So, are attention spans shortening, or is baseball getting more interminable? First, this timely (geddit?) quote from umpire Joe West, on Red Sox/Yankees games: “It’s pathetic and embarrassing. They take too long to play.” Then this week, those old foes got some competition from the Dodgers and Diamondbacks, who took just short of five hours to finish an 11 inning game, with appearances from a mighty 16 different pitchers. That’s some full-on bullpen action right there.

Bud Selig has weighed in on the issue with “It isn’t the time of game, it’s the pace of the game. That’s my only comment. It’s something we will review.” Which I kind of understand. While umpire supervisor Steve Palermo didn’t hold back at all:

“We’ve got a couple teams — I’m not going to name names, but I think everybody knows who they are — and they’re arrogant. They don’t think this pertains to them. I had a president of one of those ballclubs tell me the system is flawed. I told him, ‘Then how did the 28 other teams conform to what we’re asking except for you and your next-door neighbor that you have a rivalry with?'”

You tell ‘em Steve!

Funny thing is, I can watch a comparable sport like cricket for five hours, no problem (although I suppose at least you get decent breaks every couple of hours). But baseball is a whole lot better when it doesn’t veer into Ben Hur territory. If a game has to be long, it should be because it is an epic, seesawing struggle, not purgatory in sporting form. I’m a busy guy, I don’t think I can often spare five hours for anything. Anyway what’s going on here – are these guys paid by the hour or something?

If watching the Dodgers has the potential to be dull, there’s now also less opportunity to have fun before the game, with the LAPD and security officers now looking to outlaw tailgating prior to games. Opening Day parties in the Dodgers’ parking lot were dispersed, even when alcohol was not present, in an understandably unpopular move. Call me a cynic, but is this a law and order issue, or is this a ‘let’s get people in the stadium quick, and have them spending money on food and drink there’ issue? Answers on a postcard, addressed to ‘Dodgers fleecing fans competition’…

Meanwhile Milton Bradley was in trouble this week for gesturing to Texas Rangers fans that there was one out left in the inning. I mean, that’s what he was doing, right? Right? You mean…? No! But those baseball players are such nice fellows with their slow, easy pace of life, aren’t they?

And finally, a feelgood story. It’s off the field, it’s in the minors, but what do we care? We love some baseball heroism in this fair column, and so we particularly enjoyed this story. Pitcher Curt Petersen, in awesome style, averted a robbery of a woman, April Dixon, in his local Walmart. Petersen takes up the story: “This guy came up behind her and grabbed her purse and her keys. She was yelling, ‘Help! Help! Help!’ I thought maybe it was just a joke. … I thought maybe they were messing around. But then she got knocked down, and I knew it wasn’t a joke.

“I was like, ‘What are you doing?’ And he said, ‘I’m taking her car.’ And I was like, ‘No, you’re not.’ I had a hold of him, and he threw the keys back to the lady and said, ‘All right, all right, just let me go.’ And I said, ‘I don’t think so.’”

And then the glorious final quote. “It was interesting, I just went to the Walmart for toilet paper, and then all this happens.” Curt, we salute you.

Apologies (not least to Matt and the other more reliable writers here) for the column failing to appear last week. With impeccable timing, just as the season began, real life reared its ugly head and before I knew it I just wasn’t going to get anything written. Do note, I am now sat in the corner of the BaseballGB classroom, writing ‘Must try harder’ 50 times. See you next week.