THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: National pastime is running past its time

It’s mandatory.

You have to watch the World Series.

This is the national pastime, for heaven’s sake.

Not to mention…

If you make a living as a sports columnist, you’ve got to be present, be paying attention, and be ready with opinions on everything from pitching changes to defensive alignment.

Except…

Good grief, this is hard work.

It’s a grind.

Seriously.

Tampa Bay squared the Series at a game apiece Wednesday night by hanging on to beat the Dodgers in a 6-4, uh…

Thriller?

Marathon?

Battle to stay awake?

I’m going with the last of those choices, but feel free to toss out your own adjectives.

Really, were you on the edge of your seat?

Even if you truly care about one of these teams, it’s pretty hard to stay engaged for…

THREE HOURS AND FORTY MINUTES!

That’s longer than “Titantic,” and nobody even drowned.

LOOK, I’M a lifetime baseball junkie.

I played the sport at a fairly high level — as a crafty left-handed pitcher…like, what else?

I was seriously scouted and, since this was just before the MLB draft and you were free to sign with any major-league club after high school, my family gathered at the kitchen table to consider modest offers from both the Pirates and Phillies.

No question, I was ready to try it — and imagined myself as a lefty reliever with three different arm angles.

As a Phillies scout told me: “You throw all strikes that look like nothing, but there’s hardly ever solid contact.”

Oh, yeah, I was gung-ho to ride buses in the low minors to prove I could get outs.

So…

After a thorough, intense discussion that lasted, oh, five minutes or so, my mother delivered her flat “NO” vote, and I was off to study political science in a musty university classroom.

But here’s the point: I’ve always been fixated with the game, and thus it was a perfect marriage when I later spent much of my professional life covering big-league baseball — day in and day out.

It’s the nature of the job that there are a few exciting seasons, and many more that just kind of plow on toward the playoffs and then the World Series.

But the Series itself was a match of the very, very best — more often than not decided by the better starting rotation.

When you could roll out three studs who would inject novacaine in bats for seven quiet innings (at least) and then hand the ball to your unhittable closer for three or four quick outs, well…

You can make that add up to four wins.

Absolutely.

IT FELT astonishing to hear some analyst corner Rays starter Blake Snell after the game.

Question: “What allowed you to be so dominant tonight?”

Wait, did that gentleman use the word “dominant”?

Snell pitched 4 2/3 innings.

Snell was lifted, by the way, after walking the No. 8 hitter with two outs (and a 5-0 lead), then allowing a two-run homer to Dodgers bottom-feeder Chris Taylor.

For the record, Snell needed 88 pitches to finish an out short of five innings, while giving up a single hit.

Taylor and Snell, in their own little worlds, explain why baseball is taking so, SO long — and why fans on the couch at home take two- and three-inning naps.

OK, so Taylor whacked that homer to cut the L.A. deficit to 5-2, but what else would you expect from him?

Well, just about anything.

In seven seasons, Chris has hit 59 homers in almost 2,000 at bats, while leading the National League with 178 strikeouts two years ago.

He’s swinging out of his mind.

Hilarious.

As for Snell, he’s got great stuff and should be overpowering the Dodgers or anyone else.

But like almost every starter these days, he’s pitching to the corners, running counts to 3-2 against guys who couldn’t hit him in their dreams, and…

Basically, wasting a lot of his time and effort.

So, sure, it felt like he was out there for hours, even with no baserunners.

No wonder he was exhausted in the fifth.

I know, it’s my professional obligation to watch more of this, but maybe I’ll sneak in a nap, too.

Tonight we get a match between the Dodgers’ Walker Bueller and Tampa Bay ace Charlie Morton.

I don’t want to ask for much, but…

Fellas, just throw the ball.

Then throw it again.

Quickly.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. “Moments, Memories and Madness,” his reminiscences from several decades as a sports journalist, runs each Sunday.

Steve also writes Zags Tracker, a commentary on Gonzaga basketball, once per month during the offseason.