Shorter Red Sox/Yankees games?

The Red Sox and the Yankees have a legendary history, individually and combined. Both franchises have had proud moments at the expense of the other, which has only intensified the rivalry - even if it has somewhat lost its edge in recent years.

But even as brazen insults between the teams have given way to measured discourse emphasizing "mutual respect," there is one thing that seemingly never changes about the Red Sox and the Yankees: they can claim the longest running games in the league.

In today's spring training game, regulation play took up just 2 hours and seventeen minutes - veritable hyper speed when it comes to these two teams. Of course, there are a variety of different reasons for the marathon contests during the regular season, starting with the fact that (this year excepted) the Red Sox and Yankees are featured on national television more often than any other combination. Games on Fox and ESPN, aside from suffering terrible commentators, have extremely long commercial breaks, which leads to longer overall run time.

But even when the games are aired on NESN and YES respectively, they seem to take forever - and that's a testament to team strategy and skill. In September of 2011 (just before the Red Sox's epic collapse) baseball-reference.com ran a blog post about this very phenomenon. It turns out that not only were the Red Sox and Yankees ranked #1 and #2 in the American League in terms of plate appearances per game, but they were also #1 and #2 in pitches seen per plate appearance, which obviously eats up a chunk of game time.

But even in the past year or so, as fans, bloggers, and media types have opined the Sox getting away from the fundamental skill of patience at the plate, the games have still dragged on rather longer than average. Well, it's time to shift attention from hitters to pitchers, and Red Sox pitchers are often atop the list of those who take the longest time between pitches.

That's something that the staff is working on this spring training, so perhaps the four-hour (yet only nine inning) Red Sox/Yankees games are destined to be a thing of the past. If the edge can be taken off the enmity, perhaps an hour or so can be shaved off the game times - we can only hope.

Five Minute Musings

I've been really bad about updating the last few days. My apologies, I made my trek home from Hartford Friday, went to the Sox game Saturday (more on that in a second), did the whole Mother's Day thing Sunday, and went to the doctor's yesterday. Today, I have a meeting with a stockbroker (seriously), but I figured I should squeeze in time to write. This edition of FMM will center around ballpark etiquette, paritcularly the bad behavior I noted during my trip on Saturday.

1.) Don't drink to excess, especially at a day game. Saturday's start time was 3:40, sort of an awkward half day/half night game dictated by those idiots over at FOX. Beyond the usual idocy of having a beer an inning (that adds up to around $60), I was sitting in an alcohol free section, and a set of parents with their children were asked to leave with their drinks, so they left their 8ish-year-old children sitting alone while they went off to finish boozing. Keeping it classy.

2.) Don't boo the Red Sox players. Julio Lugo really got it hard on Saturday, as most of the Tampa Bay hits in their big inning found holes on his side of the diamond. In all fairness, there was at least one that should have been an out, but he deserves the support of the fans regardless. When you support the Red Sox, you support all of them, through the bad times and the good. Sure it's fine to pick favorites (I sure do), but booing your own player makes you look no better then a fairweather fan... and if you're a fairweather fan, stop taking up seats at Fenway so the real fans can get in.

3.) Keep your cellphone conversations short, or go talk in the concourse. I didn't pay these obscene ticket prices so I could hear you gush about little Johnny's fist word. Is there really no better time you can think of to talk to your mother in law than in the third inning with two on and nobody out? There was this one really obnoxious girl behind me on Saturday who spent a good two innings on the phone catching up on gossip with her girlfriends, screeching and yelling and giggling at the top of her voice. Don't be that girl.

4.)Don't scream obscenities - be more creative! There was one man on Saturday who was absolutely vulgar, especially towards Mr. Lugo (I think he had also been violating #1). There are children at the games, and beyond that, spouting swear words makes Sox fans look ignorant of the game. Lambast BJ Upton about his dismal OBP, not about what his mother may or may not have been doing last night, and the heckling is rather more acceptable.

5.) Try to limit your bathroom/snack/phone breaks. No one likes having to stand up and have you squeezeby them in those crowded rows at Fenway. I'm not saying you shouldn't go to the bathroom, but maybe if you had 2 beers instead of 4, you wouldn't have to get up every half-inning. Also, most food in the concouses is available from the vendors walking around. One to three times is expected (though I try not to leave at all - I don't like to miss anything!!), but more than four or five is really annoying.

There you have it - my Fenway Five. We all pay ridiculous amounts of money to be at the park, and it's a shame when someone else ruins your experience. Even a blowout like Saturday's can be fun if you decide it will be... heck, we got to witness Julio Lugo's first homerun of the season!