Baseball Is Dying

[jingram058]

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.

[Snapolit1]

Baseball has been “dying” forever. With all respect to The NY Times, give me a break.

https://www.si.com/.amp/mlb/2019/08/...-dying-history

[Orioles1954]

The Baltimore Orioles still have thousands of tickets left for opening day. When a fan has to go into one of the most dangerous cities in the country with a franchise committed to losing over 100 games a year then why bother?

[JollyElm]

To me, baseball began dying the day umpires started systematically throwing each and every pitched ball out of play that had the frickin' audacity of touching the ground. Prima donna BS!!!!

[mightymickof56]

Sabermetrics probably hasn’t helped the game either. Seems like bunting is largely extinct and steals seem also to be in decline. Is modern baseball a two outcome sport? Either a homer or a strikeout. I don’t know where baseball ranks among modern sports but I prefer soccer and basketball to modern baseball and have swtiched from collecting modern baseball cards to dead ball era stuff. Prefer the history and allure of the old timers to any modern stars. Trout Shohei etc are all great but none hold a candle to babe ruth.

[Mike D.]

'BASEBALL IS DYING': A 100-YEAR HISTORY OF DOOMSDAY PROCLAMATIONS

[Rich Klein]

The real issue is lack of accessibility to average people.

If you have cable (I know many people have switched to streaming but cable is still the major factor) and my situation is not unique

We are still on Frontier and frankly if a family friend of my wife's was not able to put us on top of any customer service needs. we'd be gone so fast it would like as Quick Draw McGraw was in slow motion.

1) Fox Sports Sold Fox Southwest to Sinclair who renamed it Bally's. Now when the network was Fox many carriers did not want to upset Fox in any way. Sinclair asked the carriers for a lot more money and Frontier said no way. This affects me from watching almost any local DFW sport

2) This one I get a bit more on a business level. on July 1, 2020 during the pandemic and before baseball announced they would have a truncated 2020 season the MLB Network was gone. Now this one I get on the business level since there was no guarantee baseball would even be played in 2020. It's not come back to Frontier since then

3) Not related to Frontier but one reason I was happy to have a Sirius/XM sub was the baseball package was part of what I paid. Last year if we wanted to have baseball on Sirius/XM there was an extra charge.

4) I just read some Sunday games are going tp be streamed and here is an article with more details

https://www.engadget.com/mlb-latest-...215545375.html

5) One key reason the NFL is even bigger than ever is they have not forsaken the free TV (available on Local stations) broadcasts. Being a baseball fan is getting to be well nigh impossible in today's world and you want to make it easier to see games, not harder.

Regards
Rich

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

5) One key reason the NFL is even bigger than ever is they have not forsaken the free TV (available on Local stations) broadcasts. Being a baseball fan is getting to be well nigh impossible in today's world and you want to make it easier to see games, not harder.

Regards
Rich

This.

Much as I hate the NFL, with its National Anthem snubs, penalty flags on almost every play, and non-flags when it's obvious there should've been a penalty called..... at least I am able to view games.

I generally have to wait until deep in the playoffs or World Series before I can watch a baseball game on TV.

[CurtisFlood]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

The real issue is lack of accessibility to average people.

If you have cable (I know many people have switched to streaming but cable is still the major factor) and my situation is not unique

We are still on Frontier and frankly if a family friend of my wife's was not able to put us on top of any customer service needs. we'd be gone so fast it would like as Quick Draw McGraw was in slow motion.

1) Fox Sports Sold Fox Southwest to Sinclair who renamed it Bally's. Now when the network was Fox many carriers did not want to upset Fox in any way. Sinclair asked the carriers for a lot more money and Frontier said no way. This affects me from watching almost any local DFW sport

2) This one I get a bit more on a business level. on July 1, 2020 during the pandemic and before baseball announced they would have a truncated 2020 season the MLB Network was gone. Now this one I get on the business level since there was no guarantee baseball would even be played in 2020. It's not come back to Frontier since then

3) Not related to Frontier but one reason I was happy to have a Sirius/XM sub was the baseball package was part of what I paid. Last year if we wanted to have baseball on Sirius/XM there was an extra charge.

4) I just read some Sunday games are going tp be streamed and here is an article with more details

https://www.engadget.com/mlb-latest-...215545375.html

5) One key reason the NFL is even bigger than ever is they have not forsaken the free TV (available on Local stations) broadcasts. Being a baseball fan is getting to be well nigh impossible in today's world and you want to make it easier to see games, not harder.

Regards
Rich

You are right Rich. They made it tough to figure out where the playoff games were being shown years ago, and change it around from one cable channel to another. I dislike football and basketball with a purple passion and won't waste any of my time watching those sports no matter how easy they are to find.

[Touch'EmAll]

"... What is to be done." Yes, Little League Baseball is hurt'in. Somehow we need to get kids involved in Little League - that's a good starting point.

Kids today have much more at their disposal than when we were kids - primarily Video games. We didn't have video games to the extent we do now back in the 70's & 80's.

My son is a Freshman in high school. He has a friend who has scholastic talent, but got C's and D's in school this past semester ... because he overloaded on video games. Sad, very sad. Now this kids college future is in jeopardy already. Is it worth it, is it worth all the time playing video games?

Just look around the neighborhoods - how many kids are out riding their bikes, playing Hide 'n Seek, Playing touch football, playing whiffle ball in the street ? Not many.

[brianp-beme]

At least a couple of the new Covid inspired rules thankfully are no longer with us...the seven-inning doubleheaders, and that ghastly softball-ish rule where the offense was gifted a ghost runner on second base in extra innings.

Brian

[Rich Klein]

Sorry but we'll have the ghost runner in 2022

https://www.bleedcubbieblue.com/2022...s-ghost-runner

Rich

[BobC]

Video games, computers, cell phones, lack of kids being involved in sports, banks accepting wages from both spouses for mortgages, the cost of packs of baseball cards (if kids can even find packs for sale), the cost of a ticket to see a ball game, and on and on, have all contributed to the drop in the popularity of baseball among the younger generations. The defining term today is "soccer moms" not "baseball moms". The baby boomer generation marked the end of an era and way of life and thinking in this country. Baseball popularity is just one of the victims. It will never completely die, just as things like bowling, softball, and pool halls will never completely die, and still exist today, just not even close to the levels of popularity they once had.

MLB is too big a business, with currently too much money behind it, to just go away overnight. But in the coming decades they may be forced to make more and more cutbacks and changes to stem the drops in interest and popularity that are appearing on the horizon. Baseball popularity and support seems to be stronger than ever in the Latin and Caribbean countries/islands though. For example, I'll bet you can name a lot more Dominican players in MLB than you can in either the NFL or NBA.

Baseball is good for now. The owners and players have to stop being so greedy and become ambassadors of the game to the youth of America again. Babe Ruth was known for his interacting with fans and signing autographs for free whenever asked, especially for kids. Today's players seem to be worried a lot more about how much they're getting paid for the next singing they'll attend.

Heck, even the Black Sox scandal is relevant. The MLB owners realized that the public seeing the ugly side of baseball, and the means to which ballplayers and/or others might go to make money, revealed to many fans that baseball was really just a business and a way to make money off of them. But fans themselves don't look at their favorite teams and sports as businesses. They often view them through rose colored glasses and have a love and loyalty for the game itself, not the often unfeeling and disloyal business behind it all. People aren't entirely stupid (at least not all of them) and do understand there are for profit businesses behind all professional sports. But the fans still like to believe in the facade of baseball being s true sport played solely for the love of the game and support and loyalty of the fans more than anything else. As professional sports become more and more about the money and the business, the facade is slowly chipped away and fans become more disillusioned and lose interest. How many times have I heard our own fearless leader Leon (Hi Leon!) say how he quit watching baseball after the MLB strike in 1994. That strike represents how the greed and business side of baseball overshadowed the game itself, and exemplifies how a one-time fan can be exposed to too much of that, foreving changing the way they think and feel about the game they used to unconditionally love. Greed, power, fame, and control are powerful factors and forces that can corrupt even the strongest and most intelligent of minds. We'll see if the minds involved in MLB can effectively fight off those factors and forces, and not entirely succumb to them.

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Baseball has been “dying” forever. With all respect to The NY Times, give me a break.

https://www.si.com/.amp/mlb/2019/08/...-dying-history

The writer's facts are unquestionable, given a break or otherwise. Yankees-Red Sox is not sold out, either. Baseball is in serious decline. You cannot deny it away.

[Santo10Fan]

Originally Posted by jingram058

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.

Go to Wrigley in July is what I would tell the author.

[Eric72]

For a sport that’s supposedly dying, it sure was lively this evening; at least from where I sit.

While getting some work done on the computer tonight, I listened to the Phillies game on the radio. For the majority of the game, it was a one-sided affair. Three first-inning runs and a lone marker for insurance had the Mets comfortably in control. However, the Phils broke out with five runs in the eighth and made the game suddenly theirs for the taking. In the ninth, they shut down New York with a 1-2-3 inning for a win which seemed improbable moments before.

I’ve always loved baseball. Tonight was the type of game that keeps me coming back for more.

[Snapolit1]

Baseball is the greatest.

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

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Baseball is the greatest.

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

HaHa! Yeah, that was great!

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Baseball is the greatest.

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

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.

[D. Bergin]

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.

[BobbyStrawberry]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

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.

Fernando Tatis Jr! He is currently injured, unfortunately.

[Kzoo]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

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.

Great post and description of him at his prime! Rickey was my favorite player growing up. Nobody steals bases anymore, unfortunately.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

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.

You need to check out the new Indians (sorry, I can't go with this Guardians crap) rookie OF Steven Kwan then. Through his first five games of his major league career he's batting .526. He went through 116 pitches to start the season before finally being credited with a swing and miss, which is actually BS. The pitch they called a swing and a miss on him was actually a foul tip the catcher was able to hang on to. Didn't know that officially counted as a swing and a miss, but to me, his streak should still be going as he did get a piece of the ball, period! And he had safely reached base 15 times in just his first four games, doing something that hasn't been done by any other MLB player since 1901. And despite going 0-4 in today's game against the Reds, he still managed a bases loaded walk and RBI to give them their initial lead of the game.

You've all heard of the story of a football player prone to fumbling who was then made to carrying a football around with him 24/7 to learn to not drop or lose it, right? Well, this Kwan kid is apparently so obsessed with getting on base that he carries an actual base around with him everywhere, even to the extent of apparently buckling it up in the seat next to him on planes. Sounds like this 24-year-old rookie is just the kind of new, exciting, unique, and interesting player MLB needs to keep the fans. I hope he can keep the performance going. Obviously hitting over .500 for a season will never happen, and I suspect MLB pitchers will eventually find his Achilles heel and pass it around the league. But can you imagine the excitement this kid would generate if he can keep going at anywhere near this level for any kind of prolonged period of time, and possibly be a legit contender for being a .400 average hitter, and as a rookie no less? Baseball would go insane.

Now of course the contrarians among you will want to jump in and immediately say how the shortened Spring training this year has pitchers at a disadvantage so far, to which I also call BS. These are grown men and MLB level pitchers; they should have been keeping themselves in pitching shape all along. And this goes both ways as well. Batters have also gone through a shortened Spring training in preparing to go up against MLB level pitching. And in this rookie's case, he's never consistently faced MLB level pitching before, so if anyone would be adversely affected by a shortened Spring training, you would expect it to be someone like this Kwan kid.

And by the way, this Kwan kid has done this all on the road. The Tribe's home opener isn't till this Friday. And if he follows the typical player mode of usually performing better at home........well, I'll just leave it at that.

[profholt82]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

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.

Oh, man, did I love watching Rickey Henderson as a kid. It was a treat whenever I got to see him play too because I grew up in NW Ohio where the Tigers were the only games on regularly. I never missed it when they played the A's though. And caught as many espn highlights as I could. I collected his cards and had a poster on my bedroom wall where he was holding a stolen base, and was wearing neon green batting gloves. That said, as much as I wanted to emulate him and work the bases in my little league days, I just didn't have the speed. Haha

[Orioles1954]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

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.

I think you're right on with that point. In my younger years I would watch every Orioles game from first to last pitch. Now I just watch highlights. Maybe consuming baseball as a whole 9-inning game is dying but catching up on your favorite team or player isn't.

[Eric72]

The quote below is from a post I made in April. My passion for the game of baseball is as strong as ever. My beloved Phillies just clinched their first playoff berth since 2011. They went into the game with a Magic Number of 1 and took care of business. They got a home run on the very first pitch of the game. As it turned out, that was all they would need, as they shut out the Astros, 3-0.

Can the Phillies win the World Series? Perhaps not; however, baseball is often all about the thrill of possibility. They're in the playoffs. Starting Friday, a championship will be a mere thirteen wins away. It's October and anything is possible.

Man, I love this game.

Originally Posted by Eric72

For a sport that’s supposedly dying, it sure was lively this evening; at least from where I sit.

While getting some work done on the computer tonight, I listened to the Phillies game on the radio. For the majority of the game, it was a one-sided affair. Three first-inning runs and a lone marker for insurance had the Mets comfortably in control. However, the Phils broke out with five runs in the eighth and made the game suddenly theirs for the taking. In the ninth, they shut down New York with a 1-2-3 inning for a win which seemed improbable moments before.

I’ve always loved baseball. Tonight was the type of game that keeps me coming back for more.

[Orioles1954]

Originally Posted by Eric72

The quote below is from a post I made in April. My passion for the game of baseball is as strong as ever. My beloved Phillies just clinched their first playoff berth since 2011. They went into the game with a Magic Number of 1 and took care of business. They got a home run on the very first pitch of the game. As it turned out, that was all they would need, as they shut out the Astros, 3-0.

Can the Phillies win the World Series? Perhaps not; however, baseball is often all about the thrill of possibility. They're in the playoffs. Starting Friday, a championship will be a mere thirteen wins away. It's October and anything is possible.

Man, I love this game.

My 2022 Baltimore Orioles also pulled off a miracle of sorts. They became the first team since 1900 to lose 110+ games the previous season then to have a winning season the next and were actually in playoff contention until last week. With a young core of talent, the #2 farm system in baseball and only $20 million committed to payroll next year, the future is so so so bright in Charm City!

[BCauley]

Originally Posted by Orioles1954

My 2022 Baltimore Orioles also pulled off a miracle of sorts. They became the first team since 1900 to lose 110+ games the previous season then to have a winning season the next and were actually in playoff contention until last week. With a young core of talent, the #2 farm system in baseball and only $20 million committed to payroll next year, the future is so so so bright in Charm City!

As my wife is an Orioles fan (I'm a Red Sox fan), we have the majority of Orioles games on the television each year. I will say that this year's Orioles team has been, by far, one of the most fun teams I've ever watched play.

[scotgreb]

My 2022 perspective on the overall health of baseball . . .

The LLWS was awesome (as usual) -- regionally expanded bracket -- great viewership and attendance.

I attended several high school playoff games. Attendance was impressive. Full venues everywhere I went.

Attended my first CWS regional. Expanded seating at the venue essentially sold out every day. Tickets were bringing premiums.

Attendance weak at my local AA affiliate (only attended one game this year) but late season.

Saw my beloved Bucs a few times at PNC. Experience was as great as ever and attendance was surprisingly strong given their late season standing.

[maniac_73]

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

[boysblue]

That device actually speeds up the game.

---------------------------------

Can you explain please?

[jamest206]

Eventually we will all be old, and retirement will be spent watching a lot of baseball on television. The options are much better now, and boy would my grandma from Depression era Arkansas be jealous of the options now.

Salaries for baseball, an entire roster is how much a year? Granted there is the minor league system, but you have stadiums half to larger than NFL stadiums. Tickets for Rockies games are pretty cheap, the team always sucks or is sub par, but that stadium, built as a monument to the game when I was a kid never gets old going to. No bad seats, super cheap tickets, like any stadium. You only need X amount sellouts and concessions to match an NFL team who gets 8? Home games plus preseason.

It isn’t going anywhere, and looking forward to what the new era looks like next year!

[richtree]

I think baseball will hit the wall at some point.

There are so many things that baseball players and the culture of baseball do, that really are not necessary.

I always thought it would fall apart, but it was an opportunity to revive in a newer way that can last into the future.

Some thoughts I had after playing baseball in college and not really watching too often are:

1. Make all stadiums have retractable domes
2. Standardize the work week 5 games a week (all teams play on the same days) same amount of games in a month, etc... (this makes new records too)
3. Make fantasy sports friendly (the above will help it)
4. This one I am debating --- make a speed clock that if the teams are tied after 9 innings, the "faster" team wins
5. Let the teams use technology for signs (pitches, stealing, etc.) like a Bluetooth ear piece so there isn't all this looking at the 3rd base coach or stealing of signs
6. Shorten the season but allow ALL THE TEAMS INTO A GIANT PLAYOFF -- make the division winners get multiple byes, and much harder for the last team to get in, but all those games in August of 4place teams vs. 5th place teams mean nothing...



idk.....but me, personally, all the stats mean nothing --- lets have fun and make a new beginning......

*also that makes the historical greats more mythical

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by richtree

5. Let the teams use technology for signs (pitches, stealing, etc.) like a Bluetooth ear piece so there isn't all this looking at the 3rd base coach or stealing of signs

They already have this for pitchers.

[1952boyntoncollector]

Originally Posted by richtree

I think baseball will hit the wall at some point.

There are so many things that baseball players and the culture of baseball do, that really are not necessary.

I always thought it would fall apart, but it was an opportunity to revive in a newer way that can last into the future.

Some thoughts I had after playing baseball in college and not really watching too often are:

1. Make all stadiums have retractable domes
2. Standardize the work week 5 games a week (all teams play on the same days) same amount of games in a month, etc... (this makes new records too)
3. Make fantasy sports friendly (the above will help it)
4. This one I am debating --- make a speed clock that if the teams are tied after 9 innings, the "faster" team wins
5. Let the teams use technology for signs (pitches, stealing, etc.) like a Bluetooth ear piece so there isn't all this looking at the 3rd base coach or stealing of signs
6. Shorten the season but allow ALL THE TEAMS INTO A GIANT PLAYOFF -- make the division winners get multiple byes, and much harder for the last team to get in, but all those games in August of 4place teams vs. 5th place teams mean nothing...



idk.....but me, personally, all the stats mean nothing --- lets have fun and make a new beginning......

*also that makes the historical greats more mythical

I always thought hitting contest to decide extra innings would be a good idea. or you get to pick your hitter and other team pitcher and whoever can hit the ball the farthest on 3 pitches.....if nobody gets a hit but one guy took a ball while the other one had 3 fouls/strikes then then the one that took at least one ball wins

could always do just a traditional home run hitting contest as well...

[sreader3]

Originally Posted by maniac_73

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

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!

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by sreader3

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!

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.

[JustinD]

Going back to previous comments, I honestly do not find the length of games a deterrent to future fandom.

I admit that the length has almost completely stopped my ballpark trips and it is unlikely that I will return due to the ease of watching from home, better views, the fanbase after the 6th inning with consumption, as well as a bathroom line that satisfies my old man prostate needs, lol.

The one change I would like to see is some (what I would consider easier changes to eliminate wasted time) limits to pitching changes and stepping out of the box to dink around with swings. Abuse of leaving the box should equal a strike added to the count.

[jingram058]

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.

[sreader3]

Originally Posted by jingram058

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.

"Metrics-driven": I love it. I am a stats geek.

"Corporate": Not sure what this means. Most private enterprise these days involves corporations. Hell, I was a one-person corporation for 18 years while I was practicing law. Perhaps you would prefer that baseball be run by the federal government? They do such a great job! I can only imagine the new regs.

"Robotic": Again, not sure what this means. Last time I checked, there were no robots on the MLB diamond. Just flesh and bones fielders, batters, umps and coaches with all of their human foibles.

"Bernie Madoff": I never rooted for Bernie Madoff. The guy made-up stats and defrauded his clients of hundreds of millions of dollars. I haven't seen that in baseball. In baseball, you can watch the game and track the stats. No fraud so far as I can tell. Just big business, big contracts, big money--which you perhaps don't like.

Baseball is rather like our country. Fundamentally sound and flawed; worth preserving and improving.

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by sreader3

"Metrics-driven": I love it. I am a stats geek.

"Corporate": Not sure what this means. Most private enterprise these days involves corporations. Hell, I was a one-person corporation for 18 years while I was practicing law. Perhaps you would prefer that baseball be run by the federal government? They do such a great job! I can only imagine the new regs.

"Robotic": Again, not sure what this means. Last time I checked, there were no robots on the MLB diamond. Just flesh and bones fielders, batters, umps and coaches with all of their human foibles.

"Bernie Madoff": I never rooted for Bernie Madoff. The guy made-up stats and defrauded his clients of hundreds of millions of dollars. I haven't seen that in baseball. In baseball, you can watch the game and track the stats. No fraud so far as I can tell. Just big business, big contracts, big money--which you perhaps don't like.

Baseball is rather like our country. Fundamentally sound and flawed; worth preserving and improving.

For all your puffed-up enthusiasm, baseball is still undeniably dying.

[SteveMitchell]

Although (due to political inflammation before the start of the 2020 season by MLB and the local 9) I have not watched MLB in 2+ years, I read this article as parody. "The Biden administration could seize all 30 teams and dissolve the league by executive fiat ... more realistic to assume that Congress would have to be involved ... " Seriously? Well, in this era of COVID and "official" responses thereto (not to mention the amazing progress shown in DC since January 20, 2021), I guess author Matthew Walther and the NYT are on solid sand.