Paul Goldschmidt and other batters won’t have to wait around for this anymore. (Norm Hall/Getty Images) 
 
 Tuesday brought news of a relatively small but noteworthy change being implemented by MLB this season: Intentional walks will now be granted to hitters with a signal from the opposing dugout, rather than by having the pitcher throw four obvious balls. While the baseball powers that be, such as Commissioner Rob Manfred, see the move as helping speed games up, not everyone is thrilled to see the four-pitch intentional walk go the way of the dodo. 
 
 [Analysis: Baseball kills off a part of history, and gains almost nothing] 
 
 For one thing, while it seems like the simplest of acts to lob four pitches to a catcher standing well away from the batter’s box, things can and do occasionally go awry, which is always fun. Indians second baseman Jason Kipnis pointed out on Twitter that he has twice scored on errant pitches during intentional walks, one of which was featured in a video posted by another Twitter user. 
 
 But I’ve scored twice on an overthrow during an intentional walk… https://t.co/cSHhsBQknY — Jason Kipnis (@TheJK_Kid) February 22, 2017 
 
 •The MLB has approved to change the intentional walk rule. Which now will be granted following dugout signal. Take a look at these classics. pic.twitter.com/g3iyEW5kB3 — Dylan (@DylansFreshTake) February 22, 2017 
 
 I'm kind of disappointed to see the intentional walk disappear if only because I loved to see it botched every now and then. — Baseball Joe Veyera (@JoeVeyera) February 22, 2017 
 
 The flip side of that scenario comes when a pitcher actually gets his lob a little too close to the strike zone and an intrepid batter goes for it. That’s fun, too! 
 
 As we say goodbye to the intentional walk(for now), I'd like to remind everyone of this absolute boss moment from Miggy. pic.twitter.com/KouH4Ixvew — Jason Ochart (@Jason_cOchart) February 22, 2017 
 
 @Tony_Frye I saw Will Clark single on an attempted intentional walk. It was awesome. Make them throw the dang pitches. — Susan Slusser (@susanslusser) February 22, 2017 
 
 Some online commenters made the case that the rule change will be so inconsequential, it’s hardly worth it. 
 
 Intentional walks took an estimated 1410 minutes in 2016. 
 
 That is 35 seconds per game. Is the automatic IBB really gonna fix pace of play? — MLB Statistics (@MLBRandomStats) February 22, 2017 
 
 932 intentional walks in 2,428 games last season. A baseball game is now, on average, 1.5 pitches shorter. — Ryan M. Spaeder (@theaceofspaeder) February 22, 2017 
 
 Others, not surprisingly, took things in a less serious direction. 
 
 I like the moment of the intentional walk especially late in the game. I want the guy on deck to have enough time to get properly offended. — Royals Nation (@RoyalsNation) February 22, 2017 
 
 Instead of cutting the intentional walk, make it more exciting! All intentional walks to be thrown by the center fielder, minimum 300 feet. — Jon Weisman (@jonweisman) February 21, 2017 
 
 But if the ol’ four-pitch IBB must go, can we at least have some fun with the dugout signal? Twitter certainly thought we should (note: there were lots of middle-finger suggestions that won’t be passed along here). 
 
 Dugout signal: Manager must mimic Walk like an Egyptian dance. https://t.co/Rx8jjbxPiG — Matt Wurst (@mwurst) February 22, 2017 
 
 This should be the new intentional walk signal. pic.twitter.com/xgLOrcL1lC — Greg Tepper (@Tepper) February 22, 2017 ||||| Getty Images SNOREFEST: Analyzing three different games with an average 2 hour 58-minute duration, the WSJ calculated total inaction versus action time. Pictured, two fans snooze during a Brewers vs. Cardinals game in May. 
 
 In any given year, roughly 70 million people will attend major-league baseball games. A lucky handful will be treated to something unforgettable: a no-hitter, a walk-off grand slam, a player stealing home. Many more fans will see towering home runs, late-inning rallies and diving catches. But there is one thing every single fan who buys a ticket is 100% guaranteed to see: a bunch of grown men standing in a field, doing absolutely nothing. 
 
 Baseball is remembered for its moments of action, and it is no secret that such moments are fleeting. But how much actual action takes place in a baseball game? We decided to find out. 
 
 By WSJ calculations, a baseball fan will see 17 minutes and 58 seconds of action over the course of a three-hour game. This is roughly the equivalent of a TED Talk, a Broadway intermission or the missing section of the Watergate tapes. A similar WSJ study on NFL games in January 2010 found that the average action time for a football game was 11 minutes. So MLB does pack more punch in a battle of the two biggest stop-and-start sports. By seven minutes. 
 
 Baseball is remembered for its moments of action, and it is no secret that such moments are fleeting. But how much actual action takes place in a baseball game? Geoff Foster has the breakdown. 
 
 The WSJ reached this number by taking the stopwatch to three different games and timing everything that happened. We then categorized the parts of the game that could fairly be considered "action" and averaged the results. The almost 18-minute average included balls in play, runner advancement attempts on stolen bases, wild pitches, pitches (balls, strikes, fouls and balls hit into play), trotting batters (on home runs, walks and hit-by-pitches), pickoff throws and even one fake-pickoff throw. This may be generous. If we'd cut the action definition down to just the time when everyone on the field is running around looking for something to do (balls in play and runner advancement attempts), we'd be down to 5:47. 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Getty Images 51 MIN 27 SEC: TIME BETWEEN PITCHES during a Nationals vs. Reds game. Pictured, Nationals pitcher Jordan Zimmermann on the mound. 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Getty Images 55 SEC: INJURY 'TIMEOUTS' Detroit's Joaquin Benoit gets a fingernail trimmed by a trainer during Tigers vs. Twins game. 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Getty Images 46 MIN 50 SEC: TIME BETWEEN BATTERS during an Indians vs. Astros game. Pictured, Cleveland's Nick Swisher at bat. 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Associated Press 6 MIN 26 SEC: IN-INNING PITCHING CHANGES during the Twins vs. Tigers game. Pitcher Joaquin Benoit reacts before being taken out. 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Getty Images 30 SEC: MANAGER ARGUMENT Cincinnati manager Dusty Baker argues with the umpire on a successful steal 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Getty Images 1 MIN 33 SEC: INJURY DOWN TIME Cleveland's Drew Stubbs is tended by a trainer after fouling a ball off his knee 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Getty Images 4 MIN 1 SEC: BALLS IN PLAY during the Reds vs. National game. Reds batter Cesar Izturis takes off from home plate. 
 
 We chose three very different games to get a fair sampling of variation. The first game was as close as we could find to an average game in terms of batters faced and length of game—a 3-2 Twins win over the Tigers on April 3 that clocked in at 3:01 for nine innings. (The average MLB game this season is three hours and three minutes, according to the firm Stats LLC.) Then, for balance, we decided to throw in a slugfest—the Indians 19-6 victory over the Astros from April 20 at 3:45 and a pitchers' duel, the Nationals 1-0 victory over the Reds on April 26 that lasted 2:08. The sample conveniently included both leagues and six different teams. 
 
 So where did all the time go? The missing 160 or so minutes? The answer: Huge chunks of inaction that absolutely dwarf everything else that goes on in the game. 
 
 The "time between batters" averaged 33:39. This is knocking the weighted donut off the bat, announcing the batter, the walk-up song, cleaning the cleats, maybe some form of the old Rosanne spitting and crotch-grabbing routine. On TV, replays, players involved in the last play and crowd shots are often shown here. The time between batters concludes when the pitcher begins throwing to the new batter. In the slugfest, the time was almost 47 minutes, because there are a lot of batters in a game with 25 runs. 
 
 The "time between innings" averaged 42:41. This is time to watch the scoreboard, watch the silly on-field contest (particularly at minor league parks), visit the refreshment stand or the bathroom, or both. On TV this is simply commercial time. 
 
 By far the most time-consuming period of inaction is the "time between pitches." This took up an average of 1:14:49. That's not all that far from half the WSJ analysis's average game time of 2:58. Technically, the time between pitches begins when the pitch to the batter who saw the last pitch concludes—either when the catcher catches the ball or it is fouled off—and ends when the pitcher begins his next pitch. So it includes the unstrapping and re-strapping the batting gloves, sleeve adjusting, helmet adjusting, practice swings, plus the pitcher doing whatever it is he does as well. 
 
 Then there are the signs and the stare-down. Finally, motion from the set position begins the pitch. Sometimes the pitcher will walk around or pick up the rosin bag, sometimes more than one sign will be necessary, sometimes the batter calls time and the whole process starts over. There are about 150 pitches thrown by each team in the average MLB game. The clock keeps ticking. 
 
 The amount of inertia during a major-league game has been on the rise. This season's average game time of three hours and three minutes is the longest game duration since Stats LLC started tracking the numbers in 1987, the firm said. In 1987, the average was two hours, 52 minutes. John Thorn, Major League Baseball's official historian, attributes the trend to hitters' increased patience at the plate, which leads to their taking and fouling off more pitches. That, in turn, leads to pitchers' throwing more pitches, hence longer games. The increase also stems from the number of television commercials between half-innings, though there isn't much that can be done about that, Mr. Thorn said. "The underlying financial support of the game is a key feature of its continuing prosperity," he said. 
 
 Yet keeping each game moving as briskly as possible has been a goal of baseball's overseers for more than 150 years. In 1858—before called balls and strikes even existed—Section 37 of the sport's official rules said, "Should a striker stand at the bat without striking at good balls repeatedly pitched to him, for the purpose of delaying the game or of giving advantage to a player, the umpire, after warning him, shall call one strike, and if he persists in such action, two and three strikes." And since 1901, baseball has mandated that a pitcher must deliver the ball to a batter within 20 seconds after receiving it from the catcher—a rule that umpires have rarely enforced. 
 
 Of course, there are moments in our sample that are beyond the control of any rule book. One of the most frequently blamed reasons for turning games into snorefests are the pitching changes. In our three-game sample, we totaled three inaction categories related to pitching changes. There was one catcher visit to the mound, for 52 seconds. There were three mound visits without a pitching change that averaged a minute and 19 seconds each. There were five in-inning pitching changes (all including a mound visit, of course) that averaged 3:11 per pitching change. 
 
 Also included in the "down time" were the arguments with the umpires, a highly visible part of any manager's job. Our games contained two small squabbles—Indians Manager Terry Francona discussed a foul tip (1:05) and Reds Manager Dusty Baker had a mild argument over a successful stolen base attempt by Washington (just 30 seconds). 
 
 Some of the most unpredictable moments in the game, in our games at least, were injury "timeouts." In our three-hour game, Joaquin Benoit had to have his fingernail trimmed by the trainer for 55 seconds. In the slugfest, Drew Stubbs needed a minute and 33 seconds worth of medical attention after fouling a ball off his knee. In the same game, a trainer tended to the home plate umpire's wrist for 38 seconds after he got hit with a foul ball. Finally, in the pitchers' duel, Jordan Zimmermann had to have his forearm checked out after getting hit by a batted ball for 1:04. Fortunately for Zimmermann, he was able to complete his best start of the season so far, a one-hitter. 
 
 Our three-game averages don't tell the whole story, of course. Only the slugfest included home runs, which brings down the average home-run trot time. The slugfest produced five home runs which totaled 1:53 in total trotting time for an average of 23 seconds per trot. 
 
 The longest pure-action play was a Bryce Harper triple that took 15 seconds. It is no wonder the triple is known as baseball's most exciting play (15 uninterrupted seconds of nonstop excitement!). 
 
 What's the bottom line? When we compare total action to total down time—even including debatable action such as pitches, trots and pickoff throws—total action time is 17:58. The average game time was 2 hours and 58 seconds, so the action portion of a typical game is 10%. That leaves 90% of the game as down time. Individually, the Twins-Tigers game percentage was 9 minutes of action vs. 91 minutes of inaction; the slugfest game percentage was 11 vs. 89 (spendthrifts dig the long ball) and the pitchers' duel was 9 vs. 91. 
 
 Baseball has always been known as the thinking man's game and perhaps that is because everyone has so much time to think, particularly in between batters, innings and pitches. As we enter All-Star week next week, plenty of folks still think baseball trumps all other sports, even those in which players are in constant motion. Quality still beats quantity—at least 10% of the time. 
 
 —Mike Sielski contributed to this article. 
 
 Corrections & Amplifications 
 
 Each team in a major-league baseball game throws about 150 pitches. An earlier version of this article incorrectly gave 150 as the total number of pitches in a game. 
 
 A version of this article appeared July 13, 2013, on page D1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Play Ball...Please!. ||||| MLB Game 6 Revisited: "How Did This Happen?" By Jonah Keri on October 28, 2011 9:06 AM ET 
 
 
 
 Rob Carr/Getty Images 
 
 Imagine living your life with no clock. 
 
 No more dragging yourself out of bed when it's still dark out. No more fighting through miles of traffic, everyone around you bound to the same schedule, stuffing muffins in their faces, spilling coffee on their laps, texting with one hand, driving with no hands. No risk of getting dumped or fired or scorned for being late. There are no deadlines. Only moments. Only possibilities. 
 
 You might go the rest of your life and never see a more perfect example of that existence than what happened last night. Only baseball could have made that happen. 
 
 For the record, the Cardinals' 10-9, 11-inning win over the Rangers in Game 6 of the World Series took four hours and 33 minutes to play. But this game, like every other baseball game ever played, wasn't bound by timed quarters, halves, or periods. Baseball games are marked only by outs. Never has getting those outs seemed more difficult. 
 
 After six innings, Game 6 looked poised to go down as one of the worst World Series battles of all-time. Hell, we even ran a data query for it. Mark Simon, the excellent researcher at ESPN Stats & Info, framed the question this way: "How many World Series games have featured a combined five errors, a pickoff at third base, and at least two wild pitches/passed balls combined?" Answer: none. 
 
 These were, admittedly, arbitrary parameters. Leaving aside the rarity of a third-base pickoff, there's no perfect way to measure the worst World Series game in history, just as there's no perfect way to measure the best one. But it certainly felt like something historic was going on. With all the miscues happening on the field, and all the preposterous decisions being made by the managers (mostly one manager), Game 6 was shaping up as quite possibly the most excruciating World Series game of our lifetime. 
 
 The carnage started in the fourth inning, with the score tied 2-2. Fernando Salas relieved Jaime Garcia, who looked nothing like the dominant pitcher he was in Game 2, and escaped with only two runs allowed thanks to some guile on his part and a whole lot of blown chances by Rangers hitters. Nelson Cruz, the first batter facing Salas, lofted a popup to shallow left. Rafael Furcal drifted back, onto the outfield grass, further and still further, well into Matt Holliday territory. The outfielder going forward must always call off the backpedaling infielder in that situation. Holliday did not. Replays would later show Holliday's furtive cry to Furcal: "Take it!" Furcal could not, nor could Holliday, and disaster ensued. When Mike Napoli cashed Cruz with an RBI single to right, you couldn't help but think the Rangers would win it all, and Napoli, with 10 World Series runs driven in and a long list of big moments, would be MVP. 
 
 Two batters later, more ugliness. Colby Lewis hit a tapper back to the mound. Salas wheeled and fired to second air mailing everybody. Two on, one out, a chance for the Rangers to tack on more runs. Didn't happen. Texas put 14 men on base through the first five innings, but scored only four runs. Those early failures kept St. Louis in the game, as did the Rangers' own defensive breakdowns. Lance Berkman reached first to start the bottom of the fourth on an error by Michael Young, who booted the grounder wide of first, then made a poor throw to pull Lewis away from the bag. Holliday redeemed himself a bit with a walk and a takeout slide at second, forcing an errant throw by Andrus that helped set up the tying run. The Cardinals returned the favor, with David Freese bonking a routine popup by Josh Hamilton to start the fifth, and looking ridiculous doing it. 
 
 Then Ron Washington decided not to pinch-hit with a one-run lead, Salas on the ropes, the bases loaded, a deep, fully rested bullpen and several on-call starters standing by, and Colby Freaking Lewis the guy deemed irreplaceable. 
 
 Then, an inning later, Young made yet another error, this time doing nothing more than taking the ball out of his glove, only to drop it. 
 
 Then Washington decided he needed to go even further with Lewis. 
 
 Then Lewis, by now running on fumes, walked Freese to load the bases. 
 
 Then Washington looked down at the bullpen, considered an entire army of choices, and tapped the one guy who'd been a complete disaster throughout the World Series, Alexi Ogando. 
 
 Then Ogando walked in the tying run by very nearly hitting Yadier Molina in the face. 
 
 Then Holliday, failing spectacularly at bat and in the field throughout the World Series, completed the trifecta with brutal baserunning, getting picked off third by Napoli with the bases loaded on a throw from Napoli's knees. 
 
 Had the game kept going in that vein and ended in some generic way, this would have been a stinker for the ages. If you hadn't made a Tom Emanski joke by this point, you didn't have a pulse. But that's the thing about a sport with no clock. You don't have a finite amount of time to take a lead or mount a comeback. Anything is possible, so long as you have outs still left to burn. From this moment on, finding outs was something neither team could manage. 
 
 Leading off the seventh, Adrian Beltre launched a shot over the wall in right-center to reclaim the lead for the Rangers. Then Cruz bashed a ball into the stratosphere to make it 6-4 Texas. As Lance Lynn stood dejectedly on the mound, Tony La Russa no doubt had the same thought that he did during BullpenPhoneGate: What the hell is he doing out there? Four batters later, Ian Kinsler knocked home Derek Holland with the Rangers' seventh run, and the game seemed well in hand. 
 
 But there were tactical errors, more heroics by the unkillable Cardinals, and more amazing moments still to come. Holland led off the bottom of the eighth by retiring the fifth straight batter he'd faced. He'd more than done his job, especially after throwing 116 pitches in Game 4, and with a cavalcade of right-handed hitters now coming up. The Rangers had spent two good prospects to get Mike Adams at the trade deadline. He was their clear eighth-inning guy, so much so that Washington wouldn't think to use him two innings earlier, when Lewis stayed in way too long and Ogando threw gas on the fire. Surely Adams was coming in now, right? Nope. First, Allen Craig blasted a homer to cut the lead to 7-5. Two batters later, Molina singled. Finally, only after La Russa sent punchless backup catcher Gerald Laird up as the potential tying run did Washington go to his setup man. The Cardinals followed with two straight singles, the first one a play that was a clear error by Andrus, which allowed pinch-hitter Daniel Descalso to reach. But Furcal, the only Cardinal rivaling Holliday for World Series futility, spoiled a bases-loaded rally by hitting the ball 40 feet. On the first pitch. Inning over. 
 
 When Texas went down quietly in the top of the ninth, the Cardinals were down to their final three outs of the season. But no matter what the Rangers tried from that point on, they couldn't seize that last out. 
 
 In what was supposed to be the final at-bat of his Cardinals career (again), Pujols lashed a first-pitch double. Neftali Feliz, a fire-breather of a closer with a 100-mph fastball but also some scary command issues, walked Berkman on four pitches. Still, the Rangers seemed ready to celebrate. Feliz struck out Craig on an unexpected slider, then got two strikes on Freese. One more strike and the Rangers would have their first World Series in their 50-year franchise history. Feliz threw a fastball. Freese drilled it. Cruz, playing all the way back near the warning track, needed just a few steps to get to the wall. Somehow, he still missed the ball by a mile, the carom whizzing by him, and Freese buzzing into third with a triple. A two-run, game-tying, down-to-their-last-strike, outfield-can't-possibly-allow-a-triple, triple. 
 
 From then on, you couldn't breathe. We'd crossed the plane of reality to some screenwriter's fantasy, a script so implausible that no one would ever greenlight it. 
 
 Josh Hamilton, he of the groin so wrecked that one jackass baseball writer told his manager he should be benched, walloped a two-run homer to give the Rangers a 9-7, 10th-inning lead. 
 
 Then Darren Oliver, a pitcher who's been around so long he was once Nolan Ryan's teammate, came in to face two Cardinals lefties and both of them scratched out singles. 
 
 Then La Russa used a pitcher, Edwin Jackson, to pinch-hit for another pitcher, Jason Motte. Then, before Jackson could get to home plate, he pinch-hit with another pitcher, Kyle Lohse, for Jackson. 
 
 Then after a Lohse sacrifice, Scott Feldman came in, looking for his first career save. 
 
 Then after Feldman notched the second out of the inning, Washington ordered the fourth intentional walk of Pujols in two games. 
 
 Then, down to their final strike once more, Berkman lined a single to center to tie the game, saving the season yet again. 
 
 Then with two outs in the top of the 11th and a runner on first, Washington sent up light-hitting, seldom-used utilityman Esteban German to die a quick pinch-hit death against Jake Westbrook, yanking Feldman out of the game in the process and leaving the Rangers bullpen exposed. 
 
 Then Washington went to his worst, and least-used reliever, Mark Lowe, with the game on the line. 
 
 And then, in a final masterstroke of temporal chaos, David Freese, the kid who grew up a Cardinals fan on the edges of St. Louis, the unlikely hero who hoisted his teammates on his back to get to the World Series, the man of destiny who waited until one strike remained in his season before granting his team deliverance, hit a cannon to straightaway center that sailed over the wall and into baseball history. 
 
 As the Cardinals piled onto the field and their fans reached a state of delirium, Joe Buck delivered an homage to his father, aping Jack's Game 6-ending call to the 1991 World Series, "We will see you tomorrow night." 
 
 And we will. Cruz and Holliday are both questionable with injuries, Napoli's hobbled after a badly turned ankle, the bullpens will get another full night, the Rangers will try to recover from the worst playoff loss since that other Game 6 a quarter-century ago, and Chris Carpenter will go for the win in a park where he's been nearly perfect all year. 
 
 But the Game 7 prognostication could wait. As Freese's teammates shredded his jersey at the bottom of a dog pile, the words of Buck's broadcast partner Tim McCarver kept resonating. Amid a din that engulfed half the state of Missouri, he could only rightfully ask, "How did this happen?" 
 
 It happened because only a game with no clock could give us a play-by-play graph that mimicked the roller coaster ride we all felt while watching. It happened because only a game with no clock could render one of the worst World Series games into one of the best, thanks to the wildest finish we've ever seen. 
 
 It happened because it's baseball, a game where time stands still, and the impossible becomes possible. 
 
 Jonah Keri's new book, The Extra 2%: How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team from Worst to First, is a national best-seller. Follow him on Twitter at @JonahKeri. 
 
 Follow Grantland on Twitter or check out Grantland's Facebook page. 
 
 Read more of The Triangle, Grantland's sports blog. 
 
 Contact us at triangle@grantland.com
– Those who complain baseball is too slow may be heartened to hear a quicker pace is on its way. Based on a Tuesday evening tweet from ESPN's Howard Bryant, Sports Illustrated reports that, starting with the 2017 season, MLB pitchers will no longer have to waste time lobbing four pitches at batters they plan to intentionally walk. Instead, teams can now simply signal the ump that a walk is in the works, and the runner can immediately saunter over to first. This change could shave 14.3 seconds off of each game, per estimates by the Wall Street Journal. The Washington Post notes "not everyone is thrilled" with the change, including those who enjoy watching what happens when intentional-walk pitches go wild or batters go for them anyway. Others wonder if the time savings is worth the effort, with one commenter noting: "Is the automatic IBB really gonna fix pace of play?" (Start reading about baseball's "most interesting pitcher" with all that time you just gained.)