Among the major sports, baseball is unique in that it isn’t governed by a time clock. Football (both American football and soccer), basketball, hockey, all of those games are done when the referee sees the clock tick down to zero. In baseball, you get 27 outs, and sometimes more. Depending on your point of view, that can be a good or bad thing. Regardless though, it’s part of the reason baseball is often called a “slow” game, with real life games clocking in at an average of nearly 3 hours.

MLB 2K12, another iteration of 2K Sports’ annual baseball sim, does a pretty great job at capturing the “essence” of major league baseball. That also means it can take forever to play a game. Mostly, I blame this on the annoyingly realistic way the batter and pitcher take their sweet time between pitches. Continue reading →