The most time-consuming actions of two of our most popular sports need revisiting. First, let's tackle the useless base-on-balls practice in baseball. Why should a catcher have to stand behind home plate and walk out of the area after the pitcher throws the four outside balls? All the while, the batter just stands there and our poor paying public watches this boring spectacle. All taking time, useless time, when all that should happen is for the catcher to tell the umpire, "Give him first base." Simple.

Now for the most time-consuming action that hurts me every time I see it: football's "chain gang." The referees call for a measurement for a first-down time and time again, and when you really look at it, it's all a farce. Does this person who places the 10-yard chain go out on the field and measure every time he/she changes position? Nope, it's all done by sight. Now, does this chainman mark his position at the middle of the ball, or the front, or the back? All done by sight and yards away from where the referee places the ball.

You must realize that a chain gang person could actually be a foot off, marking the ball unintentionally or not for one team or the other. The marker could be more than the necessary 10 yards. It's all done by sight and I believe the referees should allow or disallow a first down the same way the marker was placed down. By sight and sight only.

Have you noticed the computer-generated yellow first-down line on TV? It's always accurate. Why can't the referee call up the official upstairs and ask whether it's a first down? It would save all the useless back-and-forth with the chains being handled. I've seen the chains brought out three to four times on one team in advancing the ball, and the so-called game of inches could be a couple of feet off in the long run.

Because we don't always have the yellow line, there is an easier, non-time-consuming way to measure for a 10-yard first down. In the modern day of electronics, we have lasers. Why not just place the line across the field and if the ball touches it, first down?

So easy, so intelligent, just like using the foul line at a bowling alley. It might not omit the human factor of placing it, but it would save hundreds of minutes of not stopping the game for useless measurements ---- and this kind of measurement could be used in high schools, colleges and the pros.

A single little line across the football field, and the catcher telling the umpire, "Give him first," would save so much time that even I might consider paying the exorbitant ticket price to view a professional game.

Phil Pavlovsky is a resident of Aguanga.