Approximately 18 minutes of actual action takes place in a regulation baseball game that lasts around three hours, according to a 2013 analysis of three different Major League Baseball (MLB) games performed by the Wall Street Journal. The action may include in-play balls, pitches, and stolen base attempts. However, the vast majority of standard baseball games consist of the players waiting for the action to begin or other breaks, such as pitcher changes, injury breaks, or manager arguments. Over one hour and 14 minutes, or around half of the average MLB game, is spent with breaks between pitches, while between innings breaks comprise around 42 minutes.
More about baseball:
- It takes around 23 seconds on average for a baseball player to round the bases after hitting a home run out of the park.
- Baseball games have 63% more actual action than American football games, which only have around seven minutes of activity.
- The longest baseball game was a 1984 game between the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago White Sox that lasted eight hours and six minutes and took 25 innings.