette gift card for second prize, and Instagram DM’s A series. This is a long story. Needless to say, I rejoiced at someone else’s kindness and happily walked into Yankee Stadium, making it clear that I had not “chosen” to “enjoy” the game, but that the game had taken me captive.
Weather: 90 degrees, sunny, humid, cloudless, pigeons. Attendance, according to baseball-reference: 44,001, plus pigeons. Yankee Stadium: A Sona. The first six innings took about three hours, and when the shadows finally began to creep in, we got a taste of everything: a Grand Slam, a three-run homer, a bench-clearing spot that was really confusing. Exciting in time and backwards, and a replay review. In the end, the game lasted a total of three hours and 40 minutes and the White Sox still lost.
Thanks to the pitchcom and / or sample size, MLB games have been faster than four minutes on average this year, which still doesn’t hinder very, very long games. The White Sox-Yankees matchup wasn’t even close to being the longest game of the weekend, thanks to Orioles and Race, who had a hellish series. On Friday the two teams played a 13-inning monster that set a record of four hours 22 minutes for the longest game of the season and then lost their own record two days later by playing an 11-inning that lasted four hours and 31 minutes. As we all expected, Orioles won both games.
All of this made me wonder which parties hurt their fans the most and how such things could be measured. A clear analysis of franchise history and textures of specific seasons is one way to go about it, but I decided to do something simpler and more immediate. On a daily basis, there is nothing worse than a bad team that takes hours and hours to finish a game. If a team speeds up, it hurts, at least you don’t have to watch them for long. If a team loses and it takes them four hours to get there, that’s a different story.
With that in mind, here is a graphic illustration of the teams that hurt their fans the most in 2022:
That’s the bravery of the Red Sox, the Orioles and the Marlins, the Rockies behind the Rangers and the Angels behind the twins. The top five and bottom five teams in terms of average playing length are listed:
Top 5 teams in length of play (rounded up to minutes):
1. Philadelphia Phillies – 3:17
2. New York Mets – 3:12
3. Chicago White Sox – 3:12
4. Miami Marlins – 3:12
5. Milwaukee Brewers – 3:12
Below the length of the game – 5 teams:
26. Cleveland Guardians – 3:03
27. Oakland Athletics – 3:02
28. Toronto Blue Jays – 3:02
29. Tampa Bay Ray – 3:02
30. Detroit Tigers – 2:57
The Tigers have a four-minute lead to play their game as fast as possible, which means they’re sure to lose a lot, but at least they have the decency to do it fast. Their pace is particularly notable as they are averaging below three hours, which the league has not done overall since 2011.
The Phillies are in the middle of hell, and seem to be enjoying roaming around as long as possible, one-on-one with the Tigers taking a five-minute lead over the next-nearest team. The rays are as efficient with the time of their victory as they are with their money. If you’re going to see the Mets or the Yankees, they’re probably going to win and take their time to do it, so you’ll be worth your money (as I’ve learned personally).
You can otherwise interpret this information the way you want. Maybe it’s not always trouble! Sports can be fun like that. For all the tricks of getting stuck at Yankee Stadium, I know I went to baseball, lost half my body weight, and in the end, I still feel the same gratitude that I had before – you know, a shiny-over, heat-mist kind of happiness. . What a champ.