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New Rules, Same Game

Manfred continues his quest to speed up the game.

Bryce Harper has embarked on a campaign to make baseball fun again. Commissioner Robert Manfred, in his own way, is doing the same.

It’s no secret that baseball has a reputation for being the slowest-paced of the four major North American sports. Indeed, compared to the constant stream of events in a basketball game, the high-octane speed of a hockey game, or the spectacle of a hard-hitting football game, baseball does seem to move at its own leisurely tempo.

In 1950, the average length of a ballgame clocked in at under two hours and thirty minutes.