Baseball's new pace-of-play initiatives have been "so effective that officials from MLB and the players' union will not implement the series of tardiness fines that were supposed to go into effect Friday," according to sources cited by Jayson Stark of ESPN.com. MLBPA Exec Dir Tony Clark said that the two sides "have had 'dialogue' about relaxing or eliminating most of those fines ... because the results so far have been so good without them." MLB said that through Wednesday, the "average time of a nine-inning game was down to 2 hours, 53 minutes and 40 seconds." That marks a "drop of more than 8½ minutes" from the full '14 season, and of "more than seven minutes compared to the average ... at the same point last season." If the numbers hold, it would be the "largest drop in average game time, from one year to the next," since '63. Clark said that the union and MLB are "in talks to 'find common ground' on adjustments to the original agreement." MLB Senior VP/League Economics & Strategy Chris Marinak, who is overseeing the pace-of-game initiatives, said that it is "likely the fines will be levied only if there are 'flagrant violations.'" Stark noted MLB is "likely to continue to monitor games, as it has done so far, and send letters to players it believes have been in violation" of the pace-of-play rules (ESPN.com, 4/30).
