America's pastime?

I was talking to Rico yesterday. It's another April, and another baseball season is underway. Rico doesn't really care either. Does anyone, anymore?

The steroid scandal, well, most people will eventually get over that, if they haven't already. The real reason for baseball's decline in popularity is time...which translates into money. These days, if you sit down to watch a baseball game, you are quite a bit older when that game concludes. And with our attention spans being constantly, intentionally shortened by mass media, baseball just doesn't work. It seems every big league team is now required to use a minimum of four pitchers a game, batters must step out of the box between each pitch to make adjustments to all the equipment they are wearing, and catchers feel the need to confer privately with their pitcher at least three times per inning. All this leading to a typical baseball game lasting well in excess of three hours.

How many times have you fallen asleep in the 5th inning, slept for a substantial amount of time, and then awakened to find out it is now the sixth inning? Hard to take.

Baseball is the greatest game in the world if you consider the basics. The 90 feet between the bases, the unique dimensions to each ballpark and the infinite amount of strategy that can be applied. However, the specialization and the over-attention to detail is ruining the game. Why? Money.

As a professional, you can and should, pursue as much money as you can for your services. No problem, as long as their is a market for such services. And their is a market for baseball. Rico told me that a recent Chicago Tribune article stated that it now costs a family of four a little over $300 to attend a game at Wrigley Field. A few bucks less to see the White Sox play on the south side. And people pay it. That's fine, too. Your choice.

However, this is why the game is no longer appealing to the common people like Rico and myself. It's all corporate funded now, and the regular guy just doesn't have the money, or the enormous amount of time to attend anymore.

Sadly,it just doesn't seem to be America's pastime anymore, just past it's time.