I am firmly against the designated hitter, I think Commissioner Rob Manfred’s idea of future expansion will only water down the game, and I cringe every time a telecast stalls while they film a bench coach on the phone waiting for him to give the thumbs up or thumbs down on a replay decision. I am a modern day baseball purist. That being said, I also agree that improvements could be made to help the game resonate with the fans of 2016.
There are aspects to which the game is played, and how it is run that need to change because of the changing times. For example, the extended netting that has been added to ballparks for fan safety. Players are bigger and stronger, and they hit the ball harder now that puts fans who are sitting in close proximity in danger. But that’s not the real reason the nets were extended. They are there because Johnny Red Sox fan is seeing how many likes the selfie he took with David Ortiz in the background got on Instagram. While he is scrolling through his list of likes and making the picture his profile pic, Ortiz hits a screaming foul ball off his noggin. This type of thing didn’t happen 100 years ago (or even 10 years ago) when the game was very different. Major League Baseball has done some great things to help the game evolve with the times, but I think it can do more.
The following are my ideas on how we can help continue to grow the game, and help it continue to transition to reach baseball fans who have grown up in the information era. Many of them mirror what other sports have done, but sometimes stealing ideas from people who do things better than you is the best way to grow.
Create a weekly prime-time game similar to Monday Night Football on one of the big four networks.
I have enjoyed watching ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball for years, but it isn’t good enough. Sunday is a difficult night to compete for ratings. Many of our favorite sportscasters are tweeting about The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones on Sunday nights rather than baseball, I don’t expect casual fans to do any different. Also, as soon as football starts, Sunday Night Baseball is out the window. Why can’t Joe Buck and the Fox team call one national game a week on Wednesday nights during the summer? Will a baseball game really get lower ratings than the latest episode of Master Chef Junior?
I know that the Monday Night Football type of allure isn’t what it once was with the technology we have today. I can stream almost every game on my phone with MLB.TV. The draw would be highlighting my favorite team’s nationally broadcast games on the schedule, giving me something else to look forward to. I’m a Houston Texans fan, and I can see all of their games during the season. However, when the schedule comes out, the first thing I do is find out what weeks they play on Sunday, Monday, or Thursday nights. Football owns those three, why can’t baseball stake a claim on a different weeknight? This would give the league an opportunity to spotlight many of the young stars in the game, and get them on a national stage once a week.
Grow Fantasy Baseball
Football surpassed Baseball as our country’s most popular sport years ago, but this century it has grown even more thanks to fantasy football. Fans who would have never watched a full game all season are now purchasing the Sunday Ticket packages so that they can try to beat their friends and co-workers in their respective leagues. The roots of fantasy football lie with rotisserie baseball, but the football side has taken over thanks to the ease and convenience of the football schedule. Casual fantasy players struggle to keep up with a fantasy team over a 162 game schedule, so fantasy baseball has fallen by the wayside. Unlike football where many fantasy owners will only have to set 13-14 lineups in a full season, fantasy baseball requires daily attention and care.
This is why I think the league should further embrace daily fantasy baseball, a way that fans can participate, but not have the grueling challenges of a long season. I hesitate to discuss this at all, because the last thing I want to see is another barrage of Draft Kings and Fanduel commercials again, but I feel it is a great way to get fans excited about the game. It gives fans the instant gratification they are looking for, and doesn’t tie them down to a team they have to manage for six months.
Each team could invite fans to join their nightly contest where they can give away team swag or tickets to the winners, and have yet another medium they can reach fans. Encourage each team to “sell” their players on social media, explaining why you should pick their players each day. For example, “Albert Pujols is hitting .426 against the Mariners this year, be sure to pick him tonight in the Angels Fantasy Challenge hosted by Draft Kings”. Fantasy sports can help grow a sport exponentially, and I think this is the best option for baseball.
Create a “Hard Knocks” style show that follows a team during Spring Training
A Major League Baseball dugout can be a very fun place to be, and if fans could get an inside look at that, plus what happens in the clubhouse, it could help grow the game. Showtime did something similar with the Giants a few years ago where they followed them during the season. I only saw snippets, but what I saw was fantastic. Similar to Hard Knocks this new series would allow the league to introduce new up and coming players who could be the future stars of the game, as well as letting fans see a different side of the veterans they know and love. However, unlike in Hard Knocks where we see borderline players that we have fallen in love with over a four or five week span get cut; in the MLB version they would be sent to the minors. This could encourage growth in attendance in teams’ Minor League affiliates because fans would know more of the players.
Host a neutral site World Series
There is nothing like a home World Series crowd, and if my team were playing in the World Series I would want them to play at home. However, this is not about one team, it is about growing the entire league. A neutral site World Series could be booked two or three years in advance and could host large scale fan events similar to the Super Bowl. There is a cavalcade of beautiful baseball stadiums in this country, and it is time for fans to be able to get a closer view of all of them. Can you imagine last year’s World Series between the Royals and Mets being played in Fenway, Wrigley, AT&T Park, or PNC?
There would be some wiggle room here as well. Seven games at one stadium could be too much. Also, what if the home team makes the World Series that season? There hasn’t been a home Super Bowl yet, but it is bound to happen eventually. In the MLB case, the possibility of seven home games would be very unfair. So what if you chose one AL stadium and one NL stadium each season and kept the 2-3-2 format? It would be like a two city, nine day Super Bowl (there would be travel days in the middle), which to me sounds like the greatest thing in the world. This would also encourage teams to upgrade and maintain their stadiums in order to bid for the World Series each year. Maybe the residents of Oakland would vote to have a new stadium built if they knew it could possibly bring millions of dollars of revenue into their city if they could host an event like this?
The other idea that I’ve seen brought up in other places would be for Major League Baseball to build a neutral site stadium that would host neutral site games throughout the season, then host the World Series. This would be a good place to put the Game of the Week that I discussed earlier, where you schedule one neutral site game a week. The possibility of putting it in Cooperstown would be cool so that fans could visit the Hall of Fame and catch a game during their visit. However, it would probably be difficult to ask owners to build a new state of the art stadium, while also taking away revenue of a few games every season while their teams play at this neutral site. I would rather show off the amazing stadiums that already exist, but I still think this idea has some merit.
Encourage Silliness
Baseball players are silly by nature. Goofy celebrations, practical jokes, and locker room hijinks are fun to watch as a fan, and I’m sure even more fun to participate in as a player. MLB Network should begin a weekly series that showcases the best shenanigans from around the league. Players, coaches, and fans could make submissions to be organized into a countdown for the weekly show. It is another way for fans to see a different side of players that they don’t get to see on the field, and another way to showcase more players on a large scale. As the submissions are posted, many will spread like wildfire about social media, growing the game even more.
Continue to try to speed up the pace of play
I will never complain about a baseball game going long. One of the greatest days of my life was July 8, 1995 when I attended a doubleheader at the Astrodome to see the Astros take on the Padres. In the first inning of game number one Derek Bell booted an easy fly ball in right field to allow a Padres run to score. Because of that error, the game wound up going 17 innings before game number two could begin. I was 13 years old and got to spend almost 10 hours watching live baseball (and the Astros won both games!), I was in Heaven. Like many people I don’t have a problem with the length of a game, but more the pace of play.
I am not anti-replay, I think getting the call correct is very important. However, I’m tired of a game stopping so that the video team can pour over a call for a couple of minutes to see if it is worth challenging. I think that Major League Baseball could institute a 30 second clock that begins the second the play is dead that gives teams an opportunity to choose to challenge a play. Once that clock hits zero your challenge opportunity has passed. This means no more baserunners standing on the base waiting for their coach to challenge, and no more managers standing one step out of the dugout looking back. 30 seconds, that’s it. Teams would need to have video teams prepared to check every play quickly, and make a snap decision to challenge or not. It takes more than 30 seconds for the ball to get back to the pitcher and the next hitter to get set in the box, so the game would not be slowed or extended unless there were a challenge.
Another minor pace of play issue that could be addressed is the constant adjustment of pads, batting gloves, and helmets by hitters. As an Astros fan I love Jose Altuve, but as a baseball fan I really don’t like watching him adjust his batting gloves and shake his helmet with his hands after every pitch. Nomar Garciappara and David Ortiz have made these adjustments famous over the years, and I think they are getting out of hand. I understand that baseball players are all about routines, but these routines do not need to add 15-20 seconds between each pitch. If the pitcher, catcher, and umpire are ready the pitch should be thrown whether the batter is in the box or not. This will cut down on monotonous adjustments that slow the game down.
Devout baseball fans will always follow the game no matter what the league and its teams do, but implementing some of these ideas could help grow the game to reach more fans in both domestic and international markets. The game has grown a lot in the past 22 years since the strike in 1994, but it can continue to grow and get better. Baseball was once the most popular sport in this country, and there is no reason it couldn’t get back to that point again.
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