When Jose Vizcaino finally won the game with a bases-loaded single in the bottom of the 12th inning, a record-shattering 4 hours and 51 minutes had passed since the first pitch. A great game was made absurd by the amount of time it took to play. And much of those long, dreary hours were not about playing baseball at all.

They were, to begin with, about delays forced upon professional ballplayers by the demands of television commercials. These commercials could not be seen by the 55,913 paying customers in the ballpark, or the full complement of the Friends of the Boss, who arrived outside the Stadium Club in a long line of limousines with thumping polished doors. About 10,000 (it seemed) members of the media, including your agent, could glance at the commercials on monitors, jammed as we were into the press ghetto in sections 28 and 29, down the left field line. We had no alternative to the TV monitors, because we could barely see the game. During the commercial breaks what we saw were ballplayers strolling, lolling, chewing, spitting, and doing almost everything else except playing baseball.

This was not the players’ fault, of course. But some other behavior was.

In my completely unscientific analysis of the game, at least 17 minutes were consumed by pitchers making adjustments to their caps. Another 14 minutes went to shaking off signs from the catcher. Twelve minutes involved staring at runners, and then stepping off the rubber. Nine minutes passed in the lobbing balls to first base as warnings to those runners. Eight minutes were eaten up by taking deep breaths before pitching. Six minutes went to wandering behind the mound, gazing at the outfield. The Mets’ relievers used at least four minutes in the act of sighing.

Batters were no better. My notes indicate that batters from both teams used up 16 minutes making adjustments to their batting gloves. Eleven minutes, at least, were devoted to stepping out of the batter’s box (which allowed the opposing pitcher another two minutes for stepping off the mound, staring at the outfield – or the scoreboard – and sighing). Seven minutes went to staring at the grain of the bats, as if checking for termites. A minimum of 17 minutes involved looking down the third base line to check signs from the third base coach.

The result: many at-bats lasted longer than Tyson fights. Some lasted longer than a Dennis Rodman marriage. I enjoy a great at bat when it involves a tough craftsman like Paul O’Neill, who in the ninth inning forced Armando Benitez to throw 10 pitches. After being down 1 ball and 2 strikes, O’Neill waited, looked at the ball, laid off the bad pitches and fouled off four other and finally drew a walk. Before the inning was over, O’Neill had scored the tying run, and poor Benitez looked as if he’d been hit by a car. That was a major league baseball at bat.

Too many others