There is serious discussion about finding ways to shorten the length of time consumed by major league baseball games.
There is concern that baseball is losing fans, though attendance numbers don't necessarily reflect that.
But surveys indicate that younger generations are not as interested in baseball as their elders and one reason cited is the length of games, particularly because there are so many other leisure-time options.
The time of an MLB game has increased from about 2 hours, 30 minutes in 1981 to a little more than 3 hours this year. One day recently I looked at box scores of the first seven games listed in the newspaper and six of those had gone more than three hours.
Although not being governed by a clock is part of baseball's appeal, even those of us who are more avid fans recognize that the game could be speeded up a bit..
As a baseball traditionalist, I'm still adjusting to the introduction of the designated hitter in the American League more than 40 years ago. However, I'd like to see baseball continue to thrive and bring enjoyment to rising and future generations, so I'm in favor of some steps to speed things up.
I am less sanguine about another central and even more important area of American society -- political campaigns. If we could shorten these campaigns, I am convinced we would be much better off (except for the TV station owners) and it would improve the quality of our public life and civic engagement.
For baseball, Labor Day and early September mark the beginning of the home stretch, the final weeks of the pennant races.
Some may remember Labor Day once signaled the opening of the political campaign season leading up to election day in early November. That, of course, was before the current era of the permanent campaign.
This year's general election is Nov. 4. However, even without a presidential election in this cycle, those of us residing in states where there are competitive gubernatorial and/or congressional races -- and especially contests for the U.S. Senate -- have already endured a year of unrelenting TV political advertising, most of it of the negative or attack variety.
Because party control in the Senate is at stake, the focus on a few key races, such as the one in Arkansas, has intensified. It has multiplied the millions of dollars being spent on these campaigns, with much of that funding coming from outside "super-PACS" with no real ties to the states where the elections are occurring. Just one group, Americans for Prosperity, the conservative organization headed by the Koch brothers, may spend as much as $100 million in congressional races.
Altogether, campaign spending this year may exceed $4 billion, much of it on the avalanche of ads. In Senate races alone, outside groups have sponsored 10 times as much advertising as in 2010, the last mid-term election year. Spending by these groups accelerated following the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision that year, a ruling that said the First Amendment prohibits restrictions on independent political expenditures by businesses and most organizations. And in a year such as this, with no presidential race, those groups can pour even more cash into congressional races. And the court's McCutcheon decision earlier this year further opened the flood gates for campaign spending.
The advertising barrage is relentless. On a recent evening I counted 24 political ads, mostly for the U.S Senate race on Arkansas TV stations, interspersed among the sports and news programs I was watching.
This advertising overkill, with its emphasis on what are often misleading attacks, inevitably breeds cynicism among voters, especially younger citizens who are turned off by this onslaught. And it affects our political dialogue and inhibits serious debate because candidates are fearful of the "gotcha" game, with their remarks distorted and taken out of context for even more attack ads.
Most other democracies -- Australia, Canada, France, United Kingdom, for example -- have much shorter campaign periods, several weeks in most cases. And they also have significant limits on TV campaign advertising. Part of this owes to difference in governmental systems, when parliamentary elections are called on relatively short notice rather than occurring on fixed dates. But we could certainly take a cue from them on campaign length.
We desperately need to overhaul our electoral politics and bring some balance and reasonableness into campaigns and spending.
We can take steps to shorten baseball games without damaging the nation's pastime. And we need to find ways to limit our political campaigns and the damage they are doing to the nation.
HOYT PURVIS IS A JOURNALISM AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS PROFESSOR.
Commentary on 09/07/2014