A “pitch clock” in baseball?
The Southeastern Conference is considering it. A report by Jon Solomon in Friday’s edition of The Birmingham News says that the SEC Baseball Tournament will experiment with a clock between pitches and half innings in 2010. The hope is that a time limit can speed up long days of baseball and create a better product for television.
According to the report, next year’s SEC Tournament in Hoover, Ala., will feature a 20-second clock between pitches when no on is on base and a 90-second clock between half innings. The change will only affect SEC Tournament games and not the regular season.
The SEC will also experiment with a time change as well. Early round tournament games will start at 9:30 a.m., a half hour earlier than usual, according to the report. Infield practice at Regions Park will be eliminated, cutting the time between games from roughly 45 minutes to 30.
One has to wonder if the changes will carry over to the regular season if they’re successful.
