In 1964 at the tender age of 4 yrs old, I became aware of the game of baseball. My mom was watching our old rabbit eared black & white TV yelling at someone. Turns out it was Mickey Mantle. Mom was a huge DiMaggio fan, he walked on water and was both the greatest CF'er of all time and the greatest Yankee ever.

Baseball was the American Pastime back then but through missteps or perhaps arrogance lost that title to football in the late 70's, early 80's. The NBA of Magic, Bird & Michael also passed baseball bye in the 80's or early 90's. The marketing of marquee players and teams in both Football & Basketball were huge advantages while baseball, set in it's ways, remarkably turned a blindeye and continued business as usual.

Personally I was a hardcore fan of Baseball, Basketball, Football & hockey. Unfortunately, basketball lost me when they chose to strike. They discertified their union and then accepted a lesser offer from the owners. It's hard for me to support stupidity and this combined with the continued newspaper headlines of players horrible off court behavior caused me to abandon the sport as little more than a casual observer.

Hockey lost my interest when they too decided to strike, wiping out the Stanly Cup Playoffs. If you aren't aware, the hockey playoffs are continually the most exciting year in and year out. However when hockey returned the wholesale changes to rosters from player movement and retirement left my beloved Islanders as a shadow of the team I followed. So again I became a casual fan. This was especially sad because the Gretzky, Lemeiux, Lindros, Messier led league was also paused to surpass baseball in fan popularity.

Soccer gain traction in this country in the 70's when the NASL brought in the world's top stars to compete here in the states. Youth leagues sprung up across the country. Immigration of foreign nationals continued bringing in a large addition to our population unfamiliar with American sports but starving for the largest sport in their country, Soccer.

Youth soccer has grown, little league has shrunk. Inner city kids are no longer interested in baseball to the point that MLB has tried to rekindle interest with sponsored programs, yet the number of Black players continues to shrink.

So as baseball loses viewership, recovers from the problems of the pandemic and a amateurish marketing strategy, they have decided this is a good time to have a work stoppage.

It is not the players fault, it is not the owners fault. The blame firmly rests with both sides. The owners are billionaires that made their fortunes in other endeavors that afforded them the financial wherewithall to purchase a team. The players are the cream of the crop and while not all earn $100M contracts or more, they do earn enough to be ranked in the top 2% in the US if only making the ML minimum.

Salary increases haven't kept pace with inflation. ML careers are on the average only 3 yrs. MiL players are asked to survive on $800/month, well below the poverty level. Players want an increase in the cap, min. salaries, conditions for MiL players and competitive balance. Owners want things to increase substantially less and slower than the players. They want to be able to pocket as much revenue as possible and put a non competitive team on the field for as long a period of time as they chose.

They players believe they are the most value asset in baseball. The owners believe that without them, baseball would not exist. The truth is that the fans are the most important asset and the most overlooked. Everyone is worried about how to get a bigger slice of a huge pie without any concern for those that create the pie. Without fans baseball would be little more than the barnstorming teams of the early days or the amateur leagues that are only supported by family members. Players would buy their own uniforms & equipment, only play as far as they can drive and still return for the next workday in their paying job. Owners would be faceless businessmen running companies that we know but have no knowledge of who runs them. There would be no TV facetime, trophies, interviews or national recognition.

With the lowest ticket price to a MLB game belong to the Orioles at $52, the average fan would spend over $200 just for tickets. This does not include gas, parking or food. So has going to a game become a vacation destination for some? Are either of the parties in this disagreement aware of what the average fan must sacrifice to go to a game? Do they realize if we find other things to do or turn our attention to that they go the way of AM/FM radio, network TV and all the others that have underestimated the publics need for their product.

Now that games have been lost, and there is no resolution in sight, get comfortable baseball fans, neither side is in a hurry for an agreement. They've had 5 years to lay the groundwork and put together the framework for a new CBA yet chose to wait to the last moment so they could turn up the pressure and see who would cave first. The so called baseball experts state this is the way it's always been done. I find that a strange way to think, for the world changes and keeps doing so. At one time there were multiple leagues, that was the way it was always done. At one time there were 16 teams that played 154 games, that was the way it was always done. Black players were barred from the game, pitchers hit, these too were things that were always done and yet now they have been changed.

When you're business is dying, your focus should be how to keep it alive, not how best to fight over the money that is made. Baseball is no longer king, at 62 I'm part of the last generation that remembers when baseball was the American Pastime. Other sports are more popular, the internet, video games, etc are all consuming the publics spare time and money. So the question becomes, has Baseball on it's own driven the last nail in their casket? Will it become little more than Rugby, Luge, Curling and all the other minor sports that are little more than a blip on the radar?

As for me, I will be a casual fan. I'll follow the Yankees on their site. I may watch a game or so a season, but for the most part it will vanish from my life and that's a shame. I truly loved sports and now that my ability to actually participate is limited it's a shame that those that can don't care if they keep my attention. So we love you Joe DiMaggio, screw you Mickey Mantle you're a bum, lol.

Wow, Grissom, great read. I'm 62 as well, so I also remember the good old days. I was maybe 7 or 8 years old and we were talking on the grade school playground about if we wanted the Orioles or Cardinals to win the world series. I think I said Cardinals. I'm a life-long Royals fan (since their formation in 1969), so, yeah, not so much a fan of the Yankees (**** you, Billy Martin). But anyway, yes it is very sad that we have another lockout. I remember sitting on the front porch with Dad in the summer evenings listening to Royals games on the radio. Maybe as a nation not very many young folks appreciate the Boys of Summer. But in my small town of Fairfax, Iowa, they have a constant rivalry with nearby Norway (where Mike Boddiker and Hal Trosky grew up). So baseball is still alive and well here, at a grade school, high school, and college level. And the college intramural leagues and adult softball ( I played many seasons of slow pitch softball as an aging adult). That's where baseball lives. So, when MLB comes back, I'll come back. It's a great game. It'll survive.

I'm in my 40's. I have some die-hard baseball fan buddies that will always love it, lockout or no lockout, as soon as it's back, they'll be all in. I am in a fantasy baseball league with them, but that is the extent of the my real life baseball fandom. I would like to be more of a fan, but I have a wife that hates all sports, a son that has no interest in sports and a daughter that is still too young, but it looks like she will have little interest in sports as well. So, any sports that I watch are usually watched alone or at a friend's house. I prefer not to watch sports at home because there is either too much commotion going on that will interrupt my enjoyment or too much complaining that I am taking the big tv to watch.

For baseball, though -- even if I found time, there are 162 games in a season. I can't get too excited over what happens in a single game because a single game, from a math perspective, is near meaningless. For me, going to a baseball game is more like going to a restaurant -- it is a place to go with friends and/or family to find some enjoyment. Whether the team you root for wins or loses has little significance.

Will i watch baseball when it comes back? I will say that I will watch baseball as much as I did before. This means I'll watch very little. In fact, I will probably spend more time on YouTube watching interviews with players, analysts, writers, watching highlights, watching stat stories, etc. It's not even that the game is longer and less fun to watch, it is just that there are so many of them that the outcome doesn't matter. When I was younger and my team (Minn Twins) were actually good, i would watch or listen to almost every game. Now, I have a career, a mortgage, a family and other hobbies. I just decide not to make the Twins a priority. Even my beloved Minnesota Vikings have taken a backseat the last five years or so.

Let's not even mention that 30 years ago, there was nothing that gave us instant highlights, instant news, real life box scores from pitch to pitch. In modern times, I can just check the score and box score of the game in seconds. I don't need to be there when Puckett hit that 7th inning three run homer that iced the game. I can just watch it on youtube at my leisure.

I don't think baseball is dead, but I do think that, like always, some fans will have a sour taste in their mouth due to the lockout.

Whose fault is it? It is the owners fault. It is almost always the owners fault. Most of these owners are billionaires and made their money by either doing something extraordinary in the business world or by inheriting their money. What they fail to realize is that picking up a bat and hitting a 95 mph baseball 400+ feet is a skill that very little people in the World have so the skill that the players have is rare and extraordinary, they should get paid what they're worth.

I too remember listening to the radio. Getting a TV of my own allowed me to watch as many Yankee games as were televised. I also remember my dad moving the TV on to the back patio for us to watch the All-Star game when Reggie Jackson hit the lights in Detroit. Sitting outside in the summer air, watching baseball with the family was a special treat and years later I still remember those days when baseball was king.

That was long ago now. Baseball is an after thought to most, a game that moves to slow, that hasn't kept up with the excitement of football, basketball, and for many soccer. It's sad really. The other sports have realized the importance of the players and management working together to build a stronger league, keeping it on solid financial footings. As tlowster mentioned 162 games is a lot. Twice as many as basketball & hockey, ten times more than football. I live in California now, I had Angel season for several years and used it as a write off by giving tickets to customers. Even 81 games were a lot and I found giving tickets away became a chore as the number of customers interested in them diminished over time.

My grandson has attended an Angel game and a couple of MiL games. While he enjoyed them, he has little interest in anything more. Doesn't follow sports at all and leaves the room if I have a game on. This is the future fan for baseball and the other major sports. If you watch a game on TV the number of children at all sporting events are shrinking. Is this because of the cost of a ticket? That probably does enter into the equation. Is it because of the boorish behavior of some of those in attendance? This too has to be a factor.

Sports in general, and baseball more specifically, need to be afraid that they aren't attracting enough young fans. The babyboomer generation is retiring and starting to die off. Without the diehard fans that were produced when we were young and the growth of other distractions that the new generations are flocking to and spending their entertainment dollar on, professional sports of all kinds need to shed their arrogance and be more aware of what others are interested in. As a kid I loved sports but I had friends that had little interest and couldn't be coerced to join us at any cost. Is this now becoming the norm and those into sports the minority, looked at as outcasts and the odd ones? Only time will tell.

Yet this doesn't deter my contention that MLB has made a major mistake in not ensuring there was not work stoppage and loss of games. Personally I think the damage is irreparable and the long term effect will be significant with no opportunity to reach the monetary heights that owners and players foolishly believe will continue to grow no matter how the paying public is treated. It's a sad time and has turned me into one of those people that talks about the good old days when things were not only different but better. So as I stated previously, goodbye baseball, while I'll observe from afar, my days of supporting you monetarily are over.

There's just too many entertainment options competing for eyeballs, especially for kids. Why watch sports stars that are unreachable when kids can interact live with their favorite videogame streamers on platforms like twitch and youtube? When they can get tips on how to play their favorite video game better from a pro or get their favorite streamer's opinion on some random life stuff? Imagine being able to ask Ken Griffey Jr for hitting tips while he steps out of the batter's box in between pitches - that's the level of interaction kids can get now, just not with the major sports.

Great points by Brian and Grissom -- sports execs not attracting young fans and the engagement that the Internet allows young people to get from a video game perspective. My son loves Starcraft II and he now spends hours not only playing the game, but also watching vids created by the pros.

I would add that, due to the current money involved, it us more difficult than ever to keep up as a young athlete. The athletes of today must be fine tuned machines and/or freak athletes to make it big. These fined tuned athletes are going to create entertainment content through more traditional channels. However, even some of the athletes we all know and love retire early and create their own content on YouTube. A young kid can choose to travel the country to get some year round sports playing/training in or can sit and his house creating vids. Both might be seen as work, or even labor's of love to some, but one is much easier than the other.

Saw an anecdotal point raised the other day that the average age of the self-described "core" baseball fan is 57. (My age BTW)

The article also made a crack, not sure if it can be verified or not, that on any given day there might be more kids watching videogame streamers in Brazil, than baseball.

Baseball is already a niche sport, it stood by and didn't care while it was happening because the owners only saw that they kept making cash and that's all that mattered to them.

Among the general public, no one really cares that there aren't baseball games right now, meantime I just saw a week of NFL articles describing how fast some dude ran in practice, and waiting to see what team some old dude wants to play for.

Posted by damag on 3/7/2022 8:15:00 AM (view original):
Saw an anecdotal point raised the other day that the average age of the self-described "core" baseball fan is 57. (My age BTW)

The article also made a crack, not sure if it can be verified or not, that on any given day there might be more kids watching videogame streamers in Brazil, than baseball.

Baseball is already a niche sport, it stood by and didn't care while it was happening because the owners only saw that they kept making cash and that's all that mattered to them.

Among the general public, no one really cares that there aren't baseball games right now, meantime I just saw a week of NFL articles describing how fast some dude ran in practice, and waiting to see what team some old dude wants to play for.

I'm curious to see what Damag thinks about this but as a Canadian and a Toronto Canadian on top of that I am screaming that there may be a season shortage and a potential missed season. After having the Jay's being poor to mediocre for so long, now having shortened seasons and having the Jays top players (Bichette, Gurerro, Biggio etc) coming into their own and Rogers (Jays owners) spending money, there is a lot of interest in baseball in Toronto.

What is tricky is the Maple Leafs and Raptors also have exciting teams and are in playoff hunts. A lost season could end up losing a lot of those young fans in Canada.

1/ Bro, you know the only thing that matters is the Leafs.
2/ Bro, you know the only thing that matters is the Leafs.
3/ Bro, you know the only thing that matters is the Leafs.

SO once the Leafs crap the bed again, Toronto will bum out for the month of June. I was there in 2015, no one really paid attention to what the Jays were doing till they traded for Tulo and went on that crazy August run. So, still plenty of time for 2022 to be fun.

The Union got abused by the owners in the last 2 CBA negotiations. The union has Tony Clark (ex-ballplayer) running things, the owners have Rob Manfred (Lawyer and experienced negotiator) running things. I wonder why the owners have done much better in the negotiations. Clark has to feel the heat, if he doesn't come away with a win this time, he'll be out of a job.

It's unreasonable for the players to get everything back in one shot. Yet here they sit making unrealistic demands. The owners have the upperhand, they've all made their fortunes elsewhere so while they'll lose money, they still have it flowing in.

The players say they are fighting for the younger players yet they continue to raise the cap. They say they want competitive balance and to stop tanking. If they truly cared about the young players and the vets that are being discarded, if they truly cared about stopping tanking and teams trying to compete year in and year out, they would be talking about a floor.

The Yankees, Dodgers and other big spenders fork out $200M+, the bottom rung teams are spending less than $50M, is there any wonder why some teams never compete, is there any wonder why some accomplished vets that can still produce find themselves without a job.

The other day I heard talk about adding another couple teams. Why? It's a dying game, destroyed by those that claim to love it. I've never seen a major sport end and it may not happen in my lifetime but it will happen and it won't be that far in the future. Sears, KMart, Woolworths and many other industry giants have fallen by the wayside so it is probably just a natural progression to see the same happen to parts of the entertainment industry.

The luxury tax is basically acting like a soft salary cap since there are very few teams that go over it. The owners proposed a 100 million dollar floor, but they would only do it if they could lower the luxury tax threshold to around 180 million. I actually think this proposal would help create a more competitive balance, but I see why the players are not for it. All it would do is provide big market teams a disincentive to spend over 180 million and unless there were real financial penalties, the salary floor rule could be continually violated by owners.

I cant find much info on how this floor would be implemented and what would happen if owners violated the floor. If anybody could find more info on that, I'd be grateful.

Salary cap with a floor is the only solution.

The salary cap doesn't help. How do I make this statement? It hasn't to this point and Pittsburgh currently has $22M is salaries and is looking to unload their only player making above the minimum. The floor may be able to force teams to spend more money, the cap basically is something the owners want to control themselves. The cap works in the other sports but can't solve the problem of poor management and ownership, however you don't have the huge dispartiy in payrolls that exist in baseball. The true problem is that neither party wants to work together to keep things moving and to create a stronger product.

Realistically at this point it doesn't matter. If the season starts before June I'll be surprised. The damage is already done and may be beyond repair. The greed of both parties has killed the golden goose and neither party cares.

As long as owners can continue to convince the Public and City Leadership to help fund the creation of stadiums full of restaurants and museums, baseball can survive even as background noise. There is still a boatload of youth baseball played here in Florida, so if it's dying, it's not dying quickly (as grissom has pointed out). While I agree that strikes and lockouts hurt the sport AND I agree that there are other forms of entertainment that young folks flock to more than baseball, because there are so many games played and the new stadiums act as another night life choice, I think baseball can do exactly what they're doing and still survive.

Right now, they're working on themselves and it is beyond maddening because they should be working on things that will fix the on-the-field product. However, it seems like the players are softening on the implementation of rule changes. Maybe we'll see some things like a pitch clock, a culture change that encourages emotion (bat flips, fist pumps, etc.) and fan interaction (cheerleaders, big time players have required face time with media, more prospect coverage, etc.).

My guess is that the majority of the folks that are the most angry about this are the ones that love the game the most. I would wonder if these same folks that love the game so much are the ones that don't want the culture of the game to change. They think the game should be played a certain way and when it isn't played a certain way, they get a 95 mph fastball thrown at them in their next at bat. If we're afraid that the game is dying due to a lack young fans, maybe some of the purist should layoff the fight against bat flips, trots, homerun watching, etc. In general, young people love to see emotion. Go watch South Korean baseball on YouTube. They get it right in a lot of ways.

Finally, we need to see them work on a way to get more balls in play. As much as we love the pitcher/batter duel, some of the best baseball to watch is the glove work in the infield/outfield. I have not heard any creative ways to get more balls in play (I.e. incentives for hits, batting average, stolen bases, plus plays, etc.).

It's back, baby!