This year's World Series was memorable for many reasons: the Angels captured their first championship, Barry Bonds finally proved that he can play well in the postseason and a rookie became the first Game 7 winner since Babe Adams accomplished the feat in 1909. To make a long story short, this World Series--indeed this postseason--will be remembered simply for the games that refused to end.
The average game during the 2002 playoffs lasted over 3 hours and 24 minutes. That's 204 minutes, or four minutes longer than it takes to watch The Godfather Part II.
Leave Duke when the game starts, and you could already be at Myrtle on beer number three or four by the end of the the ninth inning.
But that figure is simply the postseason average. The average World Series game last over three hours and 36 minutes, while the Yankees-Angels Division Series topped the charts at a whopping three hours and 46 minutes per game-roughly the amount of time that DDS takes to deliver your dinner.
It's no wonder that this World Series had the lowest television ratings in history.
Interest in the games between San Francisco and Anaheim was clearly concentrated on the west coast, but the absurd length of the games only exacerbated the situation, for few nine to five working people could afford to stay awake to see the games in their entirety.
Of the 34 games that made up this postseason, only four managed to duck under the three-hour mark. One game between the Angels and Yankees lasted four hours and 11 minutes, only 11 minutes shy of the American League record for a nine-inning contest.
Part of the reason for the marathon games lies behind the fact that the Giants and Angels were busy scoring an average of over 12 runs per game. But even Game 1, which resulted in a 4-3 Giants win, still took three hours and 44 minutes to complete.
But run scoring alone cannot explain why the average postseason game lasted almost as long as the LSAT.
It became commonplace to see a pitcher shake off a sign, come to a set position, step off, shake off a sign, and then beckon the catcher to the mound for a conference.
Likewise, batters would often step out of the box after a pitch, re-velcro their batting gloves, stretch, get back into the box, take 40 practice swings, dig in, and then call time just as the pitcher was getting into the set position after finishing his shenanigans.
News flash: this isn't the PGA Tour, where fans expect players to be head cases who needed a minute or two to regroup after--gasp!--a leaf blows in front of them, distracting their attention.
There's no reason why a hitter can't step into the box, take a pitch, step out for a second and then get right back in.
Not that anyone expects baseball to resolve this problem anytime soon. The sport certainly has enough to worry about as it is, from labor problems to financing small-market teams to figuring out how to run an All-Star Game.
But no matter how much people love watching the sport, let alone the World Series, there is a limit to everything.
And for most people, three hours and 36 minutes exceeds that threshold, which explains why more people tuned into CBS's moribund primetime lineup than did the three hour, 53 minute-long Game 5 of the World Series.
Baseball has already alienated fans who became disgusted with the players' excessive greed.
If the sport hopes to boost its postseason ratings next season, it must work to retain those fans who simply can't spare 14 percent of the day to sit and watch a baseball game.
Evan Davis is a Trinity senior and senior associate sports editor. His column appears every Wednesday.
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