Baseball, once called the great American game, has been falling behind for decades. No longer do fans fill stadiums to the brim for every inning, and gone are the days of generations learning Take Me Out to the Ball Game as if it were the anthem of American culture. However, the decline of baseball is not America’s fault. The league’s reluctance to stray from tradition has generated a sport stuck in the past, a time where baseball once thrived.
In 1846, the first baseball game was played in Hoboken, New Jersey. Twenty-three years later, the Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first professional baseball club. The National League (NL) was then established in 1876 with the American League (AL) following suit in 1901. The first World Series of Major League Baseball (MLB) was played in 1903, over one hundred years ago. Baseball’s roots are rich in tradition and old in nature, one of the contributing factors to the absence of a youthful audience. The average age of a baseball fan is fifty-seven years old. With a newfound reputation of being “boring,” even one of the game’s greats, Sandy Koufax, has admitted that modern-day baseball is hard to watch. While many components have contributed to the sports’ downfall, the length and pace of the game are the obstacles leading the pack.
In 2019 the average baseball game length reached an all time high, topping off at three hours, five minutes and thirty-five seconds. The issue is not the length—football games run for about the same time—but rather the pace. While baseball has always been slow, it has never been this slow. The average time between pitches in 2019 was 23.8 seconds, once again an all time high. Debate continues to rage over whether a pitch clock or twelve second timer should be implemented to curb this trend. By limiting pitchers, and punishing those who go over the time limit by immediately calling a ball, MLB hopes to shorten the game to under three hours. This practice has already been administered in some minor league systems and below, but even with a shorter game, baseball will be thrown another changeup. One third of all at-bats ended in a strikeout the last two seasons, decreasing the already dwindling fan excitement in the stadium. Not all teams, however, face the same problems.
Large market teams such as the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers have not been hit hard with the issues surrounding their sport, because small market teams are taking the brunt of it. Talent is not evenly distributed around the league, making it difficult for smaller teams, like the Colorado Rockies, to ever compete with the Dodgers. Players want to play where fans are excited and a large paycheck can be cashed. The Yankees have the ability to pay the great players, like star pitcher Gerrit Cole, more money than smaller organizations that are in markets that do not provide the same benefits as New York. Small-market teams work hard to draw fans to winning seasons, finding it nearly impossible to produce interest as they struggle, losing over 100 games. The COVID-19 pandemic hit baseball harder than any other sport, leaving those smaller organizations scrambling to save their minor league systems and find the money to pay their player’s contracts. The pandemic threw MLB a fastball over the plate, and baseball struck out.
During the COVID-19 ridden 2020 shortened baseball season, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred altered some long standing rules. For the first time, the NL matched the AL using a designated hitter, a player only in the game to hit, taking the place of the pitcher in the batting lineup. They also extended the playoffs so more teams could compete. These changes excited the younger audience who hoped the reforms would last, but these fans grounded into a double play. All changes from last season have been converted back to their original form, once again showing baseball’s reluctance to stray from the traditions holding them down.
Baseball in America is at a pivotal point. MLB is either going to hit a home run, finally embracing the slogan “Let the kids play,” which represents some of the young and exciting baseball players who bring the much needed bat flips, grand slams, and awesome video game covers to a sport lacking youthful enthusiasm; or they will be robbed of the homerun on the warning track. Halting the decline of American baseball and reestablishing its presence does have to mean crushing the traditions the sport was built upon. It means expanding those traditions to create news ones that could help see baseball through the next 100 years.
Sources:
https://dailycampus.com/2020/11/04/baseball-on-the-brink-is-mlbs-economic-structure-sustainable/
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/national-league-of-baseball-is-founded
https://www.sportscasting.com/is-there-a-time-limit-between-pitches-in-the-mlb/
