In 2019, the average length of a Major League Baseball (MLB) game was three hours and 10 minutes, or three hours and five minutes per nine innings. Looking back over more than 100 years of game length tracking, these figures would indicate baseball games have never taken longer to play. Between 1911 and 1936, games took fewer than two hours to complete.
The duration of games has been a topic of conversation among those who follow baseball for many years, particularly MLB leaders concerned with the aging fan base of the sport. The league has attempted to curtail games in several ways, including experiments with a 20-second pitch shot clock, eliminating mound visits by coaches, and shifting to an automatic intentional walk rule. And yet, game lengths continue to increase rather than decrease.
For a frame of reference, the average game length in 2005 was two hours and 46 minutes. The longest MLB game ever played took place in 1984, a 25-inning meeting of the Chicago White Sox and the Milwaukee Brewers that lasted seven hours and 20 minutes.
