Baseball. While the game has often been synonymous with America for decades, times are changing and game attendance is dropping as a result. In fact, this past season was the third consecutive year with a drop in the attendance at MLB games. We live in a world where we can find out anything within a matter of seconds. We can fly anywhere in a day. We can communicate with people and get responses in live time. While this is seen as progressive, it makes us impatient. We are all too used to having everything we want instantly. These societal tendencies are the same thing that plagues baseball today. For a lot of people, it’s just easier to sit at home and get the live updates on your phone than to commit a whole afternoon to the game. Baseball should not just be about your team winning. And people definitely shouldn’t just go the games to get an artsy picture for Instagram. They should go for the experience and the adventure of it. If they care about winning, they should go to the casinos and bet on horses. They’ll know the results within a few minutes. Baseball is for the fans who want to dress up, enjoy a cold beer and a hot dog, and keep the box score.
Aware of the decline in viewing, Major League Baseball has taken precautions to combat the length of games. In 2015, the MLB implemented two new rules. The first was that batters must keep at least one foot in the box at all times, and the second added clocks for inning breaks and pitching changes. These changes cut the time down by a few minutes, but MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred looks to continue his efforts. Last offseason, Manfred proposed the most dramatic change of all, a 20 second pitch clock that would significantly reduce the amount of time between pitches. It was rejected by the MLB Players Association, but there is still a high chance that Manfred will impose the rule unilaterally this year. Manfred’s concern for the business side of baseball is understandable, but this is not the right move with respect to the identity of the game.
There are currently four major professional team sports in the United States: football, basketball, hockey, and of course baseball. They all share similar foundations, except for baseball. Each team tries to score more points than their opponent before the clock runs out. Baseball, however, is extremely different than all of its professional counterparts. It isn’t one team versus the other. It’s one versus nine, every game, every inning and every pitch. It is not a race against the clock. Each pitch is its own battle between the pitcher and the hitter. And a big part of the entertainment comes from the tensions that builds up in a good, long at bat. The pitcher takes a deep breath, spits out a wad of tobacco, leans in and stares down the hitter. The batter adjusts his batting gloves, crosses the plate with his bat then joins the pitcher with an equally focused glare. These are key elements to the game. Without them, baseball as we know it would be a completely different game.
Baseball has always been a sport for the patient, and that’s why so many older people love it. The sport is slow and long, like the evolution of the game itself. But so are movies, books, walks in the park. People don’t want to pay 20 dollars for a ticket to see Boyhood, only to watch the whole transformation of Mason’s life happen in 15 minutes. You need a few hours to fully digest a film like that. Baseball is the same way. There needs to be time between pitches, plays, and innings because it allows for baseball culture to take its roots. When else would you strike up a conversation with the lady next to you who has watched your favorite team play since before you were born. And when else would you have time to record every play in your scorebook so that you can take it home and look at it 20 years from now.
Baseball is not for everybody. That is for sure. But longer games with fewer, yet more authentic fans seem more genuine than two hour games jam packed with younger fans who are there just to update their status. The integrity of the sport involves fans fully indulging in the whole sport. People should not look to speed up the beautiful game that is baseball. Instead, they should take a chance on it. They may be surprised at how intriguing the slow paced game can be.
