Can-Am baseball league trying hard to make games less boring

The Can-Am baseball league is putting new rules into play to speed up games this season, and the head of the league hopes they aren't a swing and a miss.

Miles Wolff, Can-Am's commissioner and the owner of the Ottawa Champions baseball team, told CBC Radio's All In A Day that players will face penalties if they take longer than 20 seconds to throw a pitch, or longer than 15 seconds to get to the batter's box, among other things.

"It should take them much less than that, but guys will go back and put tar on their bats, take a couple of extra swings. I think what's happened in baseball is players, it's their time on stage. So they take all the time," Wolff said. 

Decades ago, baseball games were only two-and-a-half hours long, but these days they're well over three hours. And the game hasn't changed, he said.

Wolff added that if he could make a new rule himself, he'd disallow batting gloves because batters often step away from home plate and readjust the gloves, which eats up more time. 

"I don't know many fans who love three-hour ball games," he said. "I want to see you hit and pitch, I don't want to see you walk around the batter's box and shake your head, pretend the umpire missed the call. Get in there and swing."

Air horn enforcement

The league had to come up with a way to enforce the new rules, and what they came up with isn't a familiar baseball sound like the crack of a bat or an organ playing Take Me Out to the Ball Game.

What Wolff decided to do is put an extra umpire in the press box to time the game and sound an air horn when a player breaks a rule. 

The new rules were barely used in the Champions' pre-season games this week, he said. "It hasn't really come into effect too much. There was a strike time where the batter stepped out, but I don't think the umpire on the field heard [the air horn]."

So, Wolff said, they'll need to find a louder air horn. He also said they have to buy a new one every few days.

"Well, they run out. We just found out that they wear out very quickly."

Keeping fans in their seats

Wolff said he's heard some complaints about how long the games are, but more often sees fans leave games early. 

"It's 10 o'clock and they've gotta go home and go to bed. You'd like them to stay and see the Champions come back and win the game, so some people are in a sense voting with their feet."

He's hoping the new rules not only help keep fans in their seats, but lure new audiences who may be turned away by how long games can run. 

Players themselves haven't voiced concerns about the rules, but it may take some time to get used to them, Wolff added. For now, the league will wait and see how the new rules play out.

If they don't work — if players and fans don't get behind the changes or if the rules don't help shorten ball games — they can always go back to the drawing board and come up with a new game plan. 

"I think we need to give it a little time to see players' reaction, fans' reaction and simply, does it speed up things? I think we can maybe shave close to 10 minutes off a game," Wolff said. 

What to expect this season

The Ottawa Champions are heading into their fourth season in the Can-Am league with a checkered past. The team won the Can-Am league championship in 2016, but didn't make the playoffs in the 2017 season. 

This year the team doesn't have a lot of hitting power, but its pitching and speed should give the Champions a shot at being a "pretty good team," Wolff said. 

"There's a lot of speed on the team this year," he said. "I hope we can make good use of it because we've got three or four guys who could steal 30 bases for us."

But even if the team's playing doesn't measure up to its 2016 championship standards, there's at least one thing Wolff said should bring fans out to games. 

"The air horn. If nothing else, the fans need to come out for that."

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