THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Monday, September 12, 2011

Tennis clock

I loved the Federer/Djokovic match.  The idea of enforcing a shot clock seems ridiculous to me.  What I care about is the pace.  So, Djokovic kept bouncing the balls more than Federer.  He threw it in the air and let it drop at least once.  I don’t care.  There’s nothing about that game I would want to change.  Djokovic playing to the crowd at 3-5 in the 5th was beautiful.  If there’s a shot clock, that goes away.  (I’m not a big tennis fan… I just watch the big tournaments, semis and/or finals.)

This is not baseball, where the batter steps out of the box and adjusts himself after every pitch.  The mound meetings by the manager.  The in-inning pitching change.  The useless pickoffs to 1B.  The stepping off the mound.  The calling of timeout for something other than dirt in the eye.

The difference between tennis and baseball with the stoppage time is that tennis has it as part of the foreplay, while baseball is more of a tease about it.