Baseball: America's Most Boring Sport

The study was of no surprise to me, whatsoever. Baseball, as a sport to watch (unless your kids are playing) is a slow, boring sport to endure as a spectator. Only so many beers and hotdogs can soften the dread boredom. However, if you are playing it, the sport is totally the opposite.

Every year, 70 million Americans attend baseball games of the major league, spend big bucks, sit hundreds of yards away from the action, use binoculars and radio, to follow the game. In between, the the action moments, which last seconds, there is a social activity going on that you may or may not want. You know, loud, obnoxious beer filled fans yelling at high school level intelligence or the same fans without the beer element. As a spectator, you get to endure the elements and pay the ripoff prices for food and drink. Going to a game can easily run over $100. For some, maybe its about being able to say you've been to such a game or hoping your kids will remember the event many years away.

Unlike soccer or football or hockey or tennis and a host of other action sports (all of which DO have boring moments, baseball just has too many!) baseball is more actionless than action when compared to the others. Yes, like all sports, baseball does have great thrilling moments but they are far and in between.There is nothing worse than a game going OT over nine innings with a zero score. That is waste of 2-3 hours time. True, soccer can be the same after 90 minutes of play also, but at least there is constant action, as in basketball.

What the study showed backs up the fact. In a typical three hour baseball game, there is 18 minutes of action, actual action-homerun, base hit, stealing a base etc. Think about it. The rest of the time is players just loitering around. Ha! No wonder many baseball fans look so bored. But, even though I thought and like football way better to watch, I was shocked to find that in your typical NFL game, only 11 minutes of it has action! It certainly doesn't seem so. Baseball and Golf just put me to sleep.

In the baseball study, the action minutes incorporated stolen bases, wild pitches, pitches, fouls, trotting batters, pickoffs, batter hits. The study also then narrowed the definition of "action" to just action involving the baseball or stealing bases, the action in the three hour game is a mere six minutes! The study also showed that the average time between batters took 30 minutes, really!? Is that an anomaly? The time for an inning to advance took 40 minutes (on TV it is commercial time).

Now, the game actually has gotten more boring clocking in at three hours average. The stat in 1987 was just 2.5 hrs. Why has the game taken longer to play?

Advocates of baseball point that spectators have to wait all the time, which is fine, because they can be more social with others, go to the restroom, or watch videos on the iphone, in other words, you don't have to focus heavily on the game-its casual, no stress, no worries thing.

Okay, but its a hell of a lot cheaper doing it at home, mate.