Selig Wants to Increase Pace of Games

With the length of games setting a record, Commissioner Bud Selig pledged new initiatives Monday.

The average length of a nine-inning game was 2 hours 58 minutes, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, baseball’s statistician.

That is a five-minute increase from 1999 and an 11-minute increase from 1998. It breaks the previous mark of 2:54, set in 1994.

“I think we can do a lot of things,” Selig said, without giving details. “We had a lot of high-scoring games, a lot of games with pitching changes, but I think there’s a lot of things we can do.

“The pace of the game, I believe, can be corrected by a myriad of things, including enforcement of our rules.”

Selig has repeatedly pledged that the pace of games will pick up. He addressed the subject during the 1997 World Series between the Florida Marlins and Cleveland Indians, when the average time was 3:31 and Game 3 lasted 4:12.

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The major leagues, helped by three new ballparks, drew a record 72,748,970 fans this year and the average attendance topped 30,000 for the first time since the 1994-95 strike.

After drawing an average of 31,612 in 1994 before the start of the 232-day strike, attendance dropped 20.1% in 1995 to 25,260.

The average rose to 26,889 in 1996, 28,288 in 1997 and 29,285 in 1998, the year the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays started play. The average dropped 0.9% in 1999 to 29,019, then rose 3.7% this year to 30,099.

The only seasons in which the average was higher were in the Colorado Rockies’ first two seasons, in which they played at Mile High Stadium and averaged crowds of more than 56,000.

The San Francisco Giants, who moved to Pacific Bell Park from Candlestick, had the biggest increase, rising 1,236,931 to 3,315,330. Detroit’s Comerica Park drew 2,533,752, up 507,311 from Tiger Stadium’s final season, and Houston’s Enron Field drew 2,706,017, up 350,122 from the Astrodome’s last year.

The Indians led the major leagues at 3,456,278, followed by the St. Louis Cardinals at 3,336,493.

The only team that didn’t break 1 million was the Montreal Expos, at 926,427. Last in the American League, at 1,059,715, was the Minnesota Twins.

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There sat Darryl Kile talking about starting today’s opening game of the division series against the Atlanta Braves at St. Louis, and there sat St. Louis Cardinal Manager Tony La Russa knowing that he was going to start his 21-year-old rookie left-hander, Rick Ankiel, instead.

This was during a news conference at Busch Stadium, and La Russa, ever the poker player, delayed his little bomb until later in the conference after Kile had finished, presumably so that Ankiel could get dressed after the team workout and get out of the stadium before facing reporters and a lot of questions about the assignment.

Kile wasn’t as fortunate, but if he had any negative reaction to the way La Russa handled it, he wasn’t saying. He covered his ears and mumbled no comment as he left the ballpark.

The veteran Kile was 20-9 and Ankiel 11-7, but Ankiel was also 3-0 with a 1.65 earned-run average in September and was 7-2 with a 3.36 ERA at home in his first full season.

The key, La Russa said, is that Kile and Ankiel have been his best pitchers recently and both will make two starts if the best-of-five series requires it. However, by switching Ankiel to Game 1 and Kile to Game 2, La Russa said, he gives the rookie four days between potential starts and is able to use the more experienced Kile on three days’ rest in a decisive fifth game, if necessary. The risk is that the Cardinals could be finished, with their winningest pitcher having made only one start.

“Without belaboring the point, we just want to maximize our options if the series goes beyond three games,” La Russa said, leaving unsaid that he may feel there is less pressure on Ankiel in a Game 1 start than there would be if he were pitching Game 2 after a possible Cardinal loss. Some of the Cardinals may not have been as surprised as Kile seemed.

“Ankiel is pitching better than anyone in baseball right now,” utilityman Craig Paquette said. “He’s up there with Tom Glavine.”