The delay of several seconds between live action in a ballgame and what you see on television is quite a convenience if you're located in the press box. You can be hacking away on the computer, miss a pitch or a play, and have time to take a look as it is being presented on the telecast.
We media types spend a lot of time whining about length of games — heck, we did that when three hours to play nine innings was a marathon — but I'm not sure you get a full appreciation for what's going on from the press box.
You're writing, you're tweeting, you're checking the numbers for slumps and hot streaks, you're cracking wise … there are things to do during those 30, 40 seconds between pitches.
Last weekend, I sat in the stands for two nights at AT&T Park in San Francisco. On Friday, we had a row of people behind us babbling incessantly about everything but the ballgame. On Saturday, there were actual fans of the game and the Giants in our area.
I was watching every pitch live — and by the third inning, clenching teeth to prevent myself from screaming, "Swing the #x%**%x BAT!''
You can sit in the middle of a sidewalk next to a shopping cart and scream anything you choose in San Francisco, but for a senior citizen to suddenly burst into a profane tirade about hitters refusing to swing the bat … they might have called stadium security on me.
I can't stand it. Hitters in RBI situations taking 2-1 and 3-1 pitches in the middle of the plate has gotten so prevalent that I'd like to be able to walk out to the batter's box and do a two-handed slap of the earholes on their batting helmets.
I'm not focused on Joe Mauer here. Or Aaron Hicks. There are scores of hitters who would rather wait for a walk than swing at a pitch an inch off "dead central'' and try to knock in a run.
