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The Spectacle Blog
As someone who has contributed a number of baseball articles to TAS, I must take issue with Joseph Lawler’s assertion that “baseball is dying” because 0.7% fewer TV sets were tuned into Game 3 of the American League Championship Series between the New York Yankees and Texas Rangers than Monday Night Football.
Of course, Monday Night Football is only one night a week hence the name Monday Night Football. Chances are more viewers tuned into Game 4 between the Yankees and Rangers Tuesday night.
Critics of baseball have been speaking of its impending death for nearly 150 years. To paraphrase Mark Twain, such rumors have been greatly exaggerated. If baseball is dying then why did more than 73 million people attend MLB games during the 2010 season? If baseball is dying then how come the New York Yankees are valued at more than a billion dollars? If baseball is dying then why did Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan and his partner Chuck Greenberg have to fight Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban tooth and nail to keep him from buying the Texas Rangers? If baseball is dying then why do fans show up at Wrigley Field to watch a team that hasn’t won a World Series in over one hundred years?
Of course, there is always room for improvement. I wouldn’t mind seeing at least one day game in the World Series. There were no night games in the World Series until 1971. But for the past quarter century all Fall Classic games have been under the lights. The last day game played in the World Series took place in 1984 when the Detroit Tigers beat the San Diego Padres in Game 5 to clinch what turned out to be their last World Series title.
But don’t even think about speeding up the games. Don’t make baseball into something that it isn’t. Baseball’s modulation is unique. There is no clock. It has its own pace. Sometimes that pace is leisurely and sometimes that pace is lightning quick. If Joseph doesn’t think baseball can be fast paced then he ought to watch Roy Halladay pitch sometime.
View all comments (23) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Aaron Goldstein
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/10/21/re-baseball-is-dying-football
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JohnD| 10.21.10 @ 2:05PM
The problem with baseball, unlike pro hockey, football, and basketball, is no salary cap. With such inequities teams like Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Kansas City have no shot. They are effectively eliminated from contention beofre spring training.
Why do I want to watch the Yankees and Phillies for the umpteenth time compete in the post season? Yankees, Phillies, Braves, Giants - aren't these the same teams we see every year? Come on, MLB, what else have you got? Can we vary the script every once in a while?
Al Adab| 10.21.10 @ 2:27PM
Angels, Diamondbacks?
Jules| 10.21.10 @ 3:09PM
JohnD,
check the division winners, pennant winners and World Series winners over the last 20 years or so and you will see a greater variety of teams than you realize. As for Pittsburgh, their owner doesn't want to win - he prefers to make a profit by keeping all of his revenue sharing money
Dollface| 10.21.10 @ 7:54PM
Neither does the Royals owner.
Bruce Berger| 10.21.10 @ 2:14PM
Aaron,
I am old enough to remember when a longish game was two and a half hours and some games came in under two hours. Now a two and a half hour game is considered short.
Back in the good old days, hitters who made the Hall of Fame rarely stepped out of the batter's box after a pitch. Now career .250 hitters go through an elaborate post-pitch routine after every single pitch. It makes me want to throw something at the TV.
DMB| 10.21.10 @ 2:32PM
JohnD, thats a feature, not a bug. The salary cap has ruined the other sports in my eyes, because all teams are equal. Parity=boring. Also, your argument about Baltimore, KC, and Pittsburgh used to include Tampa Bay. Why not them any more? The fact is, even though baseball has 1/3 less playoff teams per year, and no salary cap, more different teams have made the World Series over the last 10 years than have the Super Bowl. So your "vary the script" argument is bad.
Trust me, as a Detroit Lions fan, I harbor more hope that the Tigers will win the World Series THIS YEAR, than the Lions winning any Super Bowl in my lifetime, salary cap or not.
Ryan| 10.21.10 @ 4:55PM
Actually, from the stats that I have seen (via Greg Easterbrook, I believe) - the salary cap has made very little difference in parity in the NFL - and it may have actually gone the other way.
Derek Leaberry| 10.21.10 @ 2:37PM
Thing baseball should outlaw to help the sport:
1) End the Designated Hitter.
2) End the booming, ear-splitting sensaround blasts that are squeezed between innings and at bats.
3) Fire Bud Selig and burn him at the stake.
4) Asterisk the records of Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and others. Publicly declare that Hank Aaron's all-time home run record is valid as is Roger Maris' seasonal record.
D330| 10.21.10 @ 2:54PM
Well put, sir. It isn't the game, it's what the lawyerly professorial Selig has wrought.
Derek Leaberry| 10.22.10 @ 10:17AM
Perhaps burning Bud Selig at the stake was a little harsh. A good caning might be more appropriate.
D330| 10.21.10 @ 2:41PM
Kudos Goldstein. Baseball will never lose its place in my heart and imagination. I trudge through every day of the offseason looking as if my dog just died yesterday! Counting down the days remaining until pitchers and catchers report is like the last remaining days before Christmas. There are prooblems with the state of the game, to be sure. I still recommend Bob Costas's old book. Fair Ball? His suggestions still ring true, especially the idea of a salary "floor." Make the bum owners of KC, Pittsburgh, etc, actually invest all those millions in profits in their farm systems, player development, free agent signings, and retention of breakout youngsters. For the big market team haters, quit crying. Minnesota, Tampa Bay and Cincy are small market playoff teams.
D330| 10.21.10 @ 2:49PM
In addition, move Houston to the AL West. Reinstitute day Fall Classic games, to hell with supposed revenues. I am an ALer, but for gosh sakes, get rid of the DH already! And mandate the Yanks must play with blindfolds every other game. How's that for starters?
Jennifer| 10.21.10 @ 3:17PM
If baseball is not a dying sport, then why are most ball parks other than Fenway embarrassingly empty on a regular basis?
My solution for baseball: a pitch clock much like the basketball shot clock. Not only would it quicken the pace of the game, it would eliminate the need to watch all the spitting and "adjustments" that occur between pitches.
Doug Welty| 10.21.10 @ 3:20PM
Shhh! Don't dare let the unwashed find out that baseball isn't dying. Less demand for tickets from trendoids means lower ticket prices for the rest of us.
Stan25| 10.21.10 @ 3:28PM
What irks me about baseball is the General Manager trading away the best players when the team is having a winning season and get all of the cast offs from the teams in return. Then they wonder why they fell behind in the pennant races after the All Star break. Then the field manager gets the blame for not taking the team to the World Series and gets the axe. Seems to me that the General Manager should be the one that is fired for the massive screw up that he caused.
Steve-O| 10.21.10 @ 4:08PM
"baseball is dying" because 0.7% fewer TV sets were tuned into Game 3 of the American League Championship Series between the New York Yankees and Texas Rangers than Monday Night Football."
If that game had been on a broadcast network or on ESPN, the ratings would have been much better. That is not because TBS does a poor job (I will take the understated John Smoltz over Tim McCarver any day), but because they are down on the cable food chain. I live in Nashville and have season tickets to see the Titans, and spent more time watching the ALCS than my team on MNF.
Jennifer| 10.22.10 @ 1:17PM
The fact that the playoffs are on TBS and not on network or major cable networks says it all.
Bob K.| 10.21.10 @ 7:00PM
The reason for it is obvious.
Football is simpler to bet on. The result is a huge underground and untaxed economy. Legalize sports gambling! Now you can factor the money expended on it into the GPD. As long as it is illegal it's like trying to factor prostitution and the drug trade into the GDP!
Set up licensed betting parlors that can collect taxes per each transaction. Tax each bet as it is made and then tax the winnings. Keep records of wins for tax purposes. A bettor can register even today as a Professional Gambler with the IRS but must keep track of all bets, wins and losses to do so. Put unlicensed book makers in jail.
See how quickly Baseball becomes #1 again!
Tony in Central PA| 10.21.10 @ 9:09PM
I am in the Pittsburgh market and I remain continually astonished to see families pony up relatively exhorbitant amounts of entertainment money to watch a team lose and lose badly. Its a testimony to the enormous appeal of the game that the sport remains as popular as it is despite the best efforts of the league and owners to kill it.
Paul McGrath| 10.21.10 @ 11:35PM
The games are so long because there are about three minutes of comercials between every single inning. I went to the kitchen and made dinner between the top of the fifth and the bottom of the fifth in tonight's game. I ran back to the living room and McCarver hadn't even started yapping yet. Granted, it was a sandwich, but still. It ain't baseball's fault. It's . . . well, someone's.
Cyrel Nicolas | 10.22.10 @ 3:24AM
Whoa! Here in the Philippines, the most known sports is Baseball rather than football. For me, it is more enjoyable to play --to bat than to kick.
Richard Harris| 10.22.10 @ 10:13AM
Baseball is the best game devised by the brain of man. It is a team game made up of the individual acts of individual players. Only one member of the team can catch, throw, pitch or hit he ball at a time. Every player on the team is at one time or another in the spotlight, not like football players who can take time off if it is not their play. And it is not governed by a clock. As Yogi stated: :It ain't over till its over.
Edward Wagner| 10.28.10 @ 8:46PM
I agree that baseball's demise, or at least its demotion has been predicted at least since the rise of the NFL in the '60s but there seem to be decade-long cycles rise and decline. Right now I assume we are in a kind of post-BALCO hangover. it will pass. BTW, most of my enjoyment of baseball comes from the radio.