CINCINNATI – A Philadelphia Phillies pitcher has criticized some Major League Baseball teams for extending booze sales because of the sport’s shortening of games by about 30 minutes new pitch clock.
Matt Strahm said on Thursday on the Baseball Isn’t Boring podcast that teams should move the beer sales cutoff to the sixth inning instead Stretching to the eighth or lateras fans will have less time to sober up and head home.
At least five teams — the Houston Astros, Arizona Diamondbacks, Texas Rangers, Minnesota Twins and Milwaukee Brewers — have extended alcohol sales past the traditional seventh-inning cutoff. The Baltimore Orioles had already allowed sales in the eighth.
Other teams have not ruled out changes.
“The reason we stopped it in the seventh before was to give our fans time to sober up and drive home safely, right?” Strahm said the game will be over quicker were we not beer sales move back to the sixth inning to give our fans time to sober up and head home?
“Instead we’re going to the eighth, and now you’re risking our fans and our family if you’re going home with people who just had beers 22 minutes ago.”
Strahm suggested team owners re-evaluate whether expanding beer sales is geared toward fan safety or if it’s a “way to get their money back.”
In the first 1 1/2 weeks of the season, the average MLB game time is down 31 minutes due to the rule changes, most notably the new pitch clock.
That means fans are spending less time – and perhaps less money – in stadiums.
Expanding beer sales doesn’t change much for the nonprofit Moms Against Drunk Driving. The goal remains to keep drunk people off the streets.
“If it stops selling in the seventh inning, eighth inning or ninth inning, it really doesn’t affect our attitude because we just don’t want people drinking alcohol and then driving home from the game,” Erin Payton, regional executive director of MADD, The Associated Press said in a statement.
Yankees aide Michael King also believes that “everyone has a responsibility” to prevent drunk driving “regardless of whether you’re served in the seventh or eighth inning.”
The Astros were the last team to announce an expansion in alcohol sales. The team said fans will be able to purchase alcohol at limited locations until the end of the game on Thursday.
The Rangers allowed some alcohol sales in the eighth inning last season but have made that option more widely available in 2023. The team said the move to offer everyone an on-pitch service – fans can order on their phones – was made in part in response to the pitch clock and the potential for shorter game times so fans don’t have to miss out on extended action in the concession lines .
Brewer’s President of Business Operations Rick Schlesinger confirmed to MLB.com that her team’s move to extend alcohol sales through the eighth was an experiment.
“If this turns out to be causing a problem, or we think it might cause a problem, we will revert to what we were doing before,” Schlesinger said.
MLB says it doesn’t regulate when teams sell alcohol. Most franchises have used the seventh inning as a cutoff, at least in part to avoid overwhelming customers who could then get in their cars and drive home.
But in reality, most teams already had areas around the stadium where fans could get alcohol after the seventh time, even when the concession stands stopped serving. Many parks are attached to restaurants or have VIP areas where the booze is still flowing.
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Freelancer Larry Fleisher contributed.
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