When I was a senior in high school, I had to memorize the Robert Frost poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay” as part of an English assignment.
Whenever I am dealt setbacks, or encounter things that make no sense to me logically, I often think of that poem and its message of the inability of golden things to last forever and the inevitable decay that takes their place.
I was reminded of that poem the other day when I read a story about a lake near Boulder, Colorado that contained thousands of goldfish.
Now before you bemoan the fact that your local swimming hole is not filled with thousands of goldfish, rest assured that goldfish are not native to Colorado either.
It seems that at some point someone put a few pet goldfish into the lake. Over time, those goldfish begat more goldfish which ushered in the circle of life that the animated lion and his friends sang about.
Photo R. Anderson
As well intentioned as the person, or persons, were when they added the goldfish to the lake, the resulting swell in goldfish population has led Colorado wildlife officials on a search for a way to remove the invasive species.
Most likely the remediation plan will result in the death of the goldfish either through draining of the lake, or electroshock since someone has determined that while goldfish have a place in man-made aquariums, they do not belong in a man-made lake.
That’s right, the entire lake is invasive itself if one really stops to think about it.
Personally, I think the people of Boulder are sitting on a gold mine and missing a golden opportunity. I mean how many other towns can say that they have a huge goldfish pond?
I would leave the goldfish where they are and promote the lake as a golden pond where people young and old can come and see goldfish that have grown much larger than they would have grown were they swimming around in a little fish bowl.
But sometimes people fail to see the gold that is in front of them. Instead bringing on the decay by invoking change when no change is needed.
Take for example the efforts to speed up the game of baseball.
For the past 10 seasons or so, the average length of a Major League Baseball game has increased. Last season the average duration of a nine-inning baseball game clocked in at a record 3 hours, 2 minutes, up from 2 hours and 33 minutes in 1981.
As such, Major League Baseball is seeking to shorten the game through pace of play initiatives such as requiring a batter to keep at least one foot in the batter’s box at all times.
Players who step out of the batter’s box will be fined since they are lengthening the game by taking too much time between pitches.
I do not think that batters stepping out of the box is a bad thing. I often enjoy some of the comical routines that players do between pitches.
photo/R. Anderson
Hunter Pence was especially fun to watch when he was with the Houston Astros. Pence took his batting helmet off between pitches and rubbed it on his elbow each time without fail.
If I were going to change something about the game to make it go faster, I would limit the number of pitching changes that were allowed.
The trend of pitching specialists who only face a single batter is ludicrous and is the real reason games are longer.
Unless an injury replacement is needed, teams should be limited to no more than four pitchers in a nine-inning game.
Additional pitchers could be used in an extra inning game. However, I see few reasons why a team cannot field a competitive nine-inning game with four pitchers.
Speaking of pitchers, another time saving innovation in the pipeline is a pitch clock where pitchers have a set amount of time to pitch. Go over the pitch clock and the batter is awarded a ball.
The Atlantic League of Professional Baseball was the first to use a pitch clock last year and this year pitch clocks have made their way into affiliated Triple-A and Double-A Minor League Baseball Ballparks.
Under the pace of play rules, Minor League pitchers have 2 minutes and 25 seconds to begin their windup or come to set between innings, and 20 seconds between pitches.
Photo R. Anderson
Part of the beauty of baseball that is getting lost in all of this is that baseball is the only professional sport without a game clock of any kind.
The action is controlled by the number of outs, not the number of seconds.
I see no reason to change that.
As for some other sports that do have clocks, they are close to the length of a baseball game and do not offer any more on field action.
In 2010, the Wall Street Journal conducted a study on the amount of action in a National Football League game and discovered that 11 minutes of the average NFL game can be considered action.
For the purpose of the study, action was considered the time that the ball was snapped until the play was whistled dead by the referees.
While listening to people shout “Omaha, hut, hut” can be fun, it was not listed in the action category.
By comparison, the Wall Street Journal determined that a fan will see 17 minutes and 58 seconds of action over the course of a three-hour MLB game.
Items considered action as part of the Journal’s study included balls in play, runner advancement attempts on stolen bases, wild pitches, pitches, home run trots, walks and hit-by-pitches, and pickoff throws.
With the average MLB ticket price far below the average NFL ticket price, it is clear that baseball offers fans much more bang for their buck and nearly eight more minutes of action.
If something is not broken there is no need to tinker with the formula.
And if someone does not have the attention span to sit through a three-hour baseball game, no amount of tinkering can fix that.
Photo R. Anderson
Instead, continued tinkering will likely alienate long term fans.
Just as the Colorado goldfish should be left to swim out their days in peace, the game of baseball should be left to unfold as it has for the past century or so without adding a pitch clock or whatever other effort is proposed in the name of time saving.
But of course, as Robert Frost taught me all those years ago in Mrs. Phillips’ English class, nothing gold can stay.
Now if you’ll excuse me, it is time to feed my fish.
Copyright 2015 R. Anderson
