MLB 2022: The Long and Winding Thread

P is for pitchers, and instead of their uniform numbers, the programs had numbers in them for each team's staff usually done in alphabetical order. So you had to buy a scorecard or you had no idea. 1st was for the first game's score if there was a doubleheader.

 

Thanks. The scorecard bit was what threw me off, and of course a young whippersnapper like me (47 next week) doesn’t think in terms of regularly scheduled doubleheaders.

 

Considering the teams that were in the playoffs, it wasn't a very attractive matchup.
Also, even a close series these days has very few good games. I noticed this in the NBA too. The way teams now handle rest and workload leads to worse games. Whichever team gets ahead uses their A bullpen arms, and the one that's losing uses their B pitchers, meaning the most likely outcome is that each game gets less close as it progresses, which might be wise in terms of trying to win the series, but it doesn't yield compelling games.

One other point I've seen that makes sense: Teams are so conscious not to let pitchers see hitters a third time around the order, with good reason. The numbers are nearly universally terrible. The more they face each other, the advantage is overwhelmingly to the hitter. And yet, they keep bringing in the same relievers to face the same hitters night after night in a long series with the same effect. They don't forget these lessons overnight.,

 

True.

In 1957 the TV ratings for the World Series would likely have been much higher.

 

I just did.

 

Fix baseball by making it like when it was when 90% of its rapidly aging fanbase loved it most.

I don’t think that’s the best strategy for long-term growth.

 

Back when it was the national pastime?

I think most of the changes MLB has made since 1968 are the better example of a failed strategy.

 

This will help even more. LOVED the old four-page scorecards.

 

When it was the national pastime it cost $30 to take a family of four to a game and little Bobby and Jimmy had to be in the bath by 8. Now they have cell phones and you can audibly hear their eye rolls.

Axing the DH isn’t fixing that.

 

Baseball and the World Series were in ratings decline long before the arrival of cell phones.

Bobby and Jimmy still have a bedtime.

And football numbers - subject to the same inflated prices and competition from other entertainments - have only gone up, up, up across the same period.

 

Football isn’t baseball. And they’ve rapidly evolved their rules and how they market their sport. You want to regress baseball.

 

Not at all. I want to undo 50 years of greed, complacency, bloat and bad management.

Baseball is watered down, overexposed and coasts on its history.

Its version of 'evolution' has only made the game worse.