Baseball Is Dying

[npa589]

Baseball is not dying. Look, I'm in my 30s, and I am not going to extrapolate my own interest into widespread interest, but what I do know is that Basketball was "dying" in the 80s and again in the early 2000s. Football was dying from the 60s to the 90s. It's cultural, and society is cyclical with its interests.

When Amazon, Apple, Google, and Meta decide that the best value is promoting baseball - guess what is gonna magically be a part of the interest bubble for young-ins. Yes, baseball.

I will also say that I am in constant amazement at how incompetent the MLB is at running the MLB. It's not as simple to say Manfred or Selig were incompetent and leave it at that. We could elect 10 people on this forum to do a laughably better job at casting and implementing a vision for MLB. They often seem to follow the Gary Bettman playbook for how to run a league.

Let me provide one example of idiocy related to something that should be obvious. Any MLB Extra Innings users out there? Well, for years, No Spoilers would be a setting that was welcomed and useful. Now when you click that as you are watching the game - their "detailed" stream basically lays out what happens. 1. You can see how long each half an inning is. 2. If you dare to click the scoreboard, or I think just scroll down, you'll see if there is a bottom of the ninth or not.

Yet, despite their best efforts, baseball will still survive and in my opinion surpass both basketball and football at some point in the next 20 years. It's just historically been proven over and over that sports go in cycles of popularity.

Lastly - baseball "dying" in the USA is being ignorant to the fact that it's more widely played than American football is internationally. It's not dying.

[doug.goodman]

So what if it's dying, by whatever way of thinking that you care to listen to.

We're in a country of 300+ million, as long as 18 of them are willing to get together for a game, I'll be happy to listen (because I live in LA and my team hates it's fans so watching is nearly impossible).

Doug

[Brian Van Horn]

I listened to or watched 155 Pirates games last year. I attended none. Three strikes and you're out. Yes, I'm aware the latest disruption in the owners/players relationship was a lockout. I am talking previously. There have been strikes by the players and the cheapskate, Bob Nutting, has made my distaste for a game at PNC Park even worse. Finally, the DH in the National League=done listening or watching. No effect on collecting before WWII.

[puckpaul]

Baseball needs a pitching clock and it is coming. The games will be a lot better to watch when faster. Hope that helps, it has really deteriorated the viewing experience for years.

I live in CA now, baseball at the youth level is way bigger than the east coast. Los of kids taking it seriously. Gives me hope!

But i will tell you what needs to die…the NY Times! What a biased joke of a paper masquerading as serious journalism. Stopped reading anything from them years ago.

To me, the NBA is absolutely unwatchable. Just a bunch of selfish players chucking up threes. I watch the NFL and love football, but often i watch it on DVR with the breaks fastforwarded. Takes an hour and a half to watch the 3 1/2 hr telecast.

[SyrNy1960]

They may change up rules and parts of the game here and there. Owners are greedy. I think some players make way too much money to play baseball. Overall, I freakin love baseball and get excited each year for opening day! Nothing will ever change that. Yankee/Red Sox game being canceled bummed me out big time ⚾️

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

If baseball is dying someone better quickly call Jeff Bezos, Apple and a bunch of other companies and tell them that their business people are way off the reservation.

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Major United States business entities are paying record amounts of money to broadcast games in a dying sport.

Tell me I am wrong. Show me I am wrong.

If no one is watching baseball these companies are really delusional.

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

A lot of businesses wish they were dying this hard.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybr...h=6af1accb7f63

It's sort of like people who are invested in there being more crime today than there was 50 years ago. You could show them all the FBI statistics from now till Sunday and they have already decided what the story really is.

That's one of the main problems with most pro sports today it's more about being a business instead of a sport.

[Snapolit1]

Originally Posted by Pat R

That's one of the main problems with most pro sports today it's more about being a business instead of a sport.

Baseball was always a cut throat business. Read a book about Jacob Ruppert or Branch Rickey.

I am not pointing a finger at any board member, and people are of course entitled to their views and opinions, but a large part of what's wrong with everything right now is people aren't educated with a historical perspective. If you are a student of baseball (and I hardly consider myself one), you know that the game has been a cut throat in your face business since the 1890s. Leagues crushing leagues through illegal tactics, teams burying other teams and financially destroying them, players moving for more money, management screwing over players, players cheating, etc., etc. Even what the major leagues did in raiding the Negro Leagues for talent was financially despicable.

The one refrain that makes me throw up a little every time I hear it is "things are so different today. What I was growing up players would have been happy to play for free . . . . they just loved the game." Oh please. Yeah, most of them had zero power to force anything. And people like Gehrig and Ruth who had clout held out repeatedly for more money.

I guess as I approach my 60s I need to soon adopt the obligatory old guy "everything is so much worse today than it ever was" mentality. Not there yet. I'd make a joke about maybe I'm watching the wrong TV news network but I'll leave that for another day.

[Pat R]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Baseball was always a cut throat business. Read a book about Jacob Ruppert or Branch Rickey.

I am not pointing a finger at any board member, and people are of course entitled to their views and opinions, but a large part of what's wrong with everything right now is people aren't educated with a historical perspective. If you are a student of baseball (and I hardly consider myself one), you know that the game has been a cut throat in your face business since the 1890s. Leagues crushing leagues through illegal tactics, teams burying other teams and financially destroying them, players moving for more money, management screwing over players, players cheating, etc., etc. Even what the major leagues did in raiding the Negro Leagues for talent was financially despicable.

The one refrain that makes me throw up a little every time I hear it is "things are so different today. What I was growing up players would have been happy to play for free . . . . they just loved the game." Oh please. Yeah, most of them had zero power to force anything. And people like Gehrig and Ruth who had clout held out repeatedly for more money.

I guess as I approach my 60s I need to soon adopt the obligatory old guy "everything is so much worse today than it ever was" mentality. Not there yet. I'd make a joke about maybe I'm watching the wrong TV news network but I'll leave that for another day.

It's just my opinion Steve but I'm sure that I am not the only one who feels this way. From the early 70's until the middle of 1994 if there was a baseball game on T.V. and I was home I was watching it, since that time I've watched John Smoltz play more rounds of golf than I've watched baseball games.

Same thing with Boxing I used to be a huge boxing fan until PPV ruined the sport.

My wife and I used to go to both Nascar weekends in Dover Delaware but gradually they kept raising the hotel prices until a $125 hotel room was $500-$600 a night. I actually called the chamber of commerce and complained that they were chasing the real fans away. She told me that it was because there wasn't enough rooms to support the amount of people.
She didn't have an answer when I pointed out that when we first started going there were just as many people 150,000-200,000 and that it was before all the drivers and teams had there own motor homes and used to stay in the hotels and also before several new large hotels were built next to the track. When we went we used to meet up with several friends from our area who stayed at a campsite right across from the track, many had been staying there for over 20 years. The track bought the campsite and made everyone purchase at least two tickets for all the races Friday, Saturday and Sunday in order to reserve a spot.

I don't think it was more than 5 years after I had the conversation with the woman from the chamber of commerce that attendance at the Dover race had dropped to about 20,000-25,000 at most for the cup race on Sunday.

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by Pat R

That's one of the main problems with most pro sports today it's more about being a business instead of a sport.

I agree. A purpose of the article is to disentangle the sport's profitability from its popularity.

"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.


Because baseball makes much of its money from cable, rather than ticket sales and concessions, etc. it must continue to keep games extremely long, by milking lengthy advertisements. This perpetuates its lack of popularity as most people don't want to sit through a 3 hour plus game, especially in our current ADD/instant gratification society.

If current rates of "cord cutting" continue and cable packages become less of a financial windfall, baseball may need to adjust its business model to thrive.

However, it should be noted that as of 2020, MLB estimated that it still made "40% of revenue comes from tickets, concessions and other gate-related income" according to this Jeff Passan article. As one might suspect, much of that revenue disappeared with the pandemic. So a lot depends on if things bounce back this year at the parks.

[egri]

I've observed in my age group (mid to late 20's) there isn't a whole lot of interest in baseball anymore. Out of about two dozen people in my office, me and another guy, who was from Atlanta, were the only ones who watched the World Series. I also don't buy the argument that the game is fine because Besos et al are pouring money into it. The history of the game is littered with businessmen who were successful in other endeavors but flopped when they tried to run a baseball team. Boxing used to be huge too, but I don't think I could name a more recent boxer than George Foreman, and only because of his grills. The Simpsons joked that baseball was as much fun as doing taxes, but at least when I got done with those I got a check!

[D. Bergin]

Most of the recent rules changes (and extended commercial breaks) I hate, but being forced to watch another $20 million pitcher creating a hole in the lineup and weakly wave at a fastball or muffing another bunt, or hurting himself on the base paths is not something I will ever miss in the slightest.

This is the stat line for pitchers in 2021: .103 BA, .135 on-base percentage, .141 slugging percentage and 48.0 strikeout percentage. Successful sacrifice percentage 7.1%.

If you somehow have an Ohtani and you want to voluntarily put him in the lineup, fine....but otherwise, I can't wrap my head around the idea that so many people embraced this absolutely self-defeating practice for so long.

Flame away!

[BobbyStrawberry]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Most of the recent rules changes (and extended commercial breaks) I hate, but being forced to watch another $20 million pitcher creating a hole in the lineup and weakly wave at a fastball or muffing another bunt, or hurting himself on the base paths is not something I will ever miss in the slightest.

This is the stat line for pitchers in 2021: .103 BA, .135 on-base percentage, .141 slugging percentage and 48.0 strikeout percentage. Successful sacrifice percentage 7.1%.

If you somehow have an Ohtani and you want to voluntarily put him in the lineup, fine....but otherwise, I can't wrap my head around the idea that so many people embraced this absolutely self-defeating practive for so long.

Flame away!

Totally fair point, although I will miss watching the pitchers that could actually hit a little bit, like deGrom and Greinke.

[earlywynnfan]

Originally Posted by d. Bergin

most of the recent rules changes (and extended commercial breaks) i hate, but being forced to watch another $20 million pitcher creating a hole in the lineup and weakly wave at a fastball or muffing another bunt, or hurting himself on the base paths is not something i will ever miss in the slightest.

This is the stat line for pitchers in 2021: .103 ba, .135 on-base percentage, .141 slugging percentage and 48.0 strikeout percentage. Successful sacrifice percentage 7.1%.

If you somehow have an ohtani and you want to voluntarily put him in the lineup, fine....but otherwise, i can't wrap my head around the idea that so many people embraced this absolutely self-defeating practice for so long.

Flame away!

+100

[Rhotchkiss]

Originally Posted by puckpaul

But i will tell you what needs to die…the NY Times! What a biased joke of a paper masquerading as serious journalism.

+1

Proudly,

Ryan Hotchkiss

[Snapolit1]

Worst thing about the NBA is the last 2 minutes of the game is 10 fouls and 20 foul shots and it seemingly takes 15 minutes.

Originally Posted by puckpaul

Baseball needs a pitching clock and it is coming. The games will be a lot better to watch when faster. Hope that helps, it has really deteriorated the viewing experience for years.

I live in CA now, baseball at the youth level is way bigger than the east coast. Los of kids taking it seriously. Gives me hope!

But i will tell you what needs to die…the NY Times! What a biased joke of a paper masquerading as serious journalism. Stopped reading anything from them years ago.

To me, the NBA is absolutely unwatchable. Just a bunch of selfish players chucking up threes. I watch the NFL and love football, but often i watch it on DVR with the breaks fastforwarded. Takes an hour and a half to watch the 3 1/2 hr telecast.

[butchie_t]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Worst thing about the NBA is the last 2 minutes of the game is 10 fouls and 20 foul shots and it seemingly takes 15 minutes.

The best way to watch any basketball game is the next day. Read the writeup and the box scores. No waiting whatsoever at that point.

Any basketball I watch now is College and only the playoffs. It is just not entertaining to watch any NBA games anymore. At least for me it is not.

Regards,

Butch

[BobbyStrawberry]

Originally Posted by puckpaul

But i will tell you what needs to die…the NY Times! What a biased joke of a paper masquerading as serious journalism.

Where do you get your non-masquerading serious journalism these days?

[toledo_mudhen]

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry

Where do you get your non-masquerading serious journalism these days?

For most people - it is not a single source but multiple sources with multiple opinions which help to form one's personal opinion

However - I do agree that the New York Times is a completely biased journalistic rag....

[Scocs]

My apologies if this already came up in previous threads, but I can’t take a sport seriously when one player on the Mets (Max Scherzer) makes more in one year than the combined salaries of an ENTIRE team: Orioles, A’s, Guardians, Pirates).

Baseball is dead to me.

[BobbyStrawberry]

Originally Posted by toledo_mudhen

For most people - it is not a single source but multiple sources with multiple opinions which help to form one's personal opinion

However - I do agree that the New York Times is a completely biased journalistic rag....

Hi Lonnie, yes, I do the same. I don't disagree with the general sentiment either, really.. I do find that they occasionally publish very good investigative journalism though, which I think is a good thing even if I don't agree with their editorial viewpoints.

[egri]

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry

Where do you get your non-masquerading serious journalism these days?

I've found the Wall Street Journal and BBC to be straightforward. The other outlets, I really haven't missed since I cut the cable.

[BobbyStrawberry]

Originally Posted by egri

I've found the Wall Street Journal and BBC to be straightforward. The other outlets, I really haven't missed since I cut the cable.

Thanks for the recommendations, Scott. I also have not had cable for many years, and other than some live sports, I don't miss it much.

[Yoda]

Just to add my 2 cents, just look how Tiger Wood's unexpected re-emergence in the Masters after his terrible accident has drawn such public interest and rejuvenated interest in golf, which had been suffering declining tv ratings. I cannot envision a similar scenario in baseball.
Also, the decline of minor league ball is a tragedy for the game. Triple A teams especially were really the pipeline for good players develop until they were ready for the Big Show. Although he is a special case, think of Jackie Robinson and Montreal and Mantle with Joplin.

[G1911]

It’s not dying in the sense that it’s going to disappear anytime soon, but I fail to see any reasonable data based argument that baseballs decreasing relevance and popularity is fictional. It is measurably less and less popular as time goes on while other sports increase in popularity. It hasn’t been America’s pastime for half a century now and the gap keeps increasing.

[sreader3]

I was more excited about opening day this year than in many years. And I don’t even really follow a team anymore—just players.

No, baseball is most surely not dying …

“They'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.”

Pete Ward, Tommy Davis and John Ellis passed in the last month. I suspect that those names evoke fond memories in many on this board. Baseball is not dying.

[cammb]

Baseball today sucks. I am a Boys of Summer guy.

[bbcard1]

Baseball is not dying nearly as quickly as the print media.

[dio]

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

[Leon]

Originally Posted by dio

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

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 I have said before, I quit watching, except for maybe a part of a playoff or series game, after the '94 strike.
.

[Carter08]

Originally Posted by Leon

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.
.

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.

[BobbyStrawberry]

Originally Posted by Carter08

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.

Gary, Keith and Ron are the best in the business. I don't know what they get paid but they are worth every penny, IMO.

[Touch'EmAll]

Yes, the multiple pitcher changes nowadays could be the single biggest thing that makes the game too long. Don't know how to fix it, but the downtime is not good.

[Snapolit1]

Originally Posted by dio

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

How can it be dying when the cost of buying a team goes up up and up.

[AndrewJerome]

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

[obcbobd]

Originally Posted by AndrewJerome

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

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.

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by obcbobd

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.

There are many of us who enjoy the little rituals at the plate and/or mound. Those rituals are far from new; players have been doing this for decades.

The deluge of commercials is generally unwanted by the fans, though. Most of us couldn't care less about the drek being served up by Madison Avenue...

[Hankphenom]

It's not the time, but the pacing. There is a natural rhythm to every sport. Baseball is meant to have its dramatic pauses between pitches, but not to distraction. My mother, who loved watching Nats games when the team came back and she wasn't so active anymore, would yell at the the TV. "Throw the ball!" she would holler when the pitcher paraded around the mound after a pitch, then stood there rubbing up the new ball, finally staring in endlessly for the signal, then relaxing and calling the catcher out before starting the process all over again. At that point, Mom knew all too well how short life is. Now I find myself doing the same thing.

[maniac_73]

This chart gives a pretty good explanation of why baseball is dying. I say this after trying to slub through a jays game that after 2 hours was in the 4th inning yesterday. I grew up with baseball and I love baseball. If Im having trouble sitting through a 4 hour game what chance does a kid who's been conditioned to not have an attention span and has a million other choices for entertainment?

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

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...

[GaryPassamonte]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

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...

I started a thread on the water cooler side about this. I couldn't agree more.

[Steve D]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

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...

I agree 100% with this!

Steve

[BobbyStrawberry]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

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...

I couldn't agree more. He had 13 strikeouts! I am not generally pessimistic about the future of the game, but it is truly a sad day for baseball.

[Steve D]

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

[BobbyStrawberry]

Originally Posted by Steve D

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

I couldn't have said it better myself, Steve. "Bean counters" is the perfect term!

[dealme]

Originally Posted by Steve D

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

Spot on Steve. And I happen to think that the Dodgers are among the worst when it comes to strictly following a script. I’m probably just getting old and cantankerous (at 43), but the truly special moments in the game (or maybe the opportunity to witness a truly special moment in the game) seem to be much fewer and further between these days.

Mark


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Steve D]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

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

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

Three times in Justin Verlander's last six starts, Dusty Baker pulled him with no-hitters in progress:

- Aug 23 - 6 innings, 91 pitches, 10 Ks, 0 walks. Only baserunner he allowed was on a 3rd strike-passed ball.

- Sep 16 - 5 innings, 79 pitches, 9 Ks, 1 walk.

- Oct 4 - 5 innings, 77 pitches, 10 Ks. Only baserunner allowed was on a walk leading off the 5th inning.

Also on Sep 19th, Buck Showalter pulled Max Scherzer after six innings, having thrown only 68 pitches. He had 9 K's, and was pitching a PERFECT GAME!!!!!

Steve

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by Steve D

Also on Sep 19th, Buck Showalter pulled Max Scherzer after six innings, having thrown only 68 pitches. He had 9 K's, and was pitching a PERFECT GAME!!!!!

He was also making his first start in 16 days, coming back from an injury.

[jamest206]

I will go to a game at Coors Field every day of the week vs an NBA game. The disgrace of a “National Anthem” on tv during Covid, explaining to my wife (who was a veteran as a Marine AND Army, Kosovo conflict) that we will never watch this, and the audacity of doing something like that with no in person crowd.

Met my wife three years ago. Took her to opening weekend of Rockies/Dodgers and she fell in love. Going to a game vs watching on television are two different animals. She loved being at the game, and I made sure we sat 10 rows back, dead center behind home plate. They also honor the veterans during the game. Sure, the cost is up there, but not nearly as close as sitting at the top of Mile High in January for a meaningless game. I can go on and on about how television can make something look so different in person vs football. QB’s so inaccurate, the standards are different.

Everything is dying, they say. Baseball changes with the time, and we are coming out of two years with Covid, and the cost of everything going up sky high once things opened up this year. I worked in printing during my 20’s, and that industry on big Heidelbergs is dead, along with skewed newspapers, gas powered cars (they say), and so on.

Sure, the current commissioner is a hypocrite, and not well liked. I expect the game to look a little different next year, but not too much. I recommend watching Ken Burns original Baseball documentary from time to time. It never gets old, and is a friendly reminder of the way things were, are, and will be.