BASEBALL TOO SLOW? WHAT'S THE RUSH?!

In an article by Joe Lapointe, sports journalist, entitled, An Umpire Speaks Up About the Length of Yankees-Red Sox Games, the proposition is put forth that baseball games these days take too long, especially games between the NY Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. Joe West, the chief of the umpiring crew for this week's series between the two teams, called the length of Yankees-Red Sox games "a disgrace to baseball.'' Another umpire on the crew, Angel Hernandez, tried to speed up Tuesday's game when he worked behind home plate by refusing to call timeout when players requested it. "Angel did everything he could,'' West told The Record. "The players aren't working with us. This is embarrassing.''

WHAT?!

The only sport I still watch with any regularity is baseball, and Yankees-Red Sox games in particular are must watch for me. Too slow? A disgrace?!

One of the beautiful, graceful, spiritual aspects of baseball is that there is no time clock. Baseball games could hypothetically go on forever. Baseball is not just about physical endurance or brute strength or militaristic stratagems, all while racing against time. Baseball is contemplative, meditative, subtle, not just for the strong of body, but for the strong of spirit.

And you know what else? When I watch a baseball game, I can doze off for a few innings. Yeah! And when I wake up, the game is still going on. It's like the game becomes part of my twilight consciousness and I can go in and out of it, along with my dreams, at will.

Here's James Earl Jones, as "Terrance Mann," in "Field of Dreams":

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good and could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come."