AMERICA'S DEVELOPING IMMUNITY TO BASEBALL FEVER      This column originally appeared on Wicked Local.

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GILLESPIE

AMERICA’S DEVELOPING IMMUNITY TO BASEBALL FEVER

“Baseball Fever.  Catch it!” was the promotional public service announcement that Major League Baseball employed during the 1980s.  Baseball has recently expressed growing concern about its increasing lack of viewership, particularly among kids.  Major League Baseball executives convene around boardroom tables seeking to uncover the mysteries of dwindling viewership, and in the process, have made or begin to make changes to the game that will only whittle away at our national pastime eventually destroying the very fabric of what made baseball great in the first place.

Challenging plays is both time-consuming and ridiculously unentertaining.  Baseball is a game measured on the imperfect human judgement of umpires.  Challenging calls brings the game to a complete stand-still, while the animated protests of Billy Martin, Earl Weaver, or Lou Piniella were actually part of the game, an entertaining aspect of the product on the field.  I find it hard to believe that in 20 years today’s kids will be thinking back to memories of John Farrell challenging a call from the dugout and how they watched four umpires wearing headphones waiting for a message from an unidentified person in New York City. 

Much has been said about limiting the manager’s ability to make pitching changes as a means to improve the pace of the game.  Instead, organizations should backtrack on the overprotective philosophy of monitoring pitch counts.  Jack Morris (coincidentally, still not in the Hall of Fame) did not rely on pitch counts, throwing a contemporarily unheard of 175 complete games in his career.  In comparison, the current active leader is CC Sabathia, who has been pitching for 17 years and has compiled 38 complete games.  At 36 years of age, he is hardly a threat to break Cy Young’s record of 749 complete games.  It is far more entertaining to watch a pitcher work to the bitter end like Morris did heroically during the 1991 World Series against the Braves pitching a 10 inning, 1-0 complete game victory than to watch a prospective pitcher attempt to struggle through five quality innings in a decisive game.  Watching pitchers being handled with kid-gloves is not compelling, particularly when it is done to protect an investment rather than win a game at any cost. 

In 1978 Red Sox third baseman Butch Hobson made what might be the greatest grab I have ever seen running down the dugout steps and diving into the runway in a successful effort to catch a foul ball.  There were long moments of concerned anticipation as the crowd and the commentators waited as Hobson vanished into the darkness for a matter of seconds, finally coming out clutching the ball triumphantly in his glove.   This memorable catch would not be possible today because dugouts have protective barriers at field level to warn infielders approaching the dugout and protect players on the bench.  I venture to guess that this play would not be etched so permanently in my memory if Hobson had been forced to stop abruptly at the top edge of the dugout, completely halted in his pursuit of the ball by a protective barricade. 

There are simply too many teams as well as divisions in baseball and, as a result, too many rounds of playoff games.  Baseball should adhere to the prophetic wisdom of former Sox first baseman Mo Vaughn and concern itself more with the integrity of the game, the product on the field, and less on economic survival.  As the Hit Dog once offered in a somewhat different context, “It isn’t about the money.”  Watering down the product does not make it more entertaining.  In fact, it allows for the possibility of teams who are merely lucky or hot at the right time to have the chance of advancing while the most powerful teams that have fought to be on top for 162 games are unceremoniously left behind.  This implies that baseball cares more about financial gain through advertising and increased television revenue while the product on the field becomes less interesting and is losing its fan-base at a somewhat disturbing and remarkable clip.  Major League Baseball has only itself to blame. 

If Major League Baseball would like to start turning the tide on its quickly diminishing fan-base, it should begin by securing the things within the game that make it entertaining, interesting, and exciting to watch rather than worrying about whether it can shave two minutes off the pace of the average game. 

With Major League Baseball’s apparent inability to see the forest for the trees with regard to our national pastime, Baseball Fever is sadly becoming a condition of the past.