Built for speed
A 9-inning game completed in 32 minutes? It happened 113 years ago this week.
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If you like the shorter games we’re seeing across Major League Baseball with the advent of the pitch clock in 2023, you’d have loved the game played between the Mobile Sea Gulls and the Atlanta Crackers 113 years ago this week, on the final day of the 1910 Southern Association season.
With both Class A teams out of contention on the final day of the season—hopelessly behind the pennant-winning New Orleans Pelicans, who were led by a 20-year-old outfielder from South Carolina named Shoeless Joe Jackson—players on the 2 sides agreed to swing at “every good pitch” that afternoon at Atlanta’s Ponce de Leon Park, and the clubs completed a 9-inning game in 32 minutes.
According to various accounts, the teams rushed on and off the field at the end of every half inning, and there were no between-inning warm-ups as manager George Reed’s Sea Gulls edged Dutch Jordan’s Crackers, 2-1.
There were also no breaks for television commercials in 1910. In today’s MLB, every 9-inning game includes more than 30 minutes of television commercial breaks (2 minutes following every half inning).
The Atlanta Journal’s colorful account of the game said that the pitchers, 19-game winner Bill Chappelle for Mobile and Hank Griffin for Atlanta looked like “demented steam engines” as they hurried their way through the contest, combining for one walk (by Chappelle) and one strikeout (by Griffin) over the 9 innings.
As The Journal wrote, “Despite the terrific pace, each was as steady as the old clock in the belfry, and that’s some steady.”
Down 1-0 in the 2nd, Mobile turned a 9-3-2 triple play.
Sea Gulls second baseman Charlie Seitz tripled in the 6th and scored on a wild pitch to tie the game as “Griffin tried to knock a hole in the press box with one of his fast ones.”
The winning run scored in the top of the 9th when Mobile left fielder Howard Murphy singled, stole 2nd and came home when the throw got away and went in to left field.
The Atlanta Journal summed the Saturday afternoon festivities up eloquently: “Viewed from every angle, the game was a hummer.”
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With the deep count philosophy firmly in place, I think the best chance for even quicker games is ABS. If calibrated to the rulebook definition (any part of the plate with any part of the ball in the strike zone), I think pitchers benefit overall. This presumes the technology is accurate to the rulebook strike zone, adjusted for each player's normal batting stance. We'll eliminate miscalls resulting from missed targets, reachbacks, and umpires' personal interpretations of the strike zone. I think it would translate to more balls in play within shallowe counts as the players adjusted. I've heard others say the opposite, however, because pitching dominates baseball (less than .250 league BA for decades), players should have more incentive to swing if the rulebook definition is ineluctably applied. Have you formed an opinion? PS - I am not advocating for ABS, simply stating what I see as a key ramification if adopted.