I don't buy it. Traditional day games don't allow kids in school to watch ANYTHING. 7 PM night games allow kids to watch at least the first 3 or 4 innings, even before early bedtimes. Even as a fairly young child my bedtimes were often 9 or 10 because that was what my parents schedule allowed. That would let you watch most of the game.

The MLB doesn't care about people watching games from home, or declining ratings. They make enough revenue from people going to the games and have enough publicity, that they'll always be able to charge the advertising companies regardless. People will still come to the stadiums, the concessions will still pay up to be there...etc..etc.

People (kids) not watching as many games from home, doesn't mean a dang thing... Especially when a lot of younger people just go to a sports bar and watch games now anyways. I can also assure you that big baseball towns in the country are watching baseball morning noon and night, regardless of the times they are on TV. If you aren't apart of that, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Step into Cooperstown, NY sometime... I live about an hour from there, and have many friends that live and breath Baseball in the area.

Posted by dahsdebater on 2/17/2016 4:53:00 PM (view original):

As a person who went through the public school system and a private school in the '90s and early '00s, I can virtually guarantee you that that would not happen now. People just wouldn't see it. If the WS was on during school/work hours, most people would not have the flexibility to watch it live.

You're a smart guy, you know how marketing works. The REASON MLB makes more money off evening broadcasting is precisely BECAUSE more people watch the games. The cost of ad space is directly proportional to predicted viewership.

You're right, the 1971 World Series was the first in history to have SOME of its games played at night. And even the partial advantage of that led to a 25% ratings increase relative to 1970. Ratings didn't drop back down to the 1970 level until the 90s. The decline in World Series viewership has nothing to do with games being played at night. It didn't start until over 2 decades after the games started being played at night. The decline has more to do with reduced pace of game, declining overall interest in the game in the early '90s, and more than anything, I suspect, the proliferation of alternative programming available starting in the late '80s and early '90s.

I agree with everything said here 100%.

People who disagree, need to venture onto the Internet and look at some history and facts. No one is sitting through 3-4 hours of baseball with endless commercials, when they can watch their favorite TV shows and just catch the score from time to time on their phone or computer.

Just because people aren't watching TV, doesn't mean they aren't seeing the results of the game. The MLB, CBS, ESPN...etc..etc all see money form online stuff anyways, so they don't care.

Dahsdebater and lilspike0738 you may be right. I get the logic. But isn't it possible that viewership didn't go down because ADULTS in the 1970s were still watching up to 1990 but KIDS in the 1970s were now adults and did not replace the adults? If so, baseball's problem is structural and it needs to change gears in a big way to once again become the national pastime.

I also must admit that there are very few things I care about less than how much many is being made by any corporate entity, including baseball teams. Teams could and should be owned by the cities or regions they play in, players' contracts could and should be with major league baseball not the individual teams, and the former should negotiate with the players union.

What is good for baseball and what is good for baseball team owners are two different things.

Of course it's possible. I don't think it's very likely.

Again, the point you don't really seem to have a response to is that, in most of the real world, school-age children are going to have a better chance to watch games at 7 PM than 1 PM. Realistically, most parents would probably start letting their kids stay up until 10 to watch a whole game by the time they're 8 or 10 on special occasions (like the World Series). I just am thoroughly unconvinced that moving games to night made them less accessible to the average child. Maybe in your case it did, but I'm willing to bet that's more the exception than the rule.

I'm going to avoid getting into a discussion of the economy of baseball with you because there's literally no chance of us ever seeing eye to eye on that, and for the purposes of this discussion it's not really important.

What catcher caught all 22 innings of an extra inning game?

Posted by italyprof on 2/19/2016 3:43:00 AM (view original):
What catcher caught all 22 innings of an extra inning game?

This sounds like something that Fisk would've done...

Carlton Fisk holds the record with 25 innings caught. May 8, 1984

There have been a few catchers who caught 22+ innings....in addition to Fisk, Paul Casanova of the Senators did it in 1967:
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1967/B06120WS21967.htm

And just a couple of years ago Yorvit Torrealba and Josh Bard did it in the same game:
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2008/B04170SDN2008.htm

There may be other examples.

Each of the questions below considers only records since 1901.

1.) Not including Barry Bonds, or any current or recently retired players who are not yet eligible, every player who has ever led the league in on base percentage 3 or more seasons in a row is in the Hall of Fame, except 1.
2.) In the years 1914-15, the brief presence of the Federal League meant there were 24 MLB teams in 3 leagues. Which player had the highest single-season slugging percentage during that period? As a hint, it was not any of the following: Cobb, Speaker, Jackson, or Cravath.
3.) In the AL's first 19 seasons, the batting title was won by either Cobb or Lajoie 16 times. Who won the other 3? One is easy...the other 2, not so much.
4.) From 1901-49, only 3 players won consecutive batting titles in the NL. Two are easy: Wagner and Hornsby. Who is the 3rd? (Hint: It's not Musial...though Stan would win 3 straight from 1950-52.)
5.) Tough one...who was the last player to hit 25 or more triples in a single season? It's been a long time....
6.) First player in the NL to hit 40 or more home runs in consecutive seasons?
7.) The list of players who led their league in RBI 3 seasons in a row is surprisingly short. Here are three of them: Cobb 1907-09, Ruth 1919-21, Hornsby 1920-22. Three other players have done it...can you name them?

1) Elbie Fletcher

I can't come up with anything for 2. There were some ridiculous offensive numbers in the Federal League, but realistically it doesn't seem to have been on par with the other Major Leagues, since most of those guys were unimpressive on AL & NL franchises.

For 4, it's either Daubert or Medwick I think. I thought they both did, though.

6) First thought is Kiner but Chuck Klein might've done it too. Not sure if he got to 40 twice

For the triples...

Shoeless Joe Jackson hit 25 triples. I think Wahoo Sam Crawford did, too. I don't know if anybody has done it in the live-ball era or not.

I'm guessing the 40+ HRs question isn't Hornsby. So maybe Ott?

2) Benny Kauff?