What is the Point of Playing in the Rain?

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by UMP25

Steve, you can continue this conversation. I'm done talking to a wall.

I never said other sports have absolutely no allure or charm; rather, I said no other sport has the allure, charm, and nostalgia that baseball has. This simply is fact based not on my personal opinion

Well the fact is that MLB Playoffs did not get an audience to watch their sport over a regular season NFL game with both teams from small markets and one of the teams without a win. That is a fact, not a personal opinion. And the rating for the showcase of the sport has been abysmal over several years. Even when the Red Sox won the World Series, the ratings were terrible and that featured another "great baseball town" in that championship run. If all you can get is high ratings when one franchise in New York is playing, the sport has some serious marketing issues.

Originally Posted by UMP25

--Lord knows baseball has its problems--but is based on the totality of Baseball and its longtime place in American history. Movies, books, stories, trading cards, pickup games, father/son relationships, its lingo and insertion into everyday lexicon, etc., etc. Football, college or pro, doesn't have this. Basketball doesn't have this. And soccer, arguably the world's most "popular" sport, doesn't have it--at all.

Baseball was and is.

The facts are also that at the HS level, it is the 4th on the list of popularity. And I see more kids bouncing around a ball that is twice their size than I ever see a two kids throwing around a baseball with gloves in hands. There are more Michael Jordan fans with the man retired than there is of any retired baseball player. And the fact is that Jordan can show up to a HS game and they have to shut the place down to allow him to watch his son's play basketball. Billy Williams can do the very same thing with his Grandson and the man can watch the game in peace. Those are facts too.

Now I loved having this conversation because it is like talking around the bar about which team is better and why. These kinds of debates are what make sports fun and very enjoyable most of the time. Watching the actual games is only part of the fun.

But to act like facts are only based on "Well they wrote more books" is kind of silly to me. Hockey has a lot of history and passion but look where that sport is today. They played their games on a network that no one could find on most cable stations. Even the NFL Hall of Fame presentations are watched more than what MLB does during their presentation. So if they are so special, the general public is not watching and they are not as captivated as you are. Oh, did I mention that NFL Pre-season games that play on National TV also have higher ratings than anything MLB does during that same time. Of course people in those local areas might care, but I do not see Network TV trying to cover the great Sox and Yankees pre-season battle. Fox, CBS and NBC put the NFL on Primetime TV during the pre-season. I guess you have to have nostalgia to not make network TV during games that do not count.

Peace