From a Wall Street Journal commentary by Fay Vincent headlined “Is Baseball Better This Year? You Bet It Is.”:

Major League Baseball ended the first half of its season this week with its annual All-Star game. The sport had much to celebrate and one growing menace to confront.

First, consider its successes. In recent years baseball has suffered a crisis of popularity owing, in large part, to fans’ dissatisfaction with seemingly interminable games. To the credit of Commissioner Rob Manfred, MLB listened. This season, the sport adopted significant rule changes to speed up the pace of games. Early results have been encouraging.