The slow death of baseball or how to save it

Let’s face it professional baseball is on a slow death march to oblivion. Baseball hasn’t been relevant since before the ‘80’s. It is obvious the NFL has been the preeminent sport in America for a long time. Even the NBA and NHL are more interesting then baseball, but both also need some “fixing up”.

Baseball owners don’t care, they are laughing all the way to the bank even though they love to cry poor. Eight work stoppages since 1972 and every time it is all about the money and the owners telling us they are losing money hand over fist every year. Bullshit. If you don’t believe me, go to Forbes website and due the research. Trust me; every team is making tons of money for the owners.

So the owners have no motivation to fix baseball. They will let this go on until it’s too late. Once they stop making money they will just let it die. They won’t care about fixing what is wrong with the game. These are businessmen who only care about profits. When there is no more profit they will sell and move on leaving empty ball parks and disheartened fans behind.

Fact 1: 1970 All-Star game posted a 28.5 TV rating. In 2013 the TV rating was an abysmal 6.9.
Fact 2: 1980 World Series posted a 32.8 TV rating. In 2012 the TV rating was 7.6; the lowest rating ever. Even the NBA in 2013 posted a 10.4 rating for the “nobody cares outside of Miami and San Antonio” Heat/Spurs matchup.

People would rather watch a bad Monday Night Football (Jaguars/Titans) game then a great baseball playoff game. Just look at 2010: ALCS game 3 pulled in a 6.5 rating and MNF pulled in a 7.2. America would rather watch bad football then good baseball.

So how do you fix baseball: does anyone even care? If I were the commissioner of Major League Baseball I would:

1. Eliminate the designated hitter rule forever. A real baseball player should play the field and try to hit the ball. No more coddling the American League pitchers. Make them go to bat.
2. Shorten the game. In 1970 the average MLB game took 2 hours and 30 minutes. Since 2007 the average game now takes 2 hours and 50 minutes. Enforce a pitch clock of 15 seconds. In 2010 the average time a pitcher took to throw a pitch was 21 seconds; that is ridiculous.
3. Shorten the game part 2. Limit warm-up pitches to 5. Everyone knows the new pitcher has already warmed up in the bullpen. Why waste more time.
4. Shorten the game part 3. Keep the batter in the batter’s box once he steps in. No more stepping out after every pitch to adjust your hitting glove or read the same signs from the 3^rd base coach over and over again.
5. Shorten the game part 4. And the most difficult change to implement…fewer commercials between innings. Shorten the time between innings so TV networks are forced to show fewer commercials.
6.  Shorten the season. 162 regular season games, makes most games meaningless. Make the regular season games mean something.  Here is a 120 regular season formula:
   - play 4 (2 home; 2 away) – 3 game series against your division rivals. That is 12 games x 4 division opponents equaling 48 games.
   - play 2 (1 home; 1 away) – 3 game series against the other division opponents in your own league. That is 6 games x 10 opponents equaling 60 games.
   - play every team in just 1 opposing league division in 1 3-game series. That is 12 more games for a grand total of 120 regular season games.
7. Start the season after April 15^th and end before Labor Day. Early April/November games can be dicey weather wise in northern cities. Plus baseball players don’t like to play in the rain and cold. End before Labor Day so you can take advantage of no NFL games to compete against.  The NFL does not start until after Labor Day. The first baseball playoff games should begin Labor Day weekend.
8. Eliminate the winning League of the All-Star game gets home field advantage in the World Series. This is a monumentally bad idea. The team with the best regular season record should have home field advantage. A tie breaker can be the best winning percentage in the playoffs. And a third tie breaker is a flip of a coin.

Well that is my opinion and I’m sticking to it. I can’t wait for football season to start!