Baseball is dying and tonight's a prime reason why..

[SECplayer]

One thing that would help slightly speed up the game.

Watch the batters after every pitch. After the first pitch, he'll walk 10 feet away, pick up dirt, spit in his hands, do half swings to reinforce his mechanics, then a slow motions wing, then a couple full practices swings, then kick his shoes and re-strap his gloves before stepping back into the box. You multiple that by 250 pitches a game and that's a big reason the game is so slow.

If you watched the college World Series this year, it was a pretty simple fix. After ever pitch, when the batter started walking away, the ump every time said "keep one foot in the box for me please." Of course,t he players eventually caught on and didn't even have to be reminded. This eliminated the majority of that nonsense. I doubt that alone would shorten the game substantially but it's a step in the right direction and coupled with a few more changes could help.

 

[dirtymoose]

Baseball is painful boring. Even worse if your a Mets fan.

 

[CHOPTALK]

I've watched less braves games this year then any year if my life

 

[JohnnyMac]

The owners don't care about the future, they care about today's profit. They want the game to last a minimum of 3 hours in order to sell $10 beers and have 100 TV commercials.

 

[snoop]

Now that makes sense.

 

[CHOPTALK]

I don't know why my first post in this thread was messed up but I fixed it below.




Baseball is too married to stats to change the number of games or the number of innings.


Baseball is almost an individual team sport where individual personal stats are just as or more important then team stats.
This is why there was such an outcry when it came to steroids in baseball but it is hardly an issue or even a thought in other sports because steroids started making numbers like 755 and 61 not mean as much as it did before.


No other sport has so much invested in numbers as baseball.


Everyone knows how many homers hank Aaron hit. But I bet 95% of basketball fans could not tell you within 2000 points how many points Kareem scored in his career. And I bet you half the nba fans would not even know Kareem is the nbas alltime leading scorer.


Mlb is a slave to its stats and because of this they will never be able to make any significant changes.

 

[scottcarter]

nothing wrong with baseball itself but MLB has gotten very no-name and non-event lately. Bland personalities. No home run race anymore, no batter flirting with .400, no stolen base race, no superstars tearing it up, no guys that you love to hate, no McGuire and Sosa, no Clemens, no Bonds, no veteran breaking 30 year old records. We had A-Rod I guess and Jeter finishing up his career with a whimper. What else but a 162 game schedule? Maybe that's ok for the newer fan and for the baseball purist I donno, but I also find myself losing interest a little also. I know I will be more interested in September.

Go A's

 

[Cyyyyk]

I honestly can't believe this many people here don't like baseball.

 

[pocketrockets]

Baseball is boring, a necessary boredom nonetheless but if they'd stop playing I wouldn't feel bad

 

[tar_heel_in_sc]

It's really interesting. People complain about 2-1 games and the lack of offense. Then, they complain about 8-5 games taking too long.

I do understand that the time taken between pitches can be tiresome. I wouldn't mind seeing a rule change to speed things up on that front.

All in all, it's still a great game IMO.

 

[SunDodger]

What do you do when a runner is on first, and the pitcher keeps throwing to first to keep the guy from leading off too much?

There is no way to really speed up the game.



Been to Safeco Field twice. Cool stadium, dull game.

 

[slapshot]

Baseball is a pastime

Baseball games are supposed to be like a bar and you look around every minute to check out the game then back to bullshiting with your friends

Or on the radio as background noise will you grill out and play horse shoes

The ball is in play for like 5 minutes max

 

[gtc08]

baseball is the dying white mans game. young demos which are half white half non white trend significantly towards nba and nfl. the nba is already the second major sport, passed mlb a few years ago. the finals have beaten the world series 5 of the past 6 seasons, and social media is not even close between the two leagues. mlb is the solid 3rd league in america behind the nba and nfl, and it will stay that way going forward.

 

[Willie99]

baseball is not dying, that myth has been debunked for some time now (this baseball is dying argument has been made since the late 70's / early 80's)

as for the length of games, I concur. They are too long, especially Yankees vs Red Sox games who seem to play about 4 hours every time they meet

 

[HacheMan]

I've tried & tried, but simply can't find interest in baseball.

Playing it in high school & such is ok, but watching, in my opinion, is much more born than hockey or soccer...

 

[Willie99]

attendance is relatively stagnant, down slightly in recent years, when everything is down because of a bad economy.

furthermore, a couple of teams are bringing down overall attendance all by themselves, like the Phillies who's attendance is plummeting

 

[Willie99]

like soccer fans enjoy the strategy on the "pitch", I enjoy the strategy in baseball behind every pitch.

 

[doubledeuce22]

To point to the revenue increase is foolish... Every single major sport is up significantly given the digital age, league passes, and teams having their own networks etc

 

[KingofNicotine]

I looked it up and MLB made $8 billion last year. They're not dying. Maybe baseball will never be a tv sport like NFL.

 

[skoda]

baseball is the dying white mans game. young demos which are half white half non white trend significantly towards nba and nfl. the nba is already the second major sport, passed mlb a few years ago. the finals have beaten the world series 5 of the past 6 seasons, and social media is not even close between the two leagues. mlb is the solid 3rd league in america behind the nba and nfl, and it will stay that way going forward.

whites are now the minority but do not qualify for the benefits that the majority receive but still are the majority who pay admissions to pass time @ these above functions mentioned! If you look in the bleachers/stands/seats it looks like all games are white outs when TV calls them black outs :think2: