Thanks To Major League Baseball's Pitch Timer, You Have Less Time To Drink At Games
If you've ever been to a baseball game that's gone into extra innings then you know that games can be long. They can sometimes be very, very long.
Major League Baseball made some big changes before the start of the 2023 season to help speed things up. Specifically, the bases are now a bit larger so players have a slightly better chance of getting on one, and the organization is timing both pitchers and batters to make sure they keep the game moving along.
While a faster clock is great for helping to make sure fans are home earlier, the regulation appears to have one potentially unintended effect: It's decreasing the amount of time stadium goers have to grab a beer. Faster moving innings means that there's less time each inning to get a drink, and a faster overall game means that beer sales at the stadium, which typically end at the seventh inning, might cut off a lot earlier than they did before the change.
What is the baseball rule change?
The speedier game is thanks to a new timer that's being implemented on both pitchers and batters. Now, if all the bases are empty a pitcher has to start their delivery within 15 seconds. That increases to 20 seconds if there's at least one runner on base, but it's still not a ton of time. If they take too long, it counts as a ball. On the batter side, batters have to be in the batter's box looking at the pitcher within eight seconds.
The idea behind the clocks is to cut down on things like pitchers walking around the mound or batters taking their time to step up to the box by adjusting their gloves multiple times. Now that they're on the clock, the hope is that they'll get right to business rather than delaying things. It's a small adjustment, but over nine innings, it can add up to a pretty substantial amount of time.
While this season might be the first time many have heard about the pitch timer, the time limits were actually implemented in the minor leagues last year. Pitch timers shaved around 25 minutes from MiLB games in 2022. According to FanSided, MLB games have been shortened by an average of 31 minutes since the new rules went into effect. That's a lot less time to grab a beer.
What are teams doing?
After the pitch time limits were implemented in the minor leagues, Baseball America reached out to minor league teams to see if the change impacted concession sales. The overall consensus was that while the games were in fact shorter, the shorter game time didn't cut down on the number of concession sales.
Some major league teams, however, are making a bit of a change to their sales due to the rule. The Milwaukee Brewers and Texas Rangers have both opted to extend their alcohol sales beyond the traditional bottom of the seventh inning to the bottom of the eighth inning.
At least one player is speaking out about that particular response to the new rules, FanSided reports. As a guest on the "Baseball Isn't Boring" podcast, Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Matt Strahm voiced his concern that extended alcohol sales wouldn't give fans enough time to sober up before getting in their cars to head home.
In the minor leagues, though, teams found that the final innings of the game weren't particularly important in terms of concession sales and that the faster games have, in general, equated to people sticking around for the entire nine innings (and potentially grabbing another beer) rather than skipping out early.