Baseball is not a Timed Sport

So there are many sports that set a specific time period during which the game is played.  Baseball is not one of those sports. It is played according to innings, 9 for a major league game. 

Announcers often make a big deal about the length of the game. The average professional baseball game lasts 2.5 hours.  Traditionally, the Yankees and Red Sox are teams that have very long games, and when they play together, the games can be even longer. 

Games last long for a couple of reasons: hitters are very good at extending at bats with foul balls or there is a lot of offense and scoring.  I think both reasons make a game interesting.  If there is a duel between a hitter a pitcher, it adds to the suspense of the game.  If there is a lot of scoring, that makes the game more exciting. Especially when both sides are doing a lot of scoring and keep the game close or tied.

There is often talk, not just in baseball, but in other sports, about speeding up the game. Presumably, this is to keep the fan interested.  But I think it has to do with television time. I have to wonder, before sports were televised, if anyone cared how long the games were.

But television time is expensive, and stations allot so much time for games, then have other programming they want to show, for the money. Long baseball games can create havoc with programming plans.  And for the non-sports viewer, this can be very irritating, and alienate the viewer.  So, television has to keep the balance between pleasing the sports fan and the uninterested in sports viewer.