I think you missed NDP’s point, which is not that baseball has a shorter season, but that baseball has been more conservative in expanding the length of its season. The regular season has only grown from 154 games in 1901 to the 162 played today, plus 7 to 12 additional playoff games. The NFL, by comparison, has gone from 12 to 16 regular season games - a comparatively larger expansion, in a shorter period of time, plus has gone from one playoff weekend to four playoff weekends plus the layoff weekend before the Super Bowl, just since WWII.
The NBA and NHL have vastly expanded their seasons, of course, and have interminable playoff periods. You could play the entire baseball postseason, then play the entire baseball posdtseason again, AND have a week to schedule a full Sunday of NFL playoff games in the time it takes the NBA to conclude its postseason.
I think the glut of teams that makes it to the NBA’s postseason is much more dulling than the length of the baseball season. Why even celebrate making the playoffs when a) forty other teams did and 2) you’re nowhere near the end.
Well I barely consider baseball a sport. I think the fact that they play so many games is a testament to (absent the pitchers) how undemanding it is. My big problem with baseball, however, is the sheer number of meaningless games. Once a team is out of contention then there really isn’t a point. They can rarely act as spoilers given the number of games and there’s no relegation to worry about. It compounds and already boring activity imho.
Bill Veeck, former owner of the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox (as well as the St. Louis Browns), once said, “There are only three things wrong with the baseball season: it starts too soon, it ends too late, and there are too many games in between.” Some people considered him a kook; some considered him a visionary. I find the use of those two words is often interchangable.
I don’t know the mathematics involved but I thought that when they added the extra round of playoffs they should have gone back to a 154-game season. That way they wouldn’t be playing the World Series on late October nights in 40 degree weather. Of course, they would never do that because they’d lose eight games worth of revenue.
A friend once suggested that the World Series should always be played in Hawaii. His reasoning: If there’s a five hour time difference between Honolulu and New York City, they could start the games at 3:00pm local time and broadcast them on the East Coast at 8:00pm. Old time purists would be able to watch World Series games played in the daylight and you’d never have to worry about the weather.
Sometimes I consider him a kook; other times I consider him a visionary.
I completely understand and concur logically, I’m just trying to capture more of why baseball and basketball don’t move me as a sports fan. When the amazing perfect game gets pitched, or a beautiful game-winning put out is thrown, it means very little in context of the season. Game #78 is won, yet little is really accomplished overall except a tally in a statistic checkbox as game #79 through #xxx are waiting. This is why in those sports, and also hockey, I usually give the entire regular season a miss and just watch some key playoff matchups that interest me. Because those games matter, the athletes know that they matter, and the coaches and athletes play like it matters. That is quality sport to me.
If the Boston Marathon were run multiple times over two weeks and the winner became the person who collected the most race points over the series, then I think your analogy would be more accurate. And it would also greatly devalue the race and the appreciation of the individual efforts of the athletes by the fans.
Except that baseball fans appreciate the individual athletes, even in one game over a season. If you hit three home runs to win a game in July, you can bet the fans appreciate it. Same if you pitch a no hitter.
The long season means more baseball. If your a baseball fan, that’s a good thing. If your team loses, there’s always tomorrow, not a week’s wait.
This is why I find the MLB playoff structure to be so strange. You play this huge number of games to really accurately determine the best teams, and then have short playoff series to determine the champion.
Well, as RealityChuck noted, one of the reasons you play this huge number of games is because baseball fans want to watch (/listen to/read about) a huge number of games. More baseball is an end in itself.
That may be true for you, but for many people going to a baseball game is a fun activity on its own regardless of who is playing. It’s just another entertainment option. Teams out of contention, with some notable exceptions, don’t draw as many fans. But the hardcore fans will still go to watch their favorite players or see if any new ones are coming up to play.
However, I do think you underestimate how physically demanding the sport is for the players. If they weren’t getting tired, baseball wouldn’t have problems with players taking amphetamines. A problem that has been going on for decades.
Relegation would never work in baseball unless you completely changed the relationships between the major and minor leagues. You’re not going to be able to get rid of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and bring up the PCL champs to take their place. There would be about 10,000 things that would need to be changed.
Not doubting that at all. Baseball is part of the American pysche.
Is that so they can stay awake during the game? Most players bulk up to hit, to get more power. Other than that, there’s not a tremendous amount of sheer athleticism in the game (aside from the incredible skill it takes to hit the ball).
Absolutely agree. It would, however, make for a very interesting season!
Staying up every night takes its toll. Then shifting to a day game makes it worse: you don’t get home until well after midnight and have to be back at the ballpark by 11 am or so.
And there’s plenty of athleticism in baseball – just watch the players in the field playing defense. You don’t need it on every play, but when it’s needed, you can see it.
I’ve played it and I can see the athleticsim but really, any game where you can use a tobacco product whilst playing doesn’t exactly stack up against the likes of soccer or baseball.
Really? That 55.5% winning percentage in the MLB is more valid than the 56.25% winning percentage in the NFL? Who’da thunk it!
The length of the MLB season is an outdated notion in my way of thinking. In a time where there were limited sports options and baseball was largely an in-person spectator sport, it was an advantage to have a game almost every day. Now, it essentially dilutes fan interest. The purist and die-hard fan loves it, but it makes it less accessible to new fans. I do appreciate that I have 81 chances to soak in Wrigley field, but most franchises don’t have a ballpark that is such an attraction. I love baseball and the Cubs, but at this time of year my interest is at a painfully low level. Ideally right about now, when football is just warming up, would be when you’d want the pennant chaces to be starting in earnest. I think it’s horrible that we watch World Series games (and opening days for that matter) where the weather is sub-zero and cancellations due to snow are a real likelihood.
It’s true that the length of the season separates one team from another due to attrition, but it’s arguable if it’s a particularly good thing. I don’t find attrition to make for compelling viewing. Yes current rosters have to account for the length of the year, but that’s a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg argument. A season that was 140 games long or a 100 games long would morph into it’s own test of mettle and stamina. You’d see more 4-man rotations and fewer stars crippled by injury. I think that’d create more fans and more star players becoming household names.
Of course, all that said, baseball is a reasonably healthy sport right now, so if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Profits are up but I think overall fan enthusiasm is down, guess which is important to the powers that be?
