Are Baseball Games Too Long?

When people complain that baseball games are too long I am reminded of the story about the woman who was diagnosed with a fatal disease and told by her doctor that she only had a year to live. 
"Is there nothing I can do?"  she asked the doctor.
"Well," the doctor said, "you could marry an economist and move to Iowa."
"Would that make me live longer?"
"No," the doctor said, "but it will seem longer."

People who go to ball games in person usually do not think the game is too long; there is just too much to look at on the field, with nine players, two coaches and four umpires all moving around.  And even when they are not moving there is much beauty in the quiet anticipatory moments between pitches, rather like the moment between steps in a Balanchine ballet or between notes in a Mozart concerto.  But when games are shown on TV they seem much longer because there is so little to look at, basically the pitcher and the catcher and the ads behind them, shot with a distorting telephoto lens.  The games also seem longer because they start late, especially in the post-season, and therefore end long after one has gone, or should have gone, to bed. In addition there are incessant ads between innings and during pitching changes, adding an hour or more to the games, and constant delays by the pitcher and the batter.  Let the umpires at least enforce the rules:  twelve seconds between pitches and no stepping out of the batter's box "without a good reason" (not including adjusting batting gloves!).

Announcers are also a problem.  Instead of telling you what you are already looking at -- what's going on between the pitcher and the batter -- they could tell you what is going on that you can't see, with the base runners, the umpires and the fielders.  Howie Rose and Josh Lewin, the radio announcers for the Mets, do an excellent job of describing what is going on, and one can "see" more of a Mets game on the radio than on TV.