Baseball is ruined! Again. According to a recent article in The Atlantic, the culprit this time around is Pitch f/x, a “simple technology” that inadvertently wrecked the game by encouraging umpires to call a more accurate strike zone. Who knew adhering to the rule book could prove so detrimental? Well, besides Tom Glavine, who made the same argument over 10 years ago.
Despite being repeatedly pronounced dead, baseball’s headstone has yet to be engraved.
Baseball has been ruined so often, an archaeology degree may become a pre-requisite for being a fan. Over the last 150 years, the list of things that have ruined baseball are too numerous to count. It would be easier to identify that which hasn’t killed the game than name every cause of baseball’s death. And yet, despite the frequent reports of the sport’s demise, so many still seem interested in walking through the rubble. It must be hard to look away from the destruction.
It’s difficult to say what first destroyed baseball. Ty Cobb often argued that Babe Ruth was the cause. Not only did the Sultan of Swat promote the evil home run over the beauty of fundamental play, he also had the nerve to habitually holdout for fair pay. Hadn’t Ruth learned from the experience of the Federal League, which ruined the national game by inflating salaries? Despite the restrictions of the reserve clause, and anti-trust exemption of the major leagues, greedy players, with their desire to unionize, continued to pose an imminent threat to the game. Not to be outdone, equally greedy owners, with their monopolistic ways and absurd innovations, like farm systems, were busy doing the same. These two factions competed to be the cause of baseball’s ruination for most of the 20th century, until they finally teamed up to destroy the game with free agency.
Who did the most damage during the free agency era? Was it free spending owners like the Yankees’ George Steinbrenner? Or ungrateful, overpaid, selfish players who only cared about the almighty dollar? What difference did it make? Because of the sport’s collective greed, labor discord abounded, and the bond between fan and team was inexorably broken. Once a populist game, baseball was now refuge for the elite and, as a result, destined for the scrap heap of the American sports landscape.
Somehow, even after the 1994 strike finally dealt baseball its coup de grâce, the sport survived to face another certain death. This time, the enemy within was too much scoring, particularly an overabundance of homeruns. Sure, the homerun had already killed the game under Ruth, and then again in the 1950s when irreverent young sluggers had the audacity to emulate him. However, this time was different. Even 170 pound short stops were hitting home runs to the opposite field. The horror.
For more than a decade, hitters ran roughshod over the sport. Smaller ballparks, expansion, declining youth participation, you name it. If it promoted offense, it was ruining baseball. Those were simpler times though. Little did we know then that the cause of baseball’s demise was much more nefarious: the scourge of performance enhancing drugs.
PEDs were the final nail in baseball’s coffin. Baseball had risen from an offense-induced death before, but this was different. Ignoring the historical use of amphetamines and other stimulating substances, steroids were portrayed as unprecedented in the game. The result was not only a desensitized fan base, but a dilution of baseball’s hallowed record book and a blow to its integrity. Cheaters all. How could the game go on?
Luckily, baseball survived the crushing blow of PED use. Otherwise, pitch f/x, and the low scoring environment it helped create, would have been denied the opportunity to deliver baseball’s death blow. Just like they wouldn’t watch baseball during the dead ball era and pitching rich, golden age of the 1960s, today’s fans simply don’t have the attention span for such long and boring games, especially when they can’t even recognize the sport’s best player. The anonymity of its stars killed the game once before, so why not again? There’s nothing Mike Trout can do, on the field or in some fan’s neighborhood bar, to stop it.
It’s time for major league baseball to fold its tent. Sure, the sport has cheated death for over a century, but the National Pastime is now past its time. The industry’s exploding revenue and near-record attendance at all levels only distract from the reality of baseball’s ruination. And, it really doesn’t matter the reason. Pitch f/x, instant replay, the new home plate collision rule, defensive shifts, advanced statistics, the expanded playoff format…take your pick.
Baseball is dead. Long live baseball.
It’s pretty obvious that MLB thrives on the local level because of the parity it has created in order to make the sport mirror the NFL. They’ve made sure more teams are in it for longer, so of course, homers and bandwagoners are going to jump on long enough to be duped into thinking their team/city has a shot to win it all…the longer the better. Everybody’s happy.
But on the national level? Baseball is for fringe sensibilities only. Everyone watches the Super Bowl. Only die-hard fans of baseball, (the sport, not their city) or fans of the team (i.e. usually their city) that happens to be in it that year will watch the World Series.
The only team even close to resembling national appeal is the New York Yankees; and this has a lot to do with their presently marketed status as villains, (Economically it only makes sense to manufacture a Goliath, a team that everyone loves to hate while it comes into town to face your city’s David).
To their credit, they’re trying to sell the sport, it’s just not working.
[…] Strikeouts have taken over baseball like a plague. Or is it an epidemic? How about a crisis? All across the majors, “three strikes you’re out” has become an unwelcome routine at the old ballgame, and, early indications suggest there is no end in sight. Can baseball survive this assault on the aesthetic quality of the game, or will inactivity finally be the death knell that the sport has long avoided? […]