Baseball Purist
“For Love of the Game”
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The Decline in World Series’ Television Ratings
One of the reasons that MLB decided the game needed fixing and rule changes was the decline in World Series ratings. As per Baseball Almanac (Baseball Almanac – World Series) ratings for the World Series have been in a somewhat steady decline (see table at the bottom of this article for the annual World Series…
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Playoffs for Everyone
President John F. Kennedy at Washington DC, Griffith Stadium to throw out first pitch 4/10/1961. Chicago White Sox vs Washington Senators.
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Too Much of a Good Thing
While some of us cannot get enough of a good thing, the vast majority realize that even the best of something is eventually too much. Baseball is no exception. Let us go back around 60 years to understand why the game has ended up in its current state. As noted in our previous post (The…
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The State of the Game
Baseball was previously known as America’s Pastime, but sadly those days are long gone. Many considered the golden age of baseball from 1920 – 1960, while others believed the post war era from 1946 – 1969 as the games heyday. Whatever you think was the height of baseball, those days are clearly over when compared…
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Maybe Size Matters
One of the reasons touted by MLB that the game needs rescuing are the flat attendance figures. In 2007, MLB reached a high in its history of 79.5 million fans attending games that year. That number slid into the mid 70 million level and further dipped below 70 million since 2018. Of course the Covid…
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What about a Designated Fielder?
Carrying on with our discussion of the designated hitter (DH) from our previous post, we thought a bit further about the rationale of replacing the pitcher with another hitter. It appears prior to the American League adopting the DH rule in 1973 that the first real consideration to adopt a DH occurred in the late…
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The DH and the Disappearance of Strategy
On April 6, 1973, Ron Blomberg came to bat for the New York Yankees as the first designated hitter in MLB history. Prior to that year, pitchers in both leagues came to bat. It was not until 2022 that the National League also permanently adopted the designated hitter rule that almost now completely wipes out…
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Strikeout Considerations
The premise that MLB functions under is that baseball is on the decline because the games are too long and this has turned off the fan base. As we noted in prior posts the rule changes do little to change the actual action, and instead just shorten the game. If you want to buy into…
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Club Owners Raise the Bar on Beer Sales
It seems one unexpected consequence of speeding up the game was to reduce the sale of beer at stadiums. It makes sense, since quicker games mean your fan base is obviously in the ballpark for a shorter period of time. Bottom line, this has hurt sales of alcohol and most notably beer, which is the…
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A Not So Perfect Game
Although it has already been covered elsewhere, it is worth repeating that there is now an opportunity for a pitcher to pitch a perfect game yet lose under the newish MLB rules of placing an automatic runner on second base at the beginning of extra innings. Yes, a pitcher or combined pitchers could get everyone…
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We Second, Third, Fourth, Etc. that Thought
This will be a short post, but we encourage you to check out this SI.com article written by Nolan Ruth who covers sports in Texas. By the way, who should know more about baseball than someone with the last name of Ruth! The Pitch Clock Will do More Harm for Baseball than Good This article…
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The Assault on Extra Innings
One of the worst (and we mean WORST) rules instituted by MLB in recent years has been placing an automatic runner on second base in extra innings. This “rule” was dreamed up by the MLB hierarchy to speed up the game once it hit extra innings. Randomly and without precedent, the decision was to place…
Baseball Purist 