What is the Point of Playing in the Rain?

[UMP25]

[QUOTE=PeteBooth]

Baseball is no longer "America's pastime" Baseball is strictly a Regional sport

Hardly. That's a ridiculous assertion, and if it were true, the same could be said about other sports that play their games every day or almost every day of the week.

One thing most people are forgetting is that when baseball's ratings were highest, it was during the days when we didn't have hundreds of channels to now watch. All sports, baseball among them, now suffer from perceived lack of interest and viewer decline. The same can be said about many good prime time television shows. With so many choices for viewers to make, simple numbers alone would tell anyone that ratings just aren't gonna be that high anymore.

[PeteBooth]

[QUOTE][QUOTE=UMP25]

Originally Posted by PeteBooth

Hardly. That's a ridiculous assertion,

How is that rediculous

Example: Who was watching the Rockies / D-backs series unless you live in Arizona or Colorado however,

The Pats vs. the Cowboys generated a National audience.

A better example: In the regular season Yanks vs. Mets generate a large audience in NY but outside of NY do you think people care about Mets vs. Yanks

That's the difference. Unless one of your baseball teams is in the playoffs the majority of the country couldn't care less.

Regardless of what you think Baseball IS a Regional Sport not a National Sport.

Pete Booth

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by PeteBooth

How is that rediculous

Example: Who was watching the Rockies / D-backs series unless you live in Arizona or Colorado however,

And it does not help that the series ended around 2:00 am (Eastern) on a Monday night. Even the biggest fan on the eastern side of the country probably did not stay up to watch that series.

The NFL does a much better job marketing their sport and allowing the average public to watch their sport. The NFL Championship game is a national event and holiday.

You can talk about attendance all you want to, but there are college stadiums that fill a stadium with 100,000 people and their team is sorry (Michigan was 0-2 and they filled their stadium every week and I was there during the Oregon game). The Atlanta Braves in their most successful period almost never sold out their stadium when they made the playoffs year in and year out.

Baseball does not get the best athletes anymore from this country and the average public is not paying attention at the most interesting time of the season (or what is supposed to be). When I have more people watching a youth sport that has no news coverage compared to a sport that is in the paper or covered in the media, there is a problem. Ump25, you and I live in an area where a few years ago the Gatorade Player of the Year in Baseball came from (Neuqua Valley Pitcher, who I cannot even think of his name right now) and I have not seen or heard anything about him since he entered the Minors but when I talked to his coach last season). Illinois Mr. Basketball 2007 was featured on an ESPN SportsCenter Highlight during Midnight Madness (practice) this past weekend. And you wonder why kids are not playing baseball?

Peace

[UMP25]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

The NFL does a much better job marketing their sport and allowing the average public to watch their sport. The NFL Championship game is a national event and holiday.

Play the Super Bowl as a 7-game event and it no longer WILL be a national event or holiday. You're comparing apples and oranges again.

You can talk about attendance all you want to, but there are college stadiums that fill a stadium with 100,000 people and their team is sorry (Michigan was 0-2 and they filled their stadium every week and I was there during the Oregon game).

Does Michigan play 162 games each season? Do they play almost every day of the week? No. If they did, would they draw 100,000 each game? Heck no!

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by UMP25

Play the Super Bowl as a 7-game event and it no longer WILL be a national event or holiday. You're comparing apples and oranges again.

MLB could not beat out a regular season football game with two teams that are in "small markets" on a prime time stage. This is the post season; I would expect a so-called "major" sport to beat out any regular season game during their post season. And this was a game that determines who is going to the World Series, not just a Divisional Series and with teams that just barely made the playoffs. The NBA Playoffs run during the basketball season and I do not think they consistently get beat by national MLB coverage during the same time in ratings. And their ratings are not that good either during the highest stage.

Originally Posted by UMP25

Does Michigan play 162 games each season? Do they play almost every day of the week? No. If they did, would they draw 100,000 each game? Heck no!

Michigan is the example I used. I could have talked about any number of programs across the country and they fill their stadiums even when their teams are horrible.

Also the fact you keep talking about 162 games also makes my point. The season is too long. And MLB does not market their players very well at all. NFL Players wear helmets and the average fan would know who many of their top players are without their helmets. I cannot name 5 guys that played in the game last night that I knew anything about. Even last year there were several players that were top players in MLB and the ratings were terrible.

The bottom line is MLB is no longer the America's Past time. Kids do not play it as a playground game anymore (they do not even play video games with the MLB logo without making the game freakishly arcade-like and totally unrealistic). When they do play it is so organized I wonder if the kids are actually having any fun. And the major pro league does not even let the public know who their best players are and I am sure the scandals do not help either. When I was a kid I knew all the top players and there as not the 24 ESPN and Sports cycles the way there is today.

Just admit this sport is not what it was and likely will never be. The next thing you will tell me is Hockey is still relevant.

Peace

[UMP25]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

The NBA Playoffs run during the basketball season ...

I would certainly hope so, or they'd NEVER get any viewers.

Michigan is the example I used. I could have talked about any number of programs across the country and they fill their stadiums even when their teams are horrible.

Again, would they fill their stadiums if they played almost every day of the week? You still haven't answered that.

Also the fact you keep talking about 162 games also makes my point. The season is too long.

Every professional sports team is too long, the NBA and the NHL the longest. (The NBA is the only sport that spans all four seasons of the year--beginning in autumn and ending in summer.)

Just admit this sport is not what it was and likely will never be. The next thing you will tell me is Hockey is still relevant.

I won't admit it because it's not true. And what's hockey?

[jimpiano]

The NFL owes it popularity, in part, to gambling. More people bet on pro football than any other sport, from legal bookmaking in Las Vegas, to illegal bookmaking everywhere else down to the thousands of office pools. That transceneds into more people interested in watching the games.

[JRutledge]

Numbers do not lie. If all you have is the number of games as apart of your argument than baseball is in very big trouble. None of that has anything to do with why the average public does not know anything about top players all over the country. Todd Helton has been a long time player on the Rockies and I bet the average person would not know him if he robbed them at gun point and he wore a Rockies Jersey on.

The NFL has a network. ESPN runs NFL programming off-season. NFL Films captivates the passion of the sport of football. The NFL Draft is not only an event, but a major production on two networks.

The NBA has a network also. ESPN also runs NBA programming during the off-season until the regular season. The NBA can have a lot of scandal and everyone is talking about their top players even when they are involved in the scandal.

MLB cannot fill certain stadiums during the post-season. When the Cubs, Yankees and Red-Sox do not play in the post season the public stops watching the post season. MLB did not even market their best moment of the year, instead let speculation and other scandal tamper with something that is not proven.

Once again, it is the MLB Post-Season. You should be able to crush NFL games with teams that will not even make the playoffs. Maybe baseball was once a big deal, but it certainly is not that way anymore. And the numbers of how many kids are playing it is also a factor in that whether you or I want to accept it or not.

Peace

[SanDiegoSteve]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

The bottom line is MLB is no longer the America's Past time. Kids do not play it as a playground game anymore (they do not even play video games with the MLB logo without making the game freakishly arcade-like and totally unrealistic). When they do play it is so organized I wonder if the kids are actually having any fun. And the major pro league does not even let the public know who their best players are and I am sure the scandals do not help either. When I was a kid I knew all the top players and there as not the 24 ESPN and Sports cycles the way there is today.

Just admit this sport is not what it was and likely will never be. The next thing you will tell me is Hockey is still relevant.

Peace

First, I don't recall baseball ever beating out football for ratings. That's not breaking news. But I don't know what playgrounds are like in your area, but out here I see pickup games played by kids all the time. Stickball, Wallball, 3 Flys Up, Pepper, regular hardball, or whatever. There is the world famous annual OMBAC Over-The-Line tournament (played with softballs, but by baseball fans and players) that grows in popularity every year.

Baseball is still alive and well here on the West Coast. Sure, when I was a kid I knew who all the top stars were. I also knew who all the everyday players were. I had shoeboxes full of baseball cards and those little metal discs that were so cool. I could quote stats all day. That was a different time then. There is so much more for kids to do these days and not as much emphasis is being placed on the traditions of the game. Today's youth doesn't give a crap about who Willie Mays or Joe DiMaggio were. But the last I checked, there are still millions of adult baseball fans who have been fans all their lives, and they still consider baseball to be the American Pastime. So many people live and breathe baseball. The kids who don't care haven't taken over anything yet.

[UMP25]

Steve,

There is one irrefutable fact that JR cannot deny: Baseball is still America's nostalgic sport, a game that has charm and character unlike any sport. No other sport has served as integral a part of our nation's history as has Baseball.

Its charm, its allure, its history, its nostalgia, its sense of wonderment and more has not been matched at all by football, basketball, or any other sport.

James Earl Jones's character in Field of Dreams says it quite well, BTW. His speech on Ray's field brings some tears to my eyes every time I hear it.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by SanDiegoSteve

First, I don't recall baseball ever beating out football for ratings. That's not breaking news. But I don't know what playgrounds are like in your area, but out here I see pickup games played by kids all the time. Stickball, Wallball, 3 Flys Up, Pepper, regular hardball, or whatever. There is the world famous annual OMBAC Over-The-Line tournament (played with softballs, but by baseball fans and players) that grows in popularity every year.

There are not doing it anymore. Not a bunch of kids all by themselves with no dids around. I do see kids all the time shooting at a basket or playing some kind of basketball game at a park or in a recreational center. I see more adults playing softball or 16' softball than I ever seen any kids doing this.

When I was a kid we played all kinds of baseball type games before all this organized baseball became popular.

Originally Posted by SanDiegoSteve

Baseball is still alive and well here on the West Coast. Sure, when I was a kid I knew who all the top stars were. I also knew who all the everyday players were. I had shoeboxes full of baseball cards and those little metal discs that were so cool. I could quote stats all day. That was a different time then. There is so much more for kids to do these days and not as much emphasis is being placed on the traditions of the game. Today's youth doesn't give a crap about who Willie Mays or Joe DiMaggio were. But the last I checked, there are still millions of adult baseball fans who have been fans all their lives, and they still consider baseball to be the American Pastime. So many people live and breath baseball. The kids who don't care haven't taken over anything yet.

And it is alive in Texas and Florida and even Louisiana where it is warm most of the year. No arguing that. But in the Midwest Basketball is clearly king and many kids play football and basketball and never want to play baseball.

And my contention was not about the adults. But there is going to come a time when the people who grew up watching baseball are not going to be around anymore. When I was a kid a lot of African-Americans wanted to play baseball. Now it is rare to even see a team with a lot of Black kids even want to play baseball. Hispanics are playing more baseball than African-American kids and in some cases the African-American kids are some of the better athletes and would easily transition to baseball. ESPN did a story about college conferences like the MEAC and the SWAC which are all Traditionally Black Institutions and most of them hardly had a single Black kid on those teams. And these are schools were well over 95% are Black. I have been to HS where the entire Basketball Team is Black and the entire baseball team is white.

Peace

[UMP25]

Originally Posted by PeteBooth

How is that rediculous

Example: Who was watching the Rockies / D-backs series unless you live in Arizona or Colorado however,

The Pats vs. the Cowboys generated a National audience.

Thank you for proving my point. I'll reiterate: the NFL doesn't play games 7 days a week to oversaturate TV.

Originally Posted by PeteBooth

A better example: In the regular season Yanks vs. Mets generate a large audience in NY but outside of NY do you think people care about Mets vs. Yanks

Actually, that's a worse example that further proves my point.

[JJ]

I wonder how much the playing "late night" hours has impacted the viewing and ratings. I also wonder (wish...pray, actually) that MLB will someday go back to daytime games for at least some of these playoff games. If they want to develop a future audience and fans, they need to cater to the kids who WANT to watch these games but whose responsible parents won't let them stay up to do so.

JJ

[jimpiano]

Originally Posted by JJ

I wonder how much the playing "late night" hours has impacted the viewing and ratings. I also wonder (wish...pray, actually) that MLB will someday go back to daytime games for at least some of these playoff games. If they want to develop a future audience and fans, they need to cater to the kids who WANT to watch these games but whose responsible parents won't let them stay up to do so.

JJ

There are not enough viewers in the daytime, certainly not enough in the prime demographic that sports sponsors want, 25-50 year old men.

[SanDiegoSteve]

Originally Posted by PeteBooth

How is that rediculous

Not to be grammar police or anything, because mine be/are atrocious at times, but there is no such word as "rediculous." It is actually "ridiculous." Just thought you might like to know how ridiculous it looks.

Originally Posted by PeteBooth

Example: Who was watching the Rockies / D-backs series unless you live in Arizona or Colorado

I live in San Diego. I am a Padres fan. Have been all my life. Don't really care much for the Rockies. However, I watched the entire series, rooted hard for the Rockies (because I detest the D-Backs), and thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing, especially the sweep and celebration last night.

I love baseball. I think many people around the country enjoy watching the playoffs, regardless of whether or not "their" team is playing.

Here in California, we get a mix of people from all over the country. It is one giant melting pot. The bars here were full of Rockies and Diamondbacks fans, probably people from those areas. We do get a lot of Zonies here year-round.

Originally Posted by PeteBooth

Regardless of what you think Baseball IS a Regional Sport not a National Sport.

Again, not exactly true. I know of many, many fans of certain teams who live in parts of the country where there are no teams. For example, there are many Cubs and Cardinals fans living in the mid-west who live hundreds of miles from any professional baseball. That doesn't change the fact that baseball has always been America's Pastime. Baseball continues to be a national sport, as well as a national treasure.

Originally Posted by PeteBooth

A better example: In the regular season Yanks vs. Mets generate a large audience in NY but outside of NY do you think people care about Mets vs. Yanks

Yes. Many people I know absolutely love it when there is a subway series. Baseball fans are that way. If a match-up is a particularly interesting one, a true baseball fan will follow it as if it were his own home team playing. I believe you are wrong to assume that people outside of any given market are apathetic when it comes to good baseball.