MLB threw 120 years of historical past within the trash by including a clock. Now followers are flocking to video games and baseball is so freaking again.

• Including a pitch clock has shortened baseball video games by 26 minutes.
• Everybody loves it, attendance is up, and the game feels stylish for the primary time in many years.
• Baseball is again.

These two charts actually inform the story of the baseball season up to now.

1) Since MLB added the pitch clock in April, the typical recreation is 26 minutes shorter than it was in 2022. Video games have not been this brief in 40 years (knowledge through Baseball Reference):

The pitch clock was a legitimately revolutionary change.

It upended greater than 100 years of custom, compelled gamers to regulate in methods they’re nonetheless making an attempt to determine, and made a sure kind of fan freak out concerning the nature of the game.

2) That brings us to the second chart. This one exhibits the yr over yr change in common attendance by staff by way of 888 or so video games: (knowledge through ESPN’s attendance tracker):

Just about each staff is seeing stronger attendance in 2023 vs. 2022.

Practically 1,000 video games into this new, timed period, it is exhausting to see it as something aside from an unequivocal success.

Along with the target measures, there additionally simply appears to be the sense that Individuals have been turning to one another not too long ago and saying, “You realize what’s fairly nice? Baseball.”

The ol’ nationwide pastime. A day on the ballpark. Sizzling canine, dingers, ice cream in just a little helmet cup. And have you ever heard? Video games are method, method shorter now.