Baseball does have a problem attracting younger fans now. The game itself isn’t the problem. The competition is the problem. Attention spans are decreasing. Kids are used to video games and other entertainment, including a much wider variety of sports options, that don’t go at the pace of baseball. You cannot fundamentally change the game to address that issue. It is what it is. I don’t think it’s racial. My three white kids are bored silly by it, as much as I love it and try to show them the beauty of the game.
I can’t see how any of that jerking off, look-at-me bullshit would in any way improve the game of baseball. Not all sports have to be the same. Besides, the intrigue of baseball’s unwritten rules is a feature, not a bug. I can understand why a truly boring sport like football needs dancing players, cheerleaders and showboating, but not mlb.
But what if Aaron Sorkin wrote a show about baseball?
I have very little time for baseball though I do respect the incredible talent it takes to play the game at that level.
Question though, what is participation like at the lower levels (little league etc.)? Is that declining?
My own kids are two young to play sports but I would prefer that they don’t play baseball as there just isn’t enough for them to do. Obviously I won’t stop them playing baseball (unlike American football).
It only needs to be “hipper” when you think of baseball as a business instead of a sport.
I do not know the numbers but if professional baseball teams start losing money (lower attendance, lower viewership, etc.) then they will naturally start looking around to see why and think of ways to improve their bottom line.
They do not give a rat’s ass about the sport. They care about revenue.
If they are making money nothing will change. If they are losing money something will change as they cast about to improve revenue.
I hate that Rock said the game was too slow. Baseball is not meant to be a hyperkinetic game.
I also did not like the comment about the culture against celebration in baseball. Is it REALLY that that keep black kids from playing? They’ll give-up million dollar opportunities because they just NEED to celebrate when something good happens? Somehow I doubt that one.
One more thing that baseball is doing well of late is that, despite having no salary cap and minimal revenue sharing, it is having an incredible run of competitiveness. From my distant observation point, it seems that it’s a wide open pennant race every year.
Been thinking more about AA kids and baseball and at first I thought it might be related to field accessibility. Black kids don’t play much peewee soccer either, it seems, and that sport requires a big field, too. But I rejected that premise because football takes a big field, too.
So I was left with culture and attention. In big swatches of the U.S., high school and college football games draw tens of thousands every week and is the king of local sports. A 17-year-old kid can play in front of 15,000 or more on a Friday night in Texas but a soccer player or baseball player won’t get that kind of a stage until he reaches the apex of his profession.
But I’m talking completely out of my ass here. Just making barstool conversation on an interesting topic.
No, but “too slow” can refer to things like batters constantly adjusting their gloves that slow down the game. This is something that MLB is trying to address this year, and IMHO that’s a good thing.
[QUOTE=SenorBeef]
Unless there’s some sort of systematic discrimination, why does it even matter what the racial percentage breakdown of a sport is? Should all non-black races be offended that they’re getting the shaft in representation in the NFL?
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Also, if you go to any MLB, NFL, NBA, or NHL game, you’ll probably find that the vast majority of fans in the stands are not only white but affluent. That’s because ticket costs over the last 25 years have gotten so expensive that working class and even middle class fans have been largely priced out. MLB tickets are still cheaper than the NHL, NBA, and (especially) the NFL but they’re far more expensive than, say, a first-run movie. For example, the ticket prices for the MLB team closest to me–the Seattle Mariners–range from $10-$27 dollars for bleacher seats to $450 to $550 for Diamond Club seating behind home plate. When you factor in parking and concessions, you’re talking about an activity most people could only do once or twice a year.
On a related note, the subject of baseball games being slower and taking too long was discussed by David Letterman and Mad Dog Russo a few days ago. The conservation brought up some interesting points. Until fairly recently (i.e., the 1970s), a full nine inning game used to take less than 2.5 hours. Of course, most of them weren’t broadcast on TV. Now, with multiple cable sports networks showing every team and every game, you have to add another 2.5 minutes for commercials at every mid-inning break (or five additional minutes per inning) thereby increasing the length of the game by another 45 minutes. Once you factor in the TV commerical breaks made during pitching changes, it’s very easy to see how a typical baseball game can go well over the 3.5 hour mark.
Depends on your POV. I hated that crap (the Korean players flipping their bats). You thought it was cool. I thought it was obnoxious. I personally hate the “look at me” crap that sports has devolved into. Baseball is one of the only sports left that a player can get reminded that he shouldn’t act outside the bounds of good taste, which has been established over 100 years of playing the game. Don’t like it? Ok. Don’t watch it.
Ozzie Smith running out to SS and doing a backflip wasn’t showing up any pitcher or opposing team. He did it once in a while, at the beginning of a game. I don’t recall him doing a backflip after he slid into home, hit a home run, or made a great play in the field. Big difference.
Please. Chris Rock isn’t a racist because of his famous “Niggas vs. Black People” routine? Hate to tell you, but Chris Rock is very smart. That bit was for a primarily white audience. Catch Chris Rock with a mostly black audience, and his comedy is a bit different. He slams white people for amusement. The man knows his audience, and alters his material for the appropriate group.
His baseball rant was an incredibly racist viewpoint.
I know Chris Rock was going for shock value here, but I found it offensive.
If a white comedian did a bit about how white men have disappeared from the NBA (except for the occasional outlier or benchwarmer), there would be outrage.
Baseball doesn’t appeal to black people? So what?
I’ve loved baseball since I was 5. The game has changed since then, but it is still close enough to what I grew up with that I still love it. My team (the Pirates) lost for 2 straight decades and I still love them and the sport.
Now that I am in my 40’s, am I part of the problem? I don’t want baseball to change much. I like the fact that showboating is frowned on. If a batter admires a home run, I want him to get some chin music the next time up. It’s been that way forever, and that works for me.
I don’t care if there are 9 white guys, 9 black guys, 9 latinos, 9 asians, or 9 martians playing for the Pirates as long as they win.
This is a non-story, however people like Bryant Gumbel (one of the most pompous black racists on the planet) give Chris Rock a platform to spew his nonsense to get people talking about how we need to fix a problem. What problem?
Roberto Clemente was my hero growing up. I am white. He was not.
If a black kid loves baseball and can’t find a black player to relate to, there are plenty of white, latino, and other players to choose from. People like Gumbel and Rock think this is a problem in need of a solution. It’s not.
Baseball doesn’t need jazzed up… I don’t want to hear loud music between every pitch (any of it… rock, country, jazz, rap, etc.). I don’t want to go to a baseball game and see an NBA production.
Or maybe the problem is deeper. And within the black community itself. The latest statistic I’ve heard is that over 50% of black kids grow up in a fatherless household. Perhaps having a father involved makes the sport of baseball easier to aquire for a young kid if he/she gets to enjoy the game with and through their dad’s excitement for the sport.
Just a thought… Probably racist. :dubious:
Too much ignorance to fight here. Go to a game in southern California and tell me fans are old and white. :rolleyes:
Every point in this post is wrong. Wish an Angel hitter could bat 1.000.
Chirs Rock should read the book “Raceball” by Rob Ruck for a good discussion on the topic. In modern baseball their are so many foreign players because 1. they are cheaper than American players and 2. countries like Venezuela and the Dominican Republic have huge sections of their economy who’s #1 purpose is to create MLB players.
Its interesting. Ruck says they start out quite young in finding the best athletes and they will start making those kids work hours everyday on getting better. They have whole institutions - schools, camps, whatever you want to call them but they do nothing more than work with these kids hours everyday on making them better baseball players. This is also why in the little league world series you’ll notice those players look so much older. How do they get away with that? Again its a whole country system and they will have birth records changed.
Here in the US I can tell you as a parent that once a kid gets above even age 10 the game gets pretty hard core. Its actually hard to find just a “rec” league centered around kids just playing for fun. Kids in upper levels like AA leagues practice year around, even in January. When my kid was doing it even at age 7 his baseball “season” lasted from March to November. AA and above teams go to tournaments all over the country. To be at that level parents hire special coaches.
Because of that thats partly why so many black athletes dont get into baseball. Its cheap and easy to get good at say basketball if you have good athletic talent but baseball requires so much specialty coaching. Remember they are growing up to compete with those Venezuelan kids who have worked out 6 hours a day since they were 8.
Another big difference, with high school football the schools best football players play for their school. However with baseball (and now soccer) and all the club teams, often the best players do NOT play for their school and just play for their club teams.
I’d like to also point out to you all that dont go to MLB games often, at the ballparks they have become more kid and family friendly. For example they have added playgrounds and areas where kids can play. They have these events where kids can go out on the field at the end of them game and run bases. Often they let kids play catch in the outfield. On “Scout Night” our kids will actually, after the game has ended, be allowed back onto the field where they can pitch tents in the outfield and “camp” there. They show movies all night long on the jumbotron.
A fair point, but it has NOTHING to do with “white” values.
Bob Gibson wasn’t white, but he knocked down batters he thought had shown him up.
This one quote shows how you really don’t get what he’s talking about (also what in the heck was “White Men Can’t Jump” about then?). Look at the stands in an NBA Playoff games - you’ll find tons of white folks as well as black folks as well. If all of a sudden, the affluent white fans started to not watch basketball, you’d definitely see a bunch of commentary on how do we reverse that trend.
FWIW, you ever look at the crowd for the “Niggas vs. Black People” routine? It’s almost all black… so sorry, it wasn’t some calculating bit so Rock could be a stealth racist to steal all off the white people’s stuff (or something).
So… you are trying to fight ignorance by being wrong? 
Yes, this is 2013 and television demos (so will likely over count older and whiter fans a little bit, but look at the comparison with other sports), but 50% of MLB’s fans are over 55 years old and 83% of the fans are white.
That article lost me when it tried to use the Superbowl TV audience as evidence that “football dominates the world of sports.”
The Superbowl is an anomaly. Far more than any other sporting event televised in America, it has people watching it for the ads, or the halftime show, or because their buddies invited them to a party, rather than because they have any interest in football.
Yes, but youth sports participation is down across the board over the last decade or more. According to this article, the only youth sports that saw an increase in participation from 08-12 were lacrosse and hockey.
I think the grown-ups take it too seriously. They’re sucking the fun out of youth sports. As someone in this thread said, it’s tough to find a “recreational” league. Not just for baseball, but for any sport. If you turn kids off at a young age, guess what, they won’t like the sport when they’re older.
What MLB stadium lets kids camp out in tents in the outfield? Sounds like a minor league promo event.
Football is in fact the largest of North American pro sports leagues in terms of annual revenue, most of which is earned before the Super Bowl rolls around, but “dominates” really isn’t the right verb. Major League Baseball is in fact very, very close behind it, and according to Forbes, MLB actually makes more revenue per team (it has two fewer franchises) though less profit.
In terms of the WORLD of sports, soccer is, by far, the world’s most revenue-generating sport. No one top tier soccer league is anywhere near as big as the NFL or Major League Baseball, but European top tier soccer alone pulls in well over 10 billion euro a year.
[QUOTE=astorian]
Bob Gibson wasn’t white, but he knocked down batters he thought had shown him up.
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This. I don’t get why flamboyance in baseball is being associated with black players; I’ve never noticed a difference. Bob Gibson was a rather extreme example - Bob Gibson would have thrown a gravy boat at his mother’s head on Thanksgiving day if he thought she was a bit too arrogant about her mashed potatoes - but a rundown of MLB’s top black players does not strike me as being a gallery of showboats, while a rundown of showboats does not strike me as being devoid of white faces.
Growing up watching the Blue Jays, the most demonstrative players in their glory years were, by far, Dave Stieb, who was a white boy from Orange County, and George Bell, a black guy from the Dominican (San Pedro de Macoris, of course) who doesn’t count as “African-American.” I don’t recall any of the African-American players being particularly showboaty. Devon White, who’s more or less African-American - he was born in Jamaica but moved to New York when he was a kid - played in Toronto for five years, said maybe nine words, and never seemed particularly overcome with emotion about anything.
You don’t actually need to look at the Superbowl for evidence of that - TV ratings for regular season games are massive compared to other American sports (now its a product of reduced supply of games, of course, but things like Sunday Night Football are up there in the highest rated TV series).