Originally Posted by D. Bergin (Post 2213248)

I get your point, but I also remember Mark Fidrych being completely worthless by his age 22 season, after throwing nearly as many complete games in his Rookie season as Justin Verlander has had in his entire career.

Originally Posted by Tabe (Post 2213003)

It's not just MLB. The NHL does it, too. I can't see Kraken games on the streaming package until a day or two later because of the blackout rules. I live *300* miles from Seattle. Thankfully, I'm a Detroit fan so it's not really an issue. In prior years, they at least just made the blackout last only until the game was over. As soon as the game ended, I could watch it. Not anymore now that they've moved to an awful setup on ESPN+.

Originally Posted by Snapolit1 (Post 2213455)

Views of average Net 54er:

Baseball today sucks.

Movies today suck.

Music today sucks.

TV today sucks.


Mmmm. Sensing a theme here.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhTuYKR-ejo

Originally Posted by Mountaineer1999 (Post 2213450)

Baseball may not be dying, but it sure isn't the same as it used to be. Ive mostly attributed this to me getting older but my 20 year old boys find it boring so Im not so sure. When I was growing up in the hills of Appalachia in the 1970s, baseball was magical an escape from the day to day. Most here are talking about not being able to see the games. In the 1970s that was the allure. We saw two games a week, Saturday NBC game of the week and Monday night baseball, I spent all my time trying to get KDKA radio to come in in Southern WV to hear the Pirates games. Those are memories i cherish now. Baseball has lost its mystique, its romanticism because it's everywhere. Or maybe I've just gotten old.

Originally Posted by Mountaineer1999 (Post 2213473)

Movies today do kinda suck.

Originally Posted by Hankphenom (Post 2213519)

Looking at the box scores from yesterday's games, it's clear they need to change the rules on who gets the win--and I mean right now, today. I couldn't believe how many teams used eight or more pitchers, and how few starters went five. I know it's a trend of long standing, but reading the paper (another endangered species, oh how I will miss the page with all the box scores from the day before!), the start of this season struck me as truly revolutionary for the amazing number of pitchers used in so many games by both teams. And that's with a requirement that they go at least three batters!

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry (Post 2213522)

Not to disagree with your overall point, but I'd attribute some of the unusually low pitch counts for starters so far this year to the abbreviated spring training. Just a few examples I quickly pulled up from yesterday:

Max Scherzer 80 pitches
Charlie Morton 78 pitches
Walker Buehler 78 pitches

These guys will be almost certainly be going deeper into games as the season goes on.

Originally Posted by Yoda (Post 2213534)

While I agree a pitcher's clock would undoubtedly speed games up, what gets me are some, not all, batters who when before they bat perform their own personal ritual, which includes but is not limited to:

1. Giving the old huevos a good tug and scratch.
2. Sticking a finger in a nostril or ear to see that all is well.
3. Digging around their backside for an invisible wedgie.
4. Repeat #3.
5. Kiss their bling and look hopefully skyward.

Then and only then, after scowling at the earth for an interminable time, might they be ready to step into the batters box.

Owners and umpires must do something to improve game time or fans who are already suffering from the boredom syndrome might drift away altogether in greater numbers.

Originally Posted by Hankphenom (Post 2213552)

For the life of me, I can't see what's wrong with a rule that makes batters stay in the box, pitchers on the mound, and runners on the bases unless they have a reason to leave and are cleared by the umps to do so.

Originally Posted by Yoda (Post 2213534)

While I agree a pitcher's clock would undoubtedly speed games up, what gets me are some, not all, batters who when before they bat perform their own personal ritual, which includes but is not limited to:

1. Giving the old huevos a good tug and scratch.
2. Sticking a finger in a nostril or ear to see that all is well.
3. Digging around their backside for an invisible wedgie.
4. Repeat #3.
5. Kiss their bling and look hopefully skyward.

Then and only then, after scowling at the earth for an interminable time, might they be ready to step into the batters box.

Owners and umpires must do something to improve game time or fans who are already suffering from the boredom syndrome might drift away altogether in greater numbers.

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry (Post 2213522)

Not to disagree with your overall point, but I'd attribute some of the unusually low pitch counts for starters so far this year to the abbreviated spring training. Just a few examples I quickly pulled up from yesterday:

Max Scherzer 80 pitches
Charlie Morton 78 pitches
Walker Buehler 78 pitches

These guys will be almost certainly be going deeper into games as the season goes on.

Originally Posted by Yoda (Post 2213534)

While I agree a pitcher's clock would undoubtedly speed games up, what gets me are some, not all, batters who when before they bat perform their own personal ritual, which includes but is not limited to:

Originally Posted by brass_rat (Post 2213616)

My understanding is that with the most recent pitch clock rules being tested this year, batters must be in the box ready to hit with 9 seconds left on the clock.

Originally Posted by jingram058 (Post 2213620)

What would speed things up would be to cut 5 minutes of commercials every half inning. All the other stuff aside, that is how you speed the game up. But you can't do that, because you absolutely have to have the commercials.

I have close to 300 old radio broadcasts of complete games from the 1934 All-Star Game (oldest known to exist) up to the 1960s, and 114 TV broadcasts of complete games from games 6 and 7 of the 1952 World Series (oldest known to exist) up to today. Almost all the radio broadcasts are about 2 hours 30 minutes, + or -, with nothing cut out or edited, for 9 innings. The TV broadcasts are the same, until you get up into the 1970s, and then they start getting longer and longer due to numerous commercials.

Tinkering with the fundamental rules of baseball is not making the game better, in my humble opinion here. I do not know anyone, young or old, who like any of the rule changes, from 4-finger intentional walks to starting extra innings with a man on 2nd.

The only way to get games back to 2 hours and a half is to cut the commercials. But when Aaron Judge has to have $360 million (or more), it's not gonna happen.

Originally Posted by dio (Post 2213768)

how can it be dying when these teams are paying their players $$$$$$$ this much

Originally Posted by Leon (Post 2214224)

Maybe that is a tiny bit of the problem. It's been quite a few years since I have been to a MLB game but it was somewhat expensive back then. I can't imagine it's gotten cheaper, even relatively speaking.
As for me and as said I have said before, I quit watching, except for maybe a part of a playoff or series game, after the '94 strike.
.

Originally Posted by Carter08 (Post 2214225)

Good point. I’m lazy about going to actual games and i imagine the prices are insane but I do love watching the Mets on SNY though. Hard to beat listening to stories from Keith Hernandez. I suspect the revenue from the tv stations is a huge part of team value.

Originally Posted by jingram058 (Post 2212845)

This is from the New York Times, not me. I don't know if he is right or not, but I do know that EVERYONE I know absolutely hates baseball in it's present state, even on opening day. The length of games, too many commercials, the DH, robotic umpires, instant replay, starting the 10th inning with a man on 2nd, eliminating minor leagues and teams, yada, yada, yada. It's been discussed but nothing can be done about it It all comes down, in the end, to too much money. Just like baseball cards.

By Matthew Walther

Mr. Walther is the editor of The Lamp, a Catholic literary journal. He writes frequently about sports.

Opening day of the Major League Baseball season, which falls on Thursday after being delayed for a week by a labor dispute, is as good an occasion as any for fans of the game to come to terms with certain hard facts. I am talking, of course, about the inevitable future in which professional baseball is nationalized and put under the authority of some large federal entity — the Library of Congress, perhaps, or more romantically, the National Park Service.

Like the Delta blues or Yellowstone National Park, baseball is as indelibly American as it is painfully uncommercial. Left to fend for itself, the game will eventually disappear.

Attendance at games has declined steadily since 2008 and viewership figures are almost hilariously bleak. An ordinary national prime-time M.L.B. broadcast, such as ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball,” attracts some 1.5 million pairs of eyes each week, which is to say, roughly the number that are likely to be watching a heavily censored version of “Goodfellas” on a basic cable movie channel in the same time slot.

Even the World Series attracts smaller audiences than the average “Thursday Night Football” broadcast, the dregs of the National Football League’s weekly schedule. In 1975, the World Series had an average of 36 million viewers per game; in 2021, it barely attracted 12 million per game.

Casual observers may assume that despite this lack of popularity, baseball is still somehow insanely valuable. This is an illusion. Major League Baseball generated around $11 billion in revenue in 2019, but this figure does not accurately reflect the demand for its product. The astronomical salaries that continue to be enjoyed by the sport’s stars (if that is the mot juste) are a result not of the game’s nonexistent popularity but of the economics of cable television providers, who bundle regional sports networks alongside dozens of other channels so that anyone with cable TV is buying baseball whether he likes it or not.

Mike Trout’s $426 million contract is effectively being paid by millions of grandparents who just want to tune in to Anderson Cooper or “Antiques Roadshow.” As that audience dies off and younger generations of “cord cutters” take their place, baseball’s revenue will plummet.

Culturally, too, the game is increasingly irrelevant. The average age of a person watching a baseball game on television is 57, and one shudders to think what the comparable figure is for radio broadcasts. Typical American 10-year-olds are as likely to recognize Jorge Soler, who was named the most valuable player of last year’s World Series, as they are their local congressional representative. College athletes drafted by M.L.B. and N.F.L. teams choose the latter without hesitation.

In some parts of the country, participation in Little League has decreased by nearly 50 percent in the past decade and a half. When my wife and I signed up our 5- and 6-year-old daughters for T-ball a few weeks ago, we did so partly out of a grim sense of obligation. We might have been Irish parents enrolling our children in step dancing classes: This is your heritage and you are going to learn to appreciate it!

So much for the unignorable facts of baseball’s decline. What is to be done?

It is worth being honest upfront about what nationalizing baseball would entail. While I like to think that the Biden administration could seize all 30 teams and dissolve the league by executive fiat, citing language buried somewhere in the text of the Patriot Act, it is more realistic to assume that Congress would have to be involved. Legislation would authorize purchasing the teams at their current (and absurdly inflated) market valuation. Players, coaches and other staff members would become federal employees. The general manager would be appointed by the governor of the state in which the team plays its home games; manager would be a statewide office for which citizens vote every six years. There would be no term limits.

Salaries would be lower, perhaps drastically so, but so would ticket prices. And watching games on television or via online streaming would be much simpler, as broadcasts would be carried exclusively by C-SPAN.

Revenues, though diminished, would be more fairly distributed. I imagine gate receipts and merchandise sales being block-granted to the local authorities in the cities in which teams play, shoring up the coffers of many an ailing municipality. Public funding of stadiums would continue, but instead of being a cynical cash grab by penurious owners, it would be a noble undertaking, accepted by the indifferent citizenry as one of those worthwhile cultural ventures like the Smithsonian Institution that governments are compelled to support.

Do not confuse my intentions. I would gladly see Justin Verlander — once a star pitcher for my Detroit Tigers before being lured away by the Houston Astros — make $25 million a year for playing a boys’ game, just as I would happily pay Simone Young, our greatest living conductor, three times that amount for a single yearly engagement at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. But the world’s classical musicians long ago realized that the lifestyle of figures like the conductor Herbert von Karajan, with his yachts and custom Porsches, was a product of a vanished age in which the aspirational middle classes felt that buying classical recordings was a duty; so too must baseball players accept that nine-figure contracts are a vestige of an older and nobler civilization.

We need to stop pretending that baseball has a broad-based enthusiastic following and begin to see the game for what it is: the sports equivalent of collecting 78 r.p.m. records. Baseball is America’s game only in the sense that jazz is America’s music or that Henry James is America’s literature. It is time that we acknowledged this truth by affording baseball the same approbation we reserve for those other neglected cultural treasures.

It might be a hard sell for some fans, but ultimately a world in which the game not only continues but also does so free of commercial pressures would be a merrier one. Among other things, the league could abandon its doomed attempts to attract more viewers by mucking with the rules for extra innings and introducing impure practices like pitch clocks, signal transmitters for catchers and the universal designated hitter. A strict salary cap could be imposed to help ensure competitive parity among teams.

And who knows? Just as tourists who would never think of themselves as interested in art visit the National Gallery or the Metropolitan Museum because doing so seems suitably highbrow, perhaps one day they might go to baseball games out of some inchoate sense that it will be educational and enriching.

Lest there be any doubts, I should make it clear that I stand to gain nothing should my scheme be taken up by the relevant authorities. I argue from a disinterested position of love, in sober recognition of baseball’s undeniable obsolescence.

Originally Posted by dio (Post 2213768)

how can it be dying when these teams are paying their players $$$$$$$ this much

Originally Posted by AndrewJerome (Post 2214287)

Maniac_73 do you have similar charts for NBA, NFL, NHL?

Not sure what the answer is for shortening games. But I’m also not sure why a 3 hour game is terrible and too long but something like 2 1/2 hours is perfect and would fix everything. Is the extra half hour really a deal breaker? Personally, when I pay to go to a game I prefer it to be 3 hours. Gives me more time to relax etc. I guess I’m getting old

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry (Post 2212866)

Many great points made already....in my view MLB is killing itself through piss poor leadership. Manfred is a disgrace to the game in so many ways.

The axing of minor league teams to save a few bucks in the short term was an awful decision for the long term health of the game...minor league are where you see families and regular people, as opposed to many major league stadium where casual fans and families are increasingly priced out (I'm looking at you, Yankee Stadium!)

Originally Posted by obcbobd (Post 2214301)

The problem is the extra 30-60 minutes is commercials, often the same car/bank/insurance/beer commercial I saw two innings ago, a batter stepping out of the box and adjusting his batting gloves or a pitcher taking a stroll around the mound. If the extra time were more baseball action it would be ok.

Originally Posted by Snapolit1 (Post 2214431)

Baseball is the greatest.

https://twitter.com/TheAthleticMLB/s...94863165960194

Originally Posted by Snapolit1 (Post 2214431)

Baseball is the greatest.

https://twitter.com/TheAthleticMLB/s...94863165960194

Originally Posted by D. Bergin (Post 2214950)

I was posting in another baseball related thread here and started to think about what I really missed about the game...and it's not pace of play related...it's actually the opposite of that.

I miss having a Rickey Henderson type around. I mean, I miss the Willie Wilson's, Omar Moreno's, Vince Coleman's and Tim Raines too, but Rickey was just another level of entertainment.

Rickey, when he wasn't going through his "I'm bored with the game, or my environment, or my teammates" stretches, was wondrous to watch.

A total disruptor. I remember the first few years of his stretch with the Yankees, and if he came up to bat at the beginning of an inning, he could command that entire inning from beginning to end.

Would he hit a homer? Would he work a 12 pitch walk and turn it into a triple (and he worked a lot of walks)? Would he completely take the pitcher out of their game, daring him to pick him off? Would he get picked off, and beat the throw to 2nd base anyways? Would the catcher be so flustered, he'd throw the ball into center field trying to get Rickey out?

A 6 minute Rickey Henderson at bat, with him playing psychological games with the pitcher, getting in and out of the box, and then daring the pitcher/catcher on the base paths, dragging out the at-bats of the guys hitting behind him in the line-up, was far more exciting then any 1-2-3 quick inning.

Edge of your seat stuff. If there's a talent around today, who could do that on a regular basis...we'd never know it.

Originally Posted by D. Bergin (Post 2214937)

I think more people watch parts of games and clips of games then ever before. they just don't have the time or patience to sit through entire games anymore (unless they are making a day of it going to the ballpark/arena)......in most sports I think, not just baseball.

Originally Posted by boysblue (Post 2214405)

(Was) watching the Yankees - Blue Jays game tonight. The camera person and the announcers spent alot of time in the last inning viewing and discussing some digital contraption that the Yankee's catcher has strapped to his shin pad. Prior to each pitch he stares into the dugout to get the pitch from his manager, then he punches something into this little digital device (which I assume is relayed to his pitcher), then he squats and awaits the pitch. Very slow, and IMO unnecessary. I turned the game off.

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards (Post 2215007)

If you don't allow Clayton Kershaw to try and finish what was on pace to be possibly the greatest game ever pitched with only 80 pitches thrown through 7 innings, maybe baseball deserves to die...

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards (Post 2215007)

If you don't allow Clayton Kershaw to try and finish what was on pace to be possibly the greatest game ever pitched with only 80 pitches thrown through 7 innings, maybe baseball deserves to die...

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards (Post 2215007)

If you don't allow Clayton Kershaw to try and finish what was on pace to be possibly the greatest game ever pitched with only 80 pitches thrown through 7 innings, maybe baseball deserves to die...

Originally Posted by Steve D (Post 2215018)

I Completely agree.

The reason I have always loved watching pitchers like Nolan Ryan, Steve Carlton, Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw.......... is that every time they took the mound, they had a chance to make History!; to elevate that particular game to immortality, instead of it being just another game to slog through.

Managers/Bean Counters have taken excitement, the chance to see something truly special, away from everyone; They've made every game basically the same; unmemorable; just another boring page in the book of a season.

Steve

Originally Posted by D. Bergin (Post 2214950)

I was posting in another baseball related thread here and started to think about what I really missed about the game...and it's not pace of play related...it's actually the opposite of that.

I miss having a Rickey Henderson type around. I mean, I miss the Willie Wilson's, Omar Moreno's, Vince Coleman's and Tim Raines too, but Rickey was just another level of entertainment.

Rickey, when he wasn't going through his "I'm bored with the game, or my environment, or my teammates" stretches, was wondrous to watch.

A total disruptor. I remember the first few years of his stretch with the Yankees, and if he came up to bat at the beginning of an inning, he could command that entire inning from beginning to end.

Would he hit a homer? Would he work a 12 pitch walk and turn it into a triple (and he worked a lot of walks)? Would he completely take the pitcher out of their game, daring him to pick him off? Would he get picked off, and beat the throw to 2nd base anyways? Would the catcher be so flustered, he'd throw the ball into center field trying to get Rickey out?

A 6 minute Rickey Henderson at bat, with him playing psychological games with the pitcher, getting in and out of the box, and then daring the pitcher/catcher on the base paths, dragging out the at-bats of the guys hitting behind him in the line-up, was far more exciting then any 1-2-3 quick inning.

Edge of your seat stuff. If there's a talent around today, who could do that on a regular basis...we'd never know it.

Originally Posted by Steve D (Post 2215018)

I Completely agree.

The reason I have always loved watching pitchers like Nolan Ryan, Steve Carlton, Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw.......... is that every time they took the mound, they had a chance to make History!; to elevate that particular game to immortality, instead of it being just another game to slog through.

Managers/Bean Counters have taken excitement, the chance to see something truly special, away from everyone; They've made every game basically the same; unmemorable; just another boring page in the book of a season.

Steve

Originally Posted by D. Bergin (Post 2214950)

I was posting in another baseball related thread here and started to think about what I really missed about the game...and it's not pace of play related...it's actually the opposite of that.

I miss having a Rickey Henderson type around. I mean, I miss the Willie Wilson's, Omar Moreno's, Vince Coleman's and Tim Raines too, but Rickey was just another level of entertainment.

Rickey, when he wasn't going through his "I'm bored with the game, or my environment, or my teammates" stretches, was wondrous to watch.

A total disruptor. I remember the first few years of his stretch with the Yankees, and if he came up to bat at the beginning of an inning, he could command that entire inning from beginning to end.

Would he hit a homer? Would he work a 12 pitch walk and turn it into a triple (and he worked a lot of walks)? Would he completely take the pitcher out of their game, daring him to pick him off? Would he get picked off, and beat the throw to 2nd base anyways? Would the catcher be so flustered, he'd throw the ball into center field trying to get Rickey out?

A 6 minute Rickey Henderson at bat, with him playing psychological games with the pitcher, getting in and out of the box, and then daring the pitcher/catcher on the base paths, dragging out the at-bats of the guys hitting behind him in the line-up, was far more exciting then any 1-2-3 quick inning.

Edge of your seat stuff. If there's a talent around today, who could do that on a regular basis...we'd never know it.

Originally Posted by D. Bergin (Post 2214950)

I was posting in another baseball related thread here and started to think about what I really missed about the game...and it's not pace of play related...it's actually the opposite of that.

I miss having a Rickey Henderson type around. I mean, I miss the Willie Wilson's, Omar Moreno's, Vince Coleman's and Tim Raines too, but Rickey was just another level of entertainment.

Rickey, when he wasn't going through his "I'm bored with the game, or my environment, or my teammates" stretches, was wondrous to watch.

A total disruptor. I remember the first few years of his stretch with the Yankees, and if he came up to bat at the beginning of an inning, he could command that entire inning from beginning to end.

Would he hit a homer? Would he work a 12 pitch walk and turn it into a triple (and he worked a lot of walks)? Would he completely take the pitcher out of their game, daring him to pick him off? Would he get picked off, and beat the throw to 2nd base anyways? Would the catcher be so flustered, he'd throw the ball into center field trying to get Rickey out?

A 6 minute Rickey Henderson at bat, with him playing psychological games with the pitcher, getting in and out of the box, and then daring the pitcher/catcher on the base paths, dragging out the at-bats of the guys hitting behind him in the line-up, was far more exciting then any 1-2-3 quick inning.

Edge of your seat stuff. If there's a talent around today, who could do that on a regular basis...we'd never know it.

Originally Posted by maniac_73 (Post 2215096)

Pulling Kershaw in the middle of a perfect game is another way that baseball isn’t doing itself any favours. Ridiculous


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by sreader3 (Post 2215156)

Yes, this was terrible. In part I blame Kershaw for not insisting that he be left in. Only 80 pitches through seven innings and 23 perfect games in baseball history!

Originally Posted by jingram058 (Post 2215254)

Now that all of the fun has been sucked completely out of it, "the game" is nothing but money. I'm done. I should have been done with the strike of '94, as so, so many others were. Dying? It's dead! All that's left is a corporation.

Originally Posted by Hankphenom (Post 2215711)

I'm still waiting for someone to prove to me that the old system, whereby pitchers were expected to finish their games unless they were really getting knocked around, produced worse results than bringing in relievers after low pitch counts compared to the old days. I don't understand how anybody can look at the records of hundreds of old-time pitchers, and not just the special ones, and not at least question the modern strategy. Were the old-timers actually worn out in the later innings and costing their teams games before the light bulb went off in some manager's head with the idea of replacing them before that happened, or did good pitchers more frequently get into grooves whereby they were throwing just as well in the eighth, ninth, and sometimes eleventh, twelfth, or even fifteenth or sixteenth innings! I Want to see SABR-type analysis of the comparison between yesteryear and today. Which was actually more effective?

Originally Posted by jingram058 (Post 2215205)

Total prima Donna BS. Tell me again how great baseball is. Rooting for this metrics-driven, corporate, robotic MLB these days is like rooting for Bernie Madoff, denying he did anything wrong, even admiring all his accomplishments. Then he got caught.