The Final 9

By Barry M. Bloom / MLB.com

LOS ANGELES -- Major League Baseball directed its 30 clubs on Wednesday to pick up the pace of each game by primarily moving hitters in and out of the batter's box quicker and making pitchers adhere to a strict 12-second limit in between pitches, rules that are already on the books.
The game's pace has been an object of discussion since last October's World Series, when the Rockies and Red Sox played a 4 hour, 19 minute Game 3 at Coors Field. Boston won the game, 10-5, and went on to sweep the World Series.

At that point, the matter became an acute concern of Commissioner Bud Selig and was discussed at great length at last November's general managers' meetings in Florida. It also came up for discussion at the owners' meetings last week in Milwaukee. Club officials were briefed on the subject by Jimmie Lee Solomon, MLB's executive vice president of baseball operations, during a series of conference calls on Wednesday.

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