Worth a laugh

At least one umpire – Joe West – doesn't appreciate the length of time necessary for Boston and the New York Yankees to play their games.
To his crew's credit, the four umps did what they could to speed up last week's resumption of marathon baseball (each game lasted well beyond three hours. Two came close to the four-hour mark).
However, it would seem that West and other umpires' hands are tied on at least three counts:
• Games telecast nationally (as was the case with one) have more commercial time between innings. That slows things down;
• They can't cut the number of visits between pitcher and catcher, though ardent fans would have to agree that eight in a half-inning is a little excessive; and
• The umpires could enforce the 20-second rule between the time the pitcher receives the ball and the time he's supposed to throw it.
There are some other ideas, none of which are very plausible.
• Someone could limit the number of throws to first base. Or third base – or both.
• We could find some halfway decent pitchers.
• We could get away from specialized pitchers and go back to the day when starting pitchers actually pitched into the eighth and ninth innings on a regular basis.
Baseball doesn't have a clock of any sort, which makes it unique in the world of sport and which makes limiting visits (and thus strategy sessions) almost pointless.
Yes, four-hour games are rather tiring on various parts of your torso. But if it's a four-hour game that goes down to the last out, it's worth it.
If it's four hours of Joe Morgan repeating himself, then it's beyond painful.
West makes a valid point. But the solutions don't stack up in his favor.