The starting pitcher for the Boston Home Inspectors White Sox, 10-year-old Aidan Fitzgerald had not thrown the first pitch, but in the stands, his dad was already feeling the tension — about how long the day’s Little League game would take.....
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Patrick Fitzgerald, Tracey Spruce, John Salemme, Elaine Herrmann Blais & Kimberly Kennedy... And the rest of the complainers and whiners in Milton and elsewhere can just go suck it...
Yeah, the parents who were quoted in the article were kinda sad, but I bet there were more parents having a great time and their quotes were not included. They didnt make for a great story.
Kinda off topic, but they dont have little league in St Louis. Or that I ever found. Closest league is 90 minutes away. So there were always time limits so you could have two games in one night on the same field. One at 6, and one at 8, or 8:15 for older groups. Games got longer as you got older. They were always 7 inning games but would stop at a certain time. T-ball was an hour, 8-10 under maybe 1:30, 9-13 were 1:45 and 14 under were 2 hours. I may be off. Seemed to work.
I don't know what this article is talking about. Every league my kids played in had time limits of ~2 hours (some were 1:45). I never heard of a 3 hour game for T-ball age kids. And doesn't T-ball have rules now that no one is "out" anyway? That aside, I never enjoyed watching games until the kids could field a grounder and throw to first.
The only time I remember any time limits were in some of the travel ball tournaments my son's team competed in. Usually 1 hour 50 min at the 12U level. 2 hr 15 min at the older age levels. When he played t-ball they were kept to 1 hour.
Never saw a time limit when he played Little League.
Yeah I know games can go long, but I always enjoyed the games no matter how long (or short) they were.
It's a good thing those parents weren't at the UVA-TCU game that went 15 innings.......they would have been in agony........
Never was involved in Little League, but every league my son ever played in, they had time limits. I have nephews playing in coach pitch league now and not only is there a time limit, but there is a limit of 7 runs that can be scored in an inning regardless of the number of outs.
This may be part of the problem with the declining numbers in Little League. That and the geographic restriction. We never had a Little League in our geographic area. There was one not too far away, but we wouldn't have moved to play in it. Maybe they need to institute some sort of limit for regular season games and open up their boundries a little to get some more kids involved. That's if they want to stop the decline in their organization.
I think this quote from the article sums it up best
"In this crazy, instant gratification of a world,” he said in an e-mail, “we need to pause, adults and children, and languorous baseball helps us to do that.”
While I served on the Executive board of out little league the annual discussion or league fees came, the debate to raise them or not. I used top point out that many parents were getting the bargain of the year.....for their $100 league fees they would get two games a week ( say 2 hours per game, 4 hours a week), plus 1-2 practices a week ( depending on the coach) say another 3 hours a week..so that is a total of 7 hours per week for 10 weeks.....70 hours of babysitting for $100...not a bad deal..where else can you get baby sitting for around a $1.50 an hour...
The drop them off and pick them up parents would never complain about the time....in fact they most likely wanted the games to go longer
Bunch of sissies ! lol Over the years I've driven longer than that to watch a game.
There's nothing better than a long baseball game. Last night's Legion game was over in 95 minutes and I was lost trying to find something to do after!
We never had time limits in our "local" league....and at the younger ages 10U-12U it wasn't uncommon to have 3 hour+ games. Never bothered me one bit as a coach...even though those long games normally meant we messed up quite a few times...lol. I always figured any baseball was good baseball....even if it wasn't so good
LL rules don't allow for time limits in Majors (11-12U) games, however, if a league has field availability issues they can ask for a waiver. But unless the league is really poor, or the umps have no idea how to manage games, 2 hours should be plenty for a 6 inning game. That's 10 minutes per half inning! If innings are taking longer than that on average, chances are that one team is getting mercied anyway.
Minors divisions can and should have time limits.
LL rules don't allow for time limits in Majors (11-12U) games, however, if a league has field availability issues they can ask for a waiver. But unless the league is really poor, or the umps have no idea how to manage games, 2 hours should be plenty for a 6 inning game. That's 10 minutes per half inning! If innings are taking longer than that on average, chances are that one team is getting mercied anyway.
Minors divisions can and should have time limits.
Our little league board had the good sense to make local rules that put time limits on games. We'd have games at 6pm and 8pm on weeknights, and on Saturday 10am, 12, 2pm and 4pm.
