I miss baseball, but...

[backwardsk]

Spending so much time with my wife and kids make me miss baseball more.  Haha.  It’s honestly going to be difficult to get excited if they manage to do anything this year.  But if they can start the 2021 season on schedule, I’m fully in despite the labor disputes.

[foxfield]

I am torn, I miss baseball and I have told myself that I need it back for my sanity.  But I am increasingly finding that Baseball is setting me up for a whole lot of kicks in the um..nether regions..

 

1)  Is baseball really going to argue itself out of restarting?

2)  A labor fight and no games or a fight and a meaningless playoff to enrich the haves to end the season.

3)  Smaller draft and no J2 draft.

4)  Not playing probably is not helping the timeline for the Orioles to make headway on their rebuild.

5)  The bickering is virtually guaranteeing a work stoppage after next year.

6)  The Orioles are almost guaranteed to go 10-4 in the regular season just missing the play-in game and will draft 18th in next years draft.

7)  The Yankees will likely refuse to play due to NYC being impossible to play in and will be rewarded with 5 comp picks and unlimited draft pool as compensation for their loss.

8.   Keith Law hates the Orioles draft.

9)  Chris Davis has salary deferred so he still likely costs O's a fortune this year where most players get squat.  

10) We are a team of minor leaguers in a sport that doesn't allow minor leagues to play...even at the ML level.

 

But on the bright side, the Orioles will not lose 100 games or 90 or even 50.  So the rebuild is arguably ahead of schedule.  So sign me up.

 

[canonfaz]

I'm a die hard fan O's fan, but I this whole money dispute on how to get baseball back has really soured me on the pro game. I think I'll be a lot more into college baseball when all this is over. 

It is ridiculous that the owners and union can't come to some type of agreement (or even have useful direct dialog with one another) on how to get started back.

I thought I would miss baseball (and sports in general) way more than I actually have. 

[Flash- bd]

I want minor league baseball back ASAP so our prospects can keep progressing. That's what really saddens me about this all, the dead year for them all and for our rebuild as an organization. As for the MLB I don't miss it at all, it would be nice to get it back so Mountcastle, Díaz, Hays, Kremer, etc. have a proving ground to go to but that is all that it would interest me for. 

[Enjoy Terror]

I’m just not going to care any significant amount about a partial season. They’ll play the games and have a championship, but I’ll never consider the season anything more than an exhibition. It is an automatic SSS; people here hate the SSS. The marathon is important. I don’t watch Shailene Flanagan for her sprinting.

[24fps]

4 hours ago, canonfaz said:

I'm a die hard fan O's fan, but I this whole money dispute on how to get baseball back has really soured me on the pro game. I think I'll be a lot more into college baseball when all this is over. 

It is ridiculous that the owners and union can't come to some type of agreement (or even have useful direct dialog with one another) on how to get started back.

I thought I would miss baseball (and sports in general) way more than I actually have. 

Yeah, me too.  The draft this year was a lot more interesting to me than it has been before (not sure why... no actual baseball games being played?), plus my daughter heads to the University of Tennessee in the fall and SEC baseball is pretty competitive.

[Tony-OH]

On 6/15/2020 at 7:20 PM, Philip said:

You should put that in letter form and send it to Tony Clark and Manfred 

Do you think they care? I mean honestly, the last people in the world either of these two care about are the fans. They are about getting as much of the pie for their constituents so they can keep getting paid their exorbitant salaries and keep their power and influence.

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Do you think they care? I mean honestly, the last people in the world either of these two care about are the fans. They are about getting as much of the pie for their constituents so they can keep getting paid their exorbitant salaries and keep their power and influence.

You can't see Manfred getting a letter from a child and having an epiphany about how his behavior is damaging the game?

[Dipper9]

22 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

You can't see Manfred getting a letter from a child and having an epiphany about how his behavior is damaging the game?

Wait, are you calling me a child?  I mean, I am immature.  I do giggle at my own jokes.  I cry a lot.  I certainly am terrified of snakes.  

Okay...maybe you're right.  Maybe I am a child.  

[Frobby]

27 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Do you think they care? I mean honestly, the last people in the world either of these two care about are the fans. They are about getting as much of the pie for their constituents so they can keep getting paid their exorbitant salaries and keep their power and influence.

Self-interest should tell them that when you alienate fans, the pie shrinks.     Better to take a slightly smaller share than you think you deserve of a big pie than fight over every last morsel of a much smaller pie.    I don’t expect these guys to consider the fans’ interests for the fans’ sake, but for their own sake.    

[Tony-OH]

On 6/16/2020 at 2:01 PM, jerios55 said:

As a kid we didn't have cable, so it was almost always AM radio for me.  I went to college when the internet was starting and did a lot of game tracker following vs game watching.  It was weird when I came in range again, how I'd much rather follow all the stat items on the computer. 

I haven't missed it as much as others have mentioned.  It certainly doesn't help that I mostly expect them to lose. 

Although I haven't missed the Caps as much as I thought either.  They weren't playing great when things ended, but obviously I still expected far more out of them. 

I think as a society we live and die by sports.  There have been other things to think about while sports have been gone that have been a bit more forced.  I won't take it political, but there probably is more to life than the amount of TV watching we do.  I'll be curious how many people will continue some of these habits after sports do come back.  Ironically, we probably won't know as those people will be less likely to post here. 

Either way.  Enjoy time outside, with spouses and kids.  Maybe it's time to go back to good old radio.

I know for me, as much as I really missed sports in the beginning, I'm starting to look at a future without being a strong sports fan.

That probably doesn't mean I would not still watch some sports, but I can see that my interest level in them will wane because of all of this, particularly if these sports league become hell bent in mixing politics into their coverage. 

I made the Hangout a politics free zone for a reason, and that was so we could focus on the sport at hand and not worried about what the other poster's opinions are politically. As was stated eloquently in another thread, sports is entertainment and supposed to be a place where we suspend our reality outside of the stadium or TV broadcast in order to enjoy some competition. It's a place where we "dislike" someone because they're a Yankees fan, not because of their political affiliation. 

If baseball or any league decide politics is now a big part of their message, I will be done with that league because I have more than enough places to discuss and be concerned with politics. 

I've put a lot of miles on my Harley, spent a lot of time around the pool and playing games with friends and family, have a new set of golf clubs, and I'm thinking about getting a boat. My time will be filled up just fine.

I've been able to ignore the greed that makes one beer cost $10, or $8 hot dogs, or $5 dipping dots for the kids, or ticket prices to "prime games" that cost well over $50 for any kind of decent seat to one game out of 162. I've been able to look past the fact there are pitchers making $30 million to make 32 starts, a player who signed a 13-year contract for $330 million, and a guy who's slashed 
.172/.256/.308/.564 while collecting $46 million dollars and will collect more in deferments down the line.  

I've looked past it all and tried to focus on the game I always loved. 

Now, I have to realize, I'm 50 years old. We have political forces attacking us and everything we love in this country and perhaps it's time to just take in some self reflection. We have a limited time in our lives on this earth, and I've spent a ton of it sitting and watching baseball of every kind. That pure love of the sport has led me to play it, coach it, scout it, talk about it, and write about it with and for many people over the years. 

I love baseball, but MLB players and owners don't care about me or you. Like in politics, we are nothing but pawns. The folks who willingly pay our taxes that are used to build stadiums that make owners more rich. The folks who pay ridiculous amounts of cable fees, some of which goes into regional sports channel charges that are past on to every customer regardless of whether they watch the games or not. The folks who pay the high ticket, drinks and food costs. The folks that will pay $65 for a $25 sweat shirt because it has the logo of a our favorite team on it. I'm certainly guilty of it. I've done all of the above.

I guess the more I really think about it. I've become ambivalent to whether MLB returns this year because I'm tired of being a uncared for pawn in their game. 

So if you read this, and you don't think I'm serious about selling or closing down the Hangout if baseball doesn't come back in some kind of meaningful way this year, I'm not sure what to tell you. This is about as honest as I can get with how I feel right now.

 

[Tony-OH]

19 hours ago, Frobby said:

Self-interest should tell them that when you alienate fans, the pie shrinks.     Better to take a slightly smaller share than you think you deserve of a big pie than fight over every last morsel of a much smaller pie.    I don’t expect these guys to consider the fans’ interests for the fans’ sake, but for their own sake.    

I think they believe fans are lemmings, and some are. They believe they will always be there and they can keep putting more and more of the financial burden on them while the players and owners make more and more money. 

MLB make a ton of money off advertising. Those advertising costs drive up prices of products and services that we all pay for in one way or another.

Heck, there are people who still think baseball is immensely popular, despite the facts:

"The weather was significantly better for baseball in 2019 than it was in 2018, but Major League Baseball still had a decline in attendance, to its lowest levels since 2003.

Major League Baseball’s 2019 total attendance was 68,493,093. This is down 1,132,151 (1.6%) from 2018, and is the lowest total since 2003. It was the 4th straight year with a decline, the 6th decrease in the last 7 years, and the 9th drop in attendance in the last 12 seasons. Total MLB attendance had topped 73 million for 13 years in a row (2004- 2016). From 2010, until 2018, the yearly changes were small. Attendance fell 4.2% in 2018, 0.7% in 2017, 0.8% in 2016, rose less than 0.1% in 2015, fell 0.4% in 2014 and 1.1% in 2013, rose 2.0% in 2012 and 0.5% in 2011, and fell 0.4% in 2010, 6.6% in 2009, and 1.2% in 2008. It was up 4.6% in 2007, and up 1.5% in 2006."

http://numbertamer.com/files/2019_MLB_Attendance_Analysis.pdf

"According to a 2017 study in Sports Business Journal, the average baseball television viewer is 57 years old — seven years older than the average pro football fan and 15 years older than the average pro basketball fan. And the figure for the baseball fan has been climbing steadily, while the age of the National Basketball Association watcher has barely changed.

Now let’s look at the rising generation. Only about 24 percent of baseball fans are under age 35, compared with 45 percent of basketball fans. Participation in Little League baseball is plummeting. Boosters like to cite figures showing that overall, young people are playing more baseball than in the past. But those figures, which also include softball, encompass many different ways of playing, including informally. It was always the tight organization and crisp coaching of the formal leagues that were thought to measure genuine commitment of the sort that leads to lifelong fanship."

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2019/11/04/commentary/world-commentary/u-s-baseball-fans-old-white/#.XupwhGhKi70

Baseball has problems and this greed, during a time when they could be viewed as a unifying force but instead are choosing to fight over the bigger piece of the pie, could be their undoing.

[Ruzious]

We can normally look past the situation where players are making 100 times more money than the average person, but in this situation - it's stuffed in our faces because money is the issue.  Not saying the players are any more greedy than the owners, but it's the players that we root for - not the owners.  And looking at all the people who make their money from working at the stadium and the minor leaguers who get paid next to nothing, not playing the game is unacceptable.  Once reality steps in and the game steps out, baseball loses.  

[Number5]

28 minutes ago, Dipper9 said:

Wait, are you calling me a child?  I mean, I am immature.  I do giggle at my own jokes.  I cry a lot.  I certainly am terrified of snakes.  

Okay...maybe you're right.  Maybe I am a child.  

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

[HowAboutThat]

@Tony-OH

I deleted my account at S.B. Nation because of rude treatment, I deleted my account at Discus, Which enabled me to read and post at the blog of Steve and Roch. Camden depot has shut down.

I live in Texas, surrounded by Rangers fans, some Astros fans, a smattering of Cardinals fans, and a vast quantity of people who don’t give a rats ass about baseball. Certainly I am the only oriole guy in town.

One of the things that feeds interest in a team is the ability to discuss and argue and ponder and predict with others who have the same interest. Without that stimulus, I’m pretty sure the interest would die.

Because the Orioles hang out is the only one left, if it Shuts down, I think I will probably just give up on baseball completely. That will be Very sad because baseball symbolizes so much to me.

I will always hate the Yankees, though, so I guess there’s that...

Edited June 17, 2020 by Philip