I admit that America’s favorite past time of baseball is not the favorite sport of choice anymore. I can read the signs as well as anyone. Dropping figures on television ratings, dropping attendance figures, rising salaries, franchises on life support from the league, the list can go on and on.
Now lets put that in the bigger spot light. Every major sports league has seen their ratings drop in the last few years. Why? Because it seems somehow we’ve added a constitutional right to have at least three hundred useless cable channels available on the television set of every American. Some find new channels of choice, some simply can’t find the game broadcast among the maze of channels and settle for a MASH rerun out of thumb fatigue.
Attendance is down. Yes it is. Ticket prices are up. Way up. So are all the leagues, but baseball has always been the sport of the blue collar fan and the sport has now priced itself right out of that market.
Here are some useless facts for consideration. Ten years ago the average baseball player salary was about a million dollars. The highest payroll was in Toronto at about $50 million. Today the Yankees salary is nearing $150 million and the average player salary is $2.5 million. Then when ticket prices are scrutinized, hmm, in 1993 I paid $10 to get into Camden Yard for the first game after the All-Star game that was played in Baltimore. Today it would cost me more than $20 for the same seat.
However, baseball is not dead and is not on life support. Baseball is diluted with a long season and more levels of play than any other sport. It has taken the wrong examples from other professional sports to attempt to conform. That is something that can be fixed and will be fixed in time, maybe too long a time, but eventually it will be corrected.
The changes that are apparent but that somehow owners under the guidance of Commissioner Bud Selig have missed over the last ten years are easy to list and just as easy to correct.
Selig looked at the NFL Wildcard games in their playoffs and added that to baseball in an attempt to win some television dollars back from the football season. It failed miserably. The simple fact is that nobody has ever cared about the baseball play- offs unless their team was involved and even then it was marginal attraction. Its time to admit that the league goofed and take the game back to its pure form of 1967. Let the team battle to the end of the season and the best two play in the World Series. Enough saving pitchers and letting games slide by in the fall to rest up players for a championship run through playoffs that could take twenty games or another eighth of the current regular season. No its not totally fair, but then again is it fair for the team with the best record not to play in the big one like last season?
Secondly, accept there are choices out there and don’t beat baseball’s head against the football wall. Shorten the season. After late August baseball fades against a new football season. Cut about a quarter of the games out and make it a 120 game season. Not only does that put the World Series at a better time, it also gives a good reason to cut players salaries back a bit.
Third thing is a serious sit down with the players. You want to be America’s sport, you want to continue to hear fans cheer you, then give them a break. Owners cut ticket costs in half and players take a pay cut. Baseball tickets prices for the major league level is at the point of diminishing returns with every increase. Taking the bold initiative to show some concern for the fans will win a lot of hearts and ticket sales back, especially when the other major sports continue price increases. It will mean a hard salary cap for teams and it will mean a maximum salary for a star player. The ridiculous bid to be the highest paid guy in the league is part of what got baseball into this mess in the first place.
If it upsets players, so be it. Quit the league over it if you like, there is a tremendous amount of guys in the farm system who will gladly take your spot on the field. The farm system guys dream of playing in the show and take a lot of hard knocks and minimal pay to feed the top end of the corporate machine that is now baseball.
Then the sport will lose even more young talent to other leagues. It might at first, but this a competitive market. When baseball wins on this issue, the other guys will have to cut back or suffer the same demise everyone predicts for baseball now.
I believe in baseball. It is a slow game compared to its competitors. That’s its unique appeal. Everything comes in cycles and that unique nature will be the very thing that keeps the sport alive and well despite the moronic decisions made by its Major League owners. The league may fold if Selig continues to miss the obvious, but the sport won’t be dead. It will be alive and well on little league fields, high school diamonds and in college stadiums around the world.
Baseball is not dead, it will not go quietly into the night. Let the naysayers prattle on about its demise. Baseball can’t recover from a strike that prevented the World Series they say. The NBA and NFL have given us bogus, shortened seasons and play-offs as well, but they do not point that out much. There is hope for change. Baseball has found a way to make the All-star game count for something and it can find answers to its other problems as well.
The fans, the players, the parents, they will keep America’s favorite past time alive even if the major league keeps it from being well.

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