MLB 2022: The Long and Winding Thread

What about the people who love the game but have been turned off by some of its problems?

 

I don't understand that. If you love the game you love the game.
These problems were brought into baseball by the same kinds of people who wrecked our government.

 

Is it just me, or did anyone else read that as Reggie Jackson the first time?

 

John-Ford Griffin was part of the deal later immortalized in Moneyball, with Jeff Weaver going to the Yankees and Griffin, Jason Arnold and Ted Lilly to the A’s. The Tigers got Jeremy Bonderman, Franklyn German and Brad Pitt’s nemesis, Carlos Pena
As for Griffin, he hit .304 in 23 at bats in his cup of coffee with the Blue Jays in 2005

 

In the 1930s, when baseball, despite being the most popular team sport, was in its worst economic state ever due to the depression, it faced significant competition in some places, especially the West Coast, from fast pitch softball. But by WW2, that sport had died as a spectator sport (hell of a lot of fun to play as a recreational one) because a good, let alone great fast pitch pitcher is unhittable. People stopped paying money to see a glorified game of catch. IMO that's baseball's primal problem as a spectator sport -- not enough balls in play. Fielding and base-running are the most exciting and entertaining parts of the game, and they are being minimized in favor of, well, unhittable pitching plus the occasional homer. Solutions? I dunno. Would moving back the mound make a difference? Beats me. My personal solution is limit each team to 10 or 11 pitchers on the roster. That way, just throwing your 100 percent stuff 100 percent of the time would be close to impossible, at least during the regular season.

 

You can love the game, but feel like MLB has so much wrong with it that it becomes harder to be invested in the outcomes of games. I haven't really had a rooting interest in a particular team since the early '90s. The main thing that keeps my interest is fantasy baseball. I'll still watch parts of a game, but I rarely sit down and watch one in its entirety. I've been to one game this season. Before that, it had been years.

 

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I would go to more if I could, but as much as I enjoy it the expense simply is not justifiable. Also, as has been said, the TV experience in 2022 is too strong. Nobody needs to go to these games with a kid and be surrounded by brawling assclowns. I'm not paying for that, and MLB is doing nothing about it.

 

Same here. MLB is 80 minutes away, or two hours away, or three hours away. I'm right in the middle of the triangle. But it's just not worth the investment to see it live. I've been to one in the last decade, at Camden Yards.

But when I get some time to myself, I still am likely to find whoever's on TV at the moment, regardless of rooting interest. "mlb schedule" is probably my most-used Google search.

P.S. For people who don't "get around" it, the blackouts hurt MLB as much as anything, IMO. I have four teams blacked out, and that's just ridiculous.

 

Fenway still gets good crowds, but it's like a tourist attraction as much as a fan mecca. And I may add, a most expensive tourist attraction.

 

If 26,000 or so fans went to an average game this year, 13,000 went just for the selfie to post on social media.

 

That a ballgame is a fun social event still is and always has been an integral part of its appeal.