Bottom of the Ninth, and Baseball is Down to its Last Strike
Baseball, once America’s pastime, is dying. While sports like football and basketball are surging in popularity, baseball is struggling to garner the same attention. Attendance rates have dropped 7% since 2015, which can be largely attributed to the sport’s increasingly boring nature. Baseball once thrived because of its action plays and high-stakes games, but modern baseball has failed to deliver the same excitement that once drove fans to seats.
The root of baseball’s problems is the length of its games. While sports like basketball, football, and hockey all have timed game lengths, baseball does not. Games can theoretically go on forever, and the average Major League Baseball (MLB) game time in 2021 was three hours and ten minutes. Compare this to baseball in the 50’s when the average length of an MLB game was two hours and twenty three minutes. The increased game time directly results from batters and pitchers taking longer between individual pitches.
While many avid baseball fans have grown to tolerate the slower nature of today’s pitchers, new fans are generally driven away because of it. According to a 2018 Gallup poll in which fans were asked what their favorite sport to watch was, baseball was at an all-time low in popularity compared to other professional sports. Only 9% of fans ranked baseball as their favorite sport in 2018 compared to 15% of fans only five years prior in 2013 and 39% back in 1948. Many participants in the study agreed that staying engaged during long games was a major reason for disinterest in the sport. Therefore, to reverse this trend and attract new fans, the MLB has to reduce the amount of time it takes to complete games.
The lack of action during baseball’s long games has also driven casual fans away. A game that was once filled with a variety of plays such as diving catches, triples, and stolen bases is now overwhelmingly one of strikeouts and home runs. Riverdale junior varsity baseball player Oliver Ho commented, “I think that because there are more strikeouts and more home runs…you have more of the big exciting moments, but also in between that, there’s less going on.” Fewer players are getting on base, which has led to a decrease in general action plays such as ground balls and line drives. Since 2009, the number of balls put in play has dropped 7.7%, while the number of triples, often regarded as baseball's most exciting play, has decreased by 30% since 2007.
While action plays have declined, home runs continue to increase, which can be credited to changes in baseball philosophy of how to win games. Teams are training players to hit more home runs because it has statistically become the most efficient way to win. There have been even larger surges in strikeouts with increasing home run rates. These types of plays yield no base runners, hits, or action plays, fostering less intrigue and anticipation for fans. However, the MLB cannot sustain long-term success without action because action fuels excitement and drives fans to tune into games.
Compounding the slow pace of games is the excessive length of the season. The MLB has 162 games in one season, compared to 82 games in the NBA and 17 in the NFL. The baseball season has become too long for the average fan to stay engaged. Because of the number of games, the importance of each contest is devalued. Many baseball games have no implications for playoff or divisional races, contrary to sports like basketball and football which, with fewer contests, make nearly every game crucial. Long seasons are especially problematic for non-contending teams since most of their games have low entertainment value and mean little in the grand scheme of the league. While all sports have these types of filler games, none come close to the number baseball has.
Passionate baseball fans may argue with these critiques of the sport, appreciating the game’s nuances that may be invisible to casual fans. “[T]here is a lot more going on in between pitches than people actually know or see, whether it might be signs, movement in defense, or pitch location,” noted Riverdale varsity baseball coach Mr. Doug McDonald. Traditionalists may also worry that by changing any aspect of the game, baseball will begin to lose its true essence.
However, the sport has already experienced change from a ground-ball game to one of strikeouts. Adaptation is necessary for baseball because by adding more intrigue and excitement to the game, more fans will tune in. Although the MLB has taken some steps to speed up the pace of play such as testing out pitch clocks, they will need to do more to reinvigorate the game as a whole. Whatever the solution, baseball needs to return to its roots as a game filled with action plays and high stakes. If it cannot, baseball will become more of a niche sport and will never reclaim its rightful place as America’s pastime.
