I’m mad at baseball. I love baseball. I’ll never not watch it. I’ll never boycott it. Maybe I should. But I won’t. What can i say? Its in my blood. 

But it also makes my blood boil. Or I should say the “baseball” ownership. They aren’t real baseball people.

“Fans are at the top of our consideration list” Says Rob Manfred

“We need to bring in young fans”

That’s what we have been told.

Yeah Manfed is a clown.

LOCKOUT

Here we are in mid March and spring training has yet to start. Regular season games pushed back. Millionaires arguing with billionaires. Ownership/commissioner vs. the Players Association. Both sides complaining about the other. Who gets hurt out of all of this? THE FANS. US.

Yet again the fans of Major League Baseball get hurt the most. The fans are supposedly a big concern for the commissioner and the front offices. But wheres the proof? What have they done for the fan? What have they done to bring new fans to the game?

Nothing. 

They have done nothing. 

Tickets

To start, the price to go to a ballgame is more expensive than it’s ever been. I mean, lets say a couple wants to spend a night and grab some food at a major league ball game. 

Mediocre seats: $40/piece

Hot Dog:$5

Fries:$6

Beer: $12

Parking:$20

Souvenir: $$$??

So youre looking at $122 at the bare minimum if you don’t indulge in any adult beverages. 

Then you look out and see whole sections of the stadium that are empty. Why not give families of 4 or 5 a break on those seats. Bring your kids to the game. Tickets $5-$10 a piece with a voucher for a hot dog. Get the youth to some games without breaking the families bank. Create some young fans. Get them to the ballpark. I don’t see how this could be too tough for the organizations to figure out…

Playoffs

Ok, call me old but 8:00 PM is too late to start a baseball game. I’ve go to get up for work in the morning. 

 We want to bring younger, new fans to baseball but the most important games and innings of the entire season are being played until midnight. 

The 7th,8th,9th innings of the most exciting time of the season are played past 10PM.

On a school night. 

The average time per game is a topic for a different discussion. But this years World Series the average game was 3 hours and 41 minutes long. 

The television companies have control over this and do you think they have baseballs best interests in mind? Yeah, no. 

Just starting the games at 7 Eastern would go a long way.

And if players got in the batters box, and pitchers on the rubber we would then have an action packed two and a half hour ball game. Bed by 9:30…

Strikeouts

When the pace of play issue is brought up, it doesnt completely mean the total time of the game. But rather the amount of action.

The strikeout rate was 24% last season.

Teams struckout 8.68 times per game. Almost 18 Ks per game. 18 at bats without the ball hit in play. 

Players are paid for how many homers they hit. Not if they can hit a groundball to the right side to move a runner to third. Or go first to third on a single. Or take the extra base. 

Just homers. Strikeouts are just another out. Even if you don’t make the defense do any work.

Rule Changes

First and foremost the fact that anybody thought of a runner starting on second base in extra innings in a major league ball game is an absolute EMBARRASSMENT. 

Is this beer league softball? For the love of God, I hope that is gone forever. 

There have been talks of implementing a rule to stop or limit shifts to make more action. 

But it goes back to the strikeout thing. Players arent willing to learn to hit a ball the other way or lay a bunt down because thats not what owners will pay them for. The goal of baseball is to score more runs than the other team. So if you can prevent runs by moving a player to another spot on the ball field, so be it. 

Antics

I love passion. I love excitement. I love celebrations. 

But when did we start pimping homers down 4 in the 7th inning? 

Or making hand arm motions after a first inning double in May?

Go on MLBs website and app and you will see all kinds of articles and videos promoting bat flips.

“Best bat flips of 2021!” 

WHO CARES

What good is that doing for the youth of our game? 

None. It promotes the “LOOK AT ME” attitude that you see, instead of the team game that baseball actually is. 

Its as if they’re saying “our game isn’t exciting enough so look at this celebration.” 

Playing the game hard and smart isn’t cool anymore. I would love to wake up one morning to read an article of the top heads up baserunning plays of the night. The MLB is promoting the wrong things. 

In the words of Billy Chapel, baseball doesn’t stink. Its a great game. It really is a great game, but some changes need to be made.