The Baseball Playoffs: Does Anyone Care?

Recently, I’ve noticed a few disturbing trends in my personal life, occurrences that have kick-started the process of me turning into an old white man. For example, when I was still in middle school, I had a hairline that resembled the one currently occupying the head of the Indiana Pacers’ Paul George. George’s hairline bothers and confuses me; it literally looks like he originally had a mullet, but then some Herculean-like figure came along and yanked it forward down his forehead. Balding jokes used to be some of my favorites, because every dude in the entire world is self-conscious about their hairline, and concerned that it might recede at any time. However, in the last few weeks, I’ve had several people point out to me, based on pictures I was in as recently as nine months ago, that my hairline is diminishing. I, of course, vehemently denied it, because that’s the only defense you have when someone puts you on blast like that. You’ve just got to fake confidence and coolness. But did that stop me from being concerned? Of course not. Did I spend an abnormal amount of time checking it out in the mirror? Sadly, yes. The realization of the transition from Paul George to an almost five-head is like going from dating Blake Lively to being forced into an arranged marriage with Lena Dunham.

Other instances of my “advanced” age; creaky joints, random angry political rants, earlier bed times, and three straight nights of playoff baseball.

Baseball? Three nights in a row? Geez, a coffin and six feet under might be closer than I thought.

The truth is, baseball was my first favorite sport. When I was much younger, I used to spend hours in the front yard pretending I was Chipper Jones, Sammy Sosa, or Derek Jeter, creating and acting out fake games in my head. I’d watch the Braves every night on TV, and if the game ended after I went to bed, the first thing I’d do in the morning was ask my dad if they won. I knew everything about everyone on the Atlanta roster, from their jersey number to their batting stance, and I even had a notebook that contained all their social security numbers (Cha-Ching!!). Basically, I was obsessed.

Eventually though, that dedication subsided, as I got older and my interests expanded. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a diehard fan, and I still keep up with Atlanta on a day-to-day basis, but I don’t think any American has the time, or the desire, to sit down and watch three hours of baseball a night, particularly when it involves two teams they don’t root for. I know I certainly don’t. This season, the only baseball I watched were Braves’ games, and even that was limited to pieces and parts of 25-35 games.

Here’s the problem baseball is facing; most millennials, people aged 18-34, couldn’t care less about the sport. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine yesterday, someone who’d rather watch fifteen straight episodes of Switched at Birth than sit through a baseball game, and I made the observation that I no idea where the sport would be in forty years. Will anyone care? Is it going to be less popular than hockey? 60 years ago, America’s three favorite sports were baseball, boxing, and horse racing. Baseball is the only one that remains in that top three, and the interest in it has been sinking since the ‘70s.

The sport doesn’t create any urgency. It’s a 162 game season played at a slow pace, with 10-15 seconds between action that may or may not be that compelling. Three straight balls, with a potential mound visit and no swings of the bat isn’t really all that exciting, and that sequence happens all the time throughout the course of a game. Compare this to the NBA regular season, an 82 game jog that is actually way less impactful and important than baseball’s regular season, considering 16 of the 30 basketball teams make the playoffs, as compared to just 10 of 30 baseball teams. But I, and people my age, find the NBA regular season way more compelling, because the constant up and down action on the court tricks people into thinking what’s happening on a game-to-game basis matters more than it does. There’s real energy and pace during an NBA game, even when the teams suck; there’s not during a baseball game on a Tuesday night in June. The most exciting event that happens on the diamond is when someone attempts to steal a base, and that’s really jarring in the moment. The game’s been moving at a snail’s pace, and then out of nowhere there’s back-to-back quick actions due to the immediate throw down to second after a pitch.

The NBA also does a way better job of creating storylines and drama during its regular season. The “Are the Warriors going to get to 73 wins?” question was a great topic that lingered over the whole year last season, and the dysfunction with LeBron and the Cavaliers was an enormous story basically since James arrived back in Cleveland. There were a zillion storylines around Kobe Bryant, from his terrible shooting and lack of leadership, to the implosion of the 2013 Lakers, a supposed “superteam”. And don’t forget LBJ’s four year reign in Miami, which caused ESPN to create a section on its website devoted entirely to that team, the aptly named Heat Index. And I haven’t even talked about frenzy created during the free agency period; The NBA dominates the first two weeks of July with its abundance of player movement (Remember how massive LeBron’s The Decision special was?), while baseball’s “Winter Meetings” are about as sexy as Rosie O’Donnell’s cankles.

What are the biggest regular season baseball stories of the last five years? I struggled with this one for a while, before settling on three; Rougned Odor’s Mike Tyson-level strike to the face of Jose Bautista back in May, Buster Posey’s broken leg that occurred when he blocked the plate against Scott Cousins, and the meteoric rise of Yasiel Puig that flamed out almost as quickly as it started. Most of you probably remembered Odor clocking Bautista, and maybe some of you can recall Puig’s emergence, but the Posey story is probably unfamiliar, due to the fact that it was five years ago. Three big national stories in five years? That’s it?

I’m not condoning steroid use, but at least it created drama and interest in the doldrums of July and August. The home run chase in ’98 between McGwire and Sosa was enormous day-to-day event for the sport, and every single Barry Bonds at bat from ’01-’04 was must see TV.

The sport just can’t get out of its own way sometimes. Last year in the playoffs, when Bautista hit a series-winning homer against Texas, he watched the ball leave the park, and then  flipped his bat before going around the bases. This was somehow the biggest deal in the world; never mind that he’d just hit the biggest homer of his entire life, and celebrated just like any rational person would in the exact same circumstance. Apparently, he was “showing up” his opposition… WHO CARES? If you don’t want him celebrating, then don’t let him launch one out of the park on you! And how many times have we seen pitches get huge strikeouts and then lose their freaking minds as they run back to the dugout? Isn’t that “showing up” the batter? Why is the pitcher allowed to do that, but the batter isn’t? It’s just absolutely ridiculous. Sports are emotional events, and they’re full of emotional people! Let them show it from time to time! Baseball and it’s old fuddy-duddy idiot traditionalist fans screw it up when they literally do everything they can to demonize the humanity out of what’s happening on the field.

I care about this sport, and I want everyone else to. It’s great television in the postseason, and there’s real stakes. I’m not a Red Sox fan at all, but I was legitimately nervous watching Dustin Pedroia’s at bat in the ninth inning against Cleveland last night. There was an emotional build to every pitch in that sequence, as Pedroia battled for minutes to extend the game, before he eventually struck out. That was great stuff; too bad I’m the only person in his twenties who watched it.

The NBA does a great job of building up their stars, while baseball literally does the exact opposite. There’s hardly any black stars; only 8% of MLB players are black, as compared to 26% in 1979. Now, those kids are choosing to play football or basketball or almost anything else. Mike Trout is one of the best players in a generation, but I’d wager 90% of millennials couldn’t pick him out of a group of three people. Corey Kluber won the 2014 American League Cy Young; I’m in the top 1% of sports fans and I had never seen him pitch (and still haven’t, though he’s throwing in Game 2 today for Cleveland). Bryce Harper is probably the biggest star in baseball, and he’s way less marketable than at 15-20 NBA players.

Major League Baseball’s regular season has unfortunately turned into an emotionless, faceless, slow game with no urgency. I’m not sure there’s any real way to fix that. Our instant gratification, no time for anything culture has destroyed the desire of people to sit down and enjoy something that happens at a slow pace.

There’s things baseball could do to improve its product, and they’ve taken some steps to do so. Limiting mound visits, discouraging batters from stepping out of the box for 30 seconds after each and every pitch, encouraging pitchers to get the ball out of their hand and towards the plate as quickly as possible, and marketing their stars are all things they’ve attempted to do, or have talked about doing. The Wild Card games, which is virtually a one game play-in, seems to be a good idea, because there’s nothing more urgent than a “win or your season is over” contest. I’m in favor of basically anything that speeds up play, or creates action and drama, but at the end of the day, the sport fundamentally is what it is. There aren’t any adjustments you can make to give it the pace of football or basketball, or the action of MMA, and it may just be a broken, imperfect, and flawed fit in 2016.  

And because they don’t attract eyeballs during the regular season, there’s no incentive to watch the playoffs, other than, “Well, it’s the playoffs”, which isn’t good enough for most people. And if the postseason isn't attracting eyeballs, then there’s no way that stories can evolve and expand from it. Madison Bumgarner dominated the entire league for three straight rounds in the 2014 playoffs; everyone forgot about it like a week later. The Royals won their first title in 30 years last season; we didn’t care about it the following weekend. The baseball playoffs come and go, and most people forget it even happened. That’s what occurs when you have a league that doesn’t create a national, emotional connection with the populous. The whole notion that I could write this entire piece around the premise that liking baseball makes me an old man is an incredible commentary on the sport itself. It’s viewed as rigid, slow, and uninteresting by more and more people every day.

If the sport can’t shake the, “It’s boring” narrative, it’s eventually going to fade into the blackness and abyss of Sports Hell, alongside boxing, horse racing, and pistol duels.   

Unfortunately, I don’t think it can.