Major League Baseball has an abusive relationship with fans. You know, the people who root, root root for the home team and pay extortion prices for peanuts and Cracker Jack at the old ballgame. You know, the people who make the old ballgame possible.
The old ballgame just ain’t what it used to be. Greed is the sport now; baseball is a byproduct. Neither owners nor players can ever get enough money, and they refuse to work as a team to put the game before their selfishness. So, once again, they are holding hostage the Great American Pastime.
It’s past time we stopped romanticizing baseball at the Major League level. There may be no “play ball” this year, after the first games of the season were canceled a few days ago. Players and owners failed to agree on how to share an embarrassment of riches.
These brats masquerading as grown men have taken their balls and gone home three times now in a little over 40 years, calling off parts or entire seasons, canceling the boys of summer and leaving fans shaking their heads in disgust.
And for what? For a petty squabble over who gets a more obscene amount of money.
Let’s be clear. To call this a labor dispute is a slap in the face of the broad swath of Americans who actually have to work for a living. The greediness of owners and players has already cost the game millions of fans who are repulsed by the upending of what was once considered our national game.
The average MLB player earns $4.1 million a year — 133 times the pay of the average American. Team owners are even more ridiculously rich, starting with poor Cincinnati Reds owner Robert Castellini, who’s only worth an estimated $400 million, on up to New York Mets owner Steven Cohen, who’s worth an estimated $16 billion.
These people — players, owners, and those advising them — are burying the game they claim they love, which already was dying on the pro level. Consider these trends:
In 2019 (the last season not impacted by COVID), 68.5 million people went to a live MLB game. That’s the lowest annual total since 2003 and a 13% decline from the peak year, 2007.
TV viewership of pro baseball has plummeted. Not even 14 million people watched the 2019 World Series. More people routinely watch “NCIS.” World Series viewership has declined steadily since the peak in 1978, when 44 million people tuned in.
Since 1937, Gallup has occasionally polled Americans on the question, “What is your favorite sport to watch?” In 1960, baseball was far and away the leader, at 34 percent, followed by football at 21 percent. By 2017, just 9 percent of Americans said baseball was their favorite.
It’s no coincidence that these declines accelerated after baseball stoppages began a few decades ago. But pro baseball’s big shots don’t seem to care.
Fans of the game need not despair. The game will go on — at parks, Little Leagues, high schools, colleges and minor leagues. Plan to frequent these ballparks to see what real love of the game looks like. Sit in the stands and enjoy a warm summer breeze and a cold beverage (at a third or less of the MLB ballpark price).
If and when MLB gets its act together, it will, as it always does, announce it is finally ready to wander back into fans’ lives. This time, scorned fans should ask themselves whether they should take pro baseball back.
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