How to fix baseball from dying. Please add your suggestions to mine.

[brush]

This is no time for the faint-hearted. Attendance is down year after year. Stadiums are nearly empty for most games. There are too many unprofitable teams. And there's a reluctance to make needed, wholesale changes to the game to stir interest because of baseball's adherence to its "sacred" records/numbers.

I'm a fan but I don't watch the games until the post-season , and only the ones with teams I have a routing interest in.

Changes need to be made ASAP or the game will keep on dying. You used to see kids playing ball in parks or playing catch. You never see that anymore. Basketball and football have long since supplanted baseball's popularity.

I say cut the season to 100 games, cut the perennially under performing teams, put in a time clock for pitches to be delivered to reduce the length of games, award a base to the batter if the pitch is not delivered on time, thus creating more scoring/interest/excitement, cut the games down to seven innings (like NCAA women's softball where games move along swiftly), introduced a shoot-out/homerun derby at the end of seven inning, tied games so that there are no more hours-long, extra inning games, limit pitching substitutions to only 3 per game, leave it at 3 strikes for an out but cut balls needed to walk to also 3 for more base runners/potential scoring/excitement. That's all I can think of now but forget about the sacred numbers. Saving the game is more important. Make these changes and interest will come back.

[California_Republic]

1. $15 hotdog and $20 beer seems a little much

[Loge23]

18. Yes, this

The cost of attending a game is a much bigger issue than the attention given to it.
Many so-called sports experts say/write that the salary levels in MLB do not contribute to the expense of attending a game.
I think that's pure nonsense - the money has to made somehow and parking, concessions, and ticket prices are the revenue streams, not counting the TV rights which are also considerable.
Make the ball park more accessible and don't insult us with the outlandish prices for cheap product and perhaps more will turn out.

Aside from the pricing, the game is too long. Stop replaying nearly every play, impose enforceable limits on mound visits and batter box dancing, and eliminate the shift.

[PAMod]

35. Probably different for each team.

The Yankees pull in over $700,000,000 yet their payroll is well under $300,000,000.

They could charge a buck fifty for a hot dog and still have plenty of money to go around.

[Auggie]

2. Make it a real salary cap. Then lower it.

If the union strikes, they can find somewhere else to play. Small market teams and owners without deep pockets can’t compete.

The fundamentals of the game — ball and strikes — are fine. But DUMP THE DH!

[Tech]

3. We don't watch anymore, as we have cut cable.

We check the scores on line. Stream for free on tv would be the only way we would even think of watching anymore. Disposable income is only for the well off.

[brush]

7. Good points. You are right. Cut admission and conseddion prices.

Once you could go to games and sit in the bleachers for a few bucks.

[lunasun]

4. It seems to be big business here in Chicago both sides of town . Maybe I am wrong I do not follow

bit it seems plenty do and are fans in this town lots of little leagues too
Did I say lots ? yep I just checked .....lots

[murielm99]

17. Yes.

And Wrigley Field seems to be full for every game.

And it is true that kids still love to play.

[snowybirdie]

28. In Chicago

many fans are angry. Next season, the Cubs will carry games only on their own network which will be included in a sports package. So Sox game are p.o.d they must pay extra for Cub games and Cub fans hate the idea of paying for Sox games! Baseball has become too expensive for the average fan!

[lunasun]

29. It's on antenna tv right now but with that change the 2 teams may lose fans next year here

[Va Lefty]

5. A hard salary cap and a mandatory minimum amount of $ on talent

[brush]

13. YES! Bryce Harper is making $330M and hitting under .240. Salaries are way out of wack.

[Brainstormy]

15. and so are the fucking tickets!

who can afford to take their family to a pro baseball game anymore? This, from a former Atlanta Braves fan who has had property taxes increase for the #$@!!!! new stadium.

[unblock]

6. it should be possible to automate ball/strike calls.

with enough cameras properly positioned.

i get that this reduces excitement rather than adds it, but a game doesn't goes by without at least one questionable call and it can really ruin the sense that the best team should win.


automating safe/out calls is more of a challenge....

[SCantiGOP]

25. This is the only suggestion posted yet that I agree with

The technology is already there to have automatic balls and strikes. One of the minor leagues is either using it this year or has announced that they will next year.
I disagree with every item in the OP. It would ruin the game.

[brush]

33. The game is dying. Other sports change their rules when needed.

Baseball should look at changes to speed the game up so it isn't so boring. Basketball has over time added the shot clock, widened the lane, the 3pt shot and even the zone. Football has also made many changes as the need has come up. Both sports have made changes and kept it moving without digging in their heels and crying out in anguish that you can mess with the rules of the game. Go back 150 years and you wouldn't even recognize baseball as it was played back then. It changed to make it more interesting then it froze itself for 150 years but the country kept changing.

Baseball has remained stagnant and it shows in the increasing disinterest in the game year after year. We can do nothing and watch the game continue to wither or add innovations as other leagues have to keep interest in a nation whose pace has sped up since baseball was THE major sport. It isn't now because it hasn't kept up with the pace of the nation.

[gelsdorf]

8. One of the big issues, IMO,

is the way that MLB keeps it's youngest players in the minor leagues too long in order to control salary. NFL and NBA have players in their late teens and early 20's playing, drawing that age group. As I live in Pittsburgh, we have a player Josh Bell who is hitting the cover off of the ball. He is now in year 3 of the 6 year 'contract'. He will be traded in year 5 or sooner because the owner is as cheap as they get. Attendance is down because why go and invest time if you are going to lose fan favorites on a whim. The parking lot owners are losing big time also. Until the CBA becomes more player friendly, baseball will continue to tank.

[brush]

9. More good points. Follow the NBA to get young players into the big leagues sooner.

Also follow the other leagues marketing of their stars techniques. Mike Trout is one of the greatest players to ever come along and hardly anybody has heard of him, whereas everyone is constantly hearing of Lebron James and Tom Brady.

[Cartoonist]

10. I'm not a doomsayer

I see the near empty stadiums also, but I see good things too. I see girls playing little league, and as you mentioned, women's softball is popular.

[rownesheck]

11. My thoughts:

Definitely a pitch clock.

60 game schedule.

6 innings instead of 9.

4 fouls and you're out.

Limit mound visits.

That's all I've got for now.

[brush]

21. Now we're talking. I too believe we have to make changes to the...

working of the game on the field. America is much more fast-paced and busy than when baseball was more attuned to the heartbeat of the country. We've speeded up and the game needs too as well.

I agreed with shortening the time of games. I watch NCAA women's softball and the games move along briskly and are over in seven innings.

[The Polack MSgt]

12. I am a fan of the game

and I feel that wholesale changes to attract non-fans would alienate the core fans already watching.

And BTW in cities outside of Florida, TV ratings and ticket sales are still strong.

Most of the decline touted in recent articles are being driven by Miami Tampa and Baltimore.

My suggestions are much less intrusive and do not fundamentally change the structure of the game:

First, call balls and strikes as written in the rules.

One reason for the length of games is the shrunken zone. So pitchers have to walk a fine line nibbling at the edges where the hitters foul off pitch after pitch or take an undeserved walk.

A real strike zone (Nipples to knees, 18 inches across and any part of the ball in the zone counts) force the hitters to swing.

A real strike zone means that the 12 pitch walk is an event not a normal at bat- which means we don't see a parade of relievers every damn game.

Second (and last for this reply), Put some of the billions baseball makes back into youth sports.

Not just in the Dominican Republic and South America, but in American Cities.

Right now Baseball in America is a suburban middle class and up pass time for a couple years of a kids life. That must change.

Invest in fields and leagues that are accessible to kids anywhere of any economic status - This not only increases the available US born talent pool but also builds a knowledgeable YOUNGER fan base.

(Steps off soap box, yells at kids in my yard)

[brush]

16. Good stuff. I like your suggestions to put more money back inot youth baseball in America.

Make it available and easily accessible for young athletes. You have to compete with how easy it is to play other sports—for instance basketball when all is needed is a ball and courts all over.

[Moostache]

14. The game is what was the constant across eras and generations...

You start messing with that and you may as well shut it all down.

Money is the problem...when I was in college (some 25 years ago) the MINIMUM salary for a major league player was somewhere around $50,000 still. A very decent living back then to be sure, but not extravagant or obscene. The top players in the game were getting $2-4M a season. Tickets to the games (at least bleacher seats at Old Comiskey Park) were $5-7. A beer was $5 but a dog and popcorn was less than $5.

There were neighborhood bars and restaurants that offered parking discounts and game day specials to draw in customers. It was a much better experience than being forced to get food and refreshments ONLY in the stadium and from team operated sources. (St. Louis is a little different than my latest experiences at the "new" Comiskey Park in Chicago...not as draconian, and also a much more fan friendly experience...so its not ALL teams.)

Fast forward to now. The team has bought up all the land within 5 blocks of the stadium. Many (if not all) of the neighborhood establishments are gone. Parking is a minimum of $10. Beers are the same. Hot dog by itself is $7+. Player salaries are obscene - $400M + deals? Major league MINIMUM has been over $1M for at least the last 5 years.

In the game's heydey of the 20's through the 50's, ball players lived in the neighborhoods by the home stadium. Many of them held off-season jobs in the community. There were fewer teams, more daytime doubleheaders, fewer pitching changes and a faster pace of play. The game was the same...quirky ballpark dimensions aside.

The problem (aside from the insidious and pervasive influence of $$$) is that WE (the people) have changed for the worse... Where we once read the evening paper or the morning edition, we now get Tweets and instant feedback of scores and stats. Where the game used to be described in papers and key moments almost mythologized for the reader, now its cold, fast, lifeless.

When I was a boy, I lived, breathed and died baseball from March through October every year. I loved the game like nothing else...much more than football or basketball. That all changed for me in 1994. That was THE YEAR....my boyhood team - the White Sox - had the best team in the American League by far, they had lost in the '93 playoffs to Toronto, but in '94 they were FINALLY going to make the World Series, until....the strike wiped out the post-season and the World Series. I have never fully recovered my love of the game. I cheered in '05 when the White Sox finally made it to and won a World Series...I cheered my adopted home town Cardinals in their many post-season trips over the last 25 years...but it has never been the same since for me...and sadly it never will.

Between too much technology, too short of attention spans and too much $$$ perverting everything, the game and the romance of it all has been lost. Its now no more than a soccer/"futbol" analog game...usually not much scoring, a lot of nuanced defending and strategy and nothing like the more popular sports of football and basketball.

[yonder]

23. +1. especially: "...too much $$$ perverting everything,..."

[KPN]

27. Bingo.

[brush]

24. Nice essay on the game. I too love baseball but the pace of the nation...

no longer fits the pace of baseball. It may seem like sacrilege to make changes on the field to speed up the game but I rather do that so the game survives than watch it slowly die.

[SWBTATTReg]

32. Nice writeup. nt

[Kurt V.]

19. make the batter stay in the box. Stepping out after every pitch slows the game way down.

[NightWatcher]

20. I'm a huge fan and I'm against changes that are aimed at non fans.

I consume baseball talk on the radio, online, and I watch/listen to at least one game a day.

Stop trying to change the game for people who won't ever watch it.

FWIW, I'm even more dedicated than most. I'm a Marlins fan and we're next to worst in the entire league.

[brush]

22. Consider this. Baseball used to be the country's pass time when...

the nation moved at a much slower pace. The nation has sped up and perhaps the pace of the game needs too as well. Everything changes over time, which is why basketball and football, which move faster, are now more popular.

The pace of those games matches the country's pace now more than baseball does. Some changes need to be made.

[Freddie]

34. Went to a Marlins game

When visiting my son. What a pleasant experience! Reserve your spot in the parking garage and walk *across the street* to the stadium (as opposed to parking miles away in the sea of lots at Citizens Bank Park). Great food. Air-conditioned comfort. Good game too, they beat the Brewers that night.

[KPN]

26. Just saw kids playing ball in two parks yesterday while driving home from a visit with my son a

couple hours. They were the only two ballparks I drove past along the way.



Attendance would be higher if attendance were more affordable.

[calguy]

30. Many years ago I attended an Oakland A's game with FREE tickets for my family of 4

By the time I got out of there after paying for parking, a hot dog and soda for every one and ONE beer for myself, I think I spent around a hundreds bucks! And this was in the 1990's! And I had FREE tickets! I can only imagine what it would cost today. And I didn't even enjoy the game that much.

I felt totally ripped off and haven't been to a game since and never will. I haven't even watched a game on TV for decades.Let it die. I won't miss it one bit.

[SWBTATTReg]

31. Well, it's your money and time, and I admire your passion for the game, but in today's ...

world, there are lots of other venues out there available now for others to spend their time and money instead of professional sports and the like, and the individual drives the entertainment, not the entity owning the team/sports franchise (most of which have been pretty well all gobbled up by the well to do as an 'investment', and who basically drive the entertainment, not the individual.). Gaming is one big example. And Gambling is another one too.

The marketplace has changed too, in that lots of viewing consumers are far beyond the local metro area, where the sports franchises are based, thus, ad revenue (TV etc.) and other big ticket items drive the profit engines of these teams, and not just the local marketplace.

Unfortunate, but the local markets can't seem to satisfy most sports franchise owners enough, so they continue to push the envelope of profitability outwards (or try to).

[Gore1FL]

36. Tax the players in the top tax bracket at 70% with others in the top tax bracket.

Take some of the television revenue and use it to reduce prices for admission and food. The idea should be to have packed stands for every televised game and create a fan base to drive that TV revenue by making stadium visits accessible and memorable.

Socialize the team revenues.

Keep baseball baseball. Sure, introduce safety. End deliberate time wasting. Don't shorten the season. Don't shorten the game.