Once America’s Pastime, can Baseball save itself before it’s too late?
It’s April, well, almost. The baseball season has started, arriving on a mildly warm day last week. Arriving with the New York Yankees in San Francisco, broadcast (of all places) on Netflix.
While that is another discussion, on its own, there is this lurking feeling that Baseball is headed for a lockout in the next playing year. Baseball insiders say so. Conspiratorial fans say so. Casual fans say so. The price of going to a game says so. And while the team owners and commissioner may push for a different narrative, the growing sentiment widens.
The inimitable Ty Cobb (photo courtesy Haggin Museum)
Remember when Baseball was at its peak? America’s Pastime is what they called it. Most of us weren’t even born when Baseball was really America’s Pastime. Or maybe it was when Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire were chasing baseballs into the lighted sky?
Marred by controversy, there was a time in Baseball when interest was at its peak. There used to be a time when you listened to a baseball game on a Walkman while sitting in your bleacher seat next to your grandfather, who was etching away at a scorecard. A time when you would have seriously taken someone out to catch a foul ball, but would be kind enough to give it to a kid in front of you.
Baseball used to be something worth holding onto.
Taking nothing from the Los Angeles Dodgers (in the sense that they have won their championships fair and square), the disparity between their level of success and others is drastic. The Dodgers know no bounds when trying to acquire a player. No amount of money seems off the table. The Pittsburgh Pirates owner, on the other hand, won’t even spend a dollar to buy a Kleenex for you to wipe your face with.
The disparity between the teams is inconceivable, and most of the MLB faces that stark reality. The New York Mets, who gave Juan Soto plenty of money to leave the Yankees, wouldn’t even go as far as the Dodgers would to keep a pitcher or keep a team intact. It’s part of the reason why Pete Alonso is in a Baltimore Orioles uniform.
Oakland’s now-empty stadium (photo courtesy Oaklandside)
But while the Mets and Yankees, at least on some levels, can compete against the Dodgers, most of the smaller-market teams cannot. Or won’t, whichever you prefer, and that contributes to the place that Baseball finds itself in.
How can a fan be expected to commit to a team that barely shows its commitment to the fan?
The Oakland Athletics are another tragic example of what state baseball finds itself in. Their old stadium now sits like a ghost in the western sun, with yet another owner showing little interest in the team. While attendance had declined over the years, there was zero interest in addressing the problem. That was in real-time. Now the A’s occupy a dark place in baseball history.
That is what Baseball has become in some ways. A ghost relegated to its history.
Attendance declines. A myriad of questionable calls on the field. No real face of the sport. (Some may say it’s Aaron Judge, but not everyone is a Yankee fan, by any means.)
The MLB has found itself in an identity crisis more than anything, a place where it doesn’t know where it belongs, lost in a field of dreams. March Madness dominates the conversation, and the NBA and NHL seasons are winding down as the playoffs approach. The NFL draft looms on the landscape. Baseball is wedged somewhere in between it all.
But once the summer passes, MLB has questions to answer about its future.
Can it fix the payroll deficit from the top to the bottom?
Can it make the All-Star game more appealing?
Can the number of missed calls decrease with instant replay?
Can ticket prices/food sales correlate with the middle class without draining people’s pockets?
Is Baseball a sport trapped in the past? Can Baseball save itself before it’s too late? The answer looms somewhere in the dirt of the playing field.
The clock is ticking. If there really is a looming lockout, the future appears bleak.
