Certainly not debating the time between pitches (although this data was for two specific games, so it is a bit of a small sample and could be attributed to the specific pitchers/hitters in the 2014 game), but one thing I have been wondering is how the number of foul balls in today's game compares to the number of foul balls from years ago. It seems like, and I have no data to prove this, there are a lot more foul balls now because of better pitching and less concern about strikeouts. Foul balls take up a lot of time (fielders chasing if they are close to or in the field of play, getting the ball back to the pitcher, getting balls to the ump if he is out, etc.), much more so than the return of an inaction pitch, and result in longer at-bats. Also, anecdotally, stadiums have reduced foul territory to get fans closer to the field (and thus increase those seat prices), which would suggest more foul balls out of play and not caught, resulting in longer at-bats. They are attempting to perform a controlled experiment. As they indicated it's hard to find a video of games from the 80's which has the timing information and ISN'T copyrighted to perform this type of analysis. Ideally if the information was available for most games then a complete analysis could be performed, but the facts are very revealing: The difference in commercials from 1984 to 2014 was: 1984 game had 33 minutes and 13 seconds of commercials 2014 game had 42 minutes and 36 seconds of commercials So 9 minutes and 23 seconds more of commercials. The other big increase was due to an increase in inaction pitches as I first quoted: 1984 — the elapsed time between a pitcher releasing one pitch and his release of the next pitch — was 32 minutes and 47 seconds 2014 was 57 minutes and 41 seconds. So 24 minutes and 54 seconds more for non-baseball activities like the batter stepping out, adjusting his gloves, taking practice swings, getting set in the box, adjusting his package, staring at the pitcher, the pitcher staring back, stepping off, rubbing the baseball, shaking off 5 pitches, starting again, shaking off a pitch, the batter stepping out and in, the pitcher staring for a sign, maybe a shakeoff and finally, yes finally the pitch. Combined the increase in commercials and boring stuff the players do accounts for 34 minutes and 19 seconds of the 35 minutes of increased time when controlling for pitches, hits, runs, basically everything else that can be approximately equal. Sure, they could have gotten lucky and accidently hit on 1 game where the time difference is skewed toward the boring player crap that is mind-numbingly dumb, but the fact they almost account for the entire time difference in 2 known areas where games are slowing down is pretty amazing. Are we going to change commercial time? Not as long as it pays the bills Are we going to see a pitch clock? Eventually if more fans stop tuning in or turning up because the pace of baseball makes paint drying seem like a high action entertainment option or if the demographics keep skewing to your grandparents game then baseball may act.