Los Angeles Angels' Shohei Ohtani
I love baseball.
But I am not blind to its condition.
A recent article in The Economist delineated the woes facing Major League Baseball.
According to Commissioner Rob Manfred, the league lost $2 billion last year due to ballpark closures due to the pandemic. Fans are back at the stadium this year, but for how long? Delta variant may cause a thinner or a non-existent crowd. If so, it will mean another year of diminished revenues just as the league begins another round of collective bargaining with the players. Billionaires versus millionaires, as sports wags like to say. Little sympathy for either.
The league recently banned sprays that could improve a pitcher’s grip on the ball. This move was an effort to rejuvenate offensive production that has fallen recently. Some fans find the game much too slow; the average game lasts three hours, as much 50% as much longer as it did a generation or two ago.
Among Gen-Z fans, only 32% said they were "casual fans." By contrast, 50% of adults say they are fans of Major League Baseball. Young fans dig e-sports, and older fans have other sporting distractions: football, basketball, hockey, golf, and even European football (soccer). Yet, Jacob Pomrenke of American Baseball Research told The Economist, “The idea that baseball was somehow better in the past is one we should throw by the wayside. The golden era of baseball is now.”
What baseball teaches
So much for griping. What fascinates me about the professional game is its similarity to life itself. Players come together to train in February and stick together as a team until the end of September or October if they make a playoff run. That's a long time of living and working together.
The game teaches us three things
Endurance. To play a nine-month season, you need to be physically fit. You must maintain your weight and stamina through coast-to-coast travel, hotels, night games, and hot, humid weather. (Not mention piercing cold in spring and fall). You also have to get along with players you may not like personally but need to work with because they are essential to a team's ability to compete.
Resilience. Few, if any players, make it through a season unhurt. While they may not suffer a season-ending injury, every player plays through aching muscles, fatigue, and diminishing mental focus. Resilience is that ability to bend but break and emerge more robust and maybe wiser after being flattened by adversity.
Patience. The slump. The most dreaded word in baseball. Hitters suddenly cannot hit. Pitchers cannot throw strikes. Hitters say that when they are hot, the baseball looks like a grapefruit. When they are cold, they see BB's. Pitchers who could break a curve leave it hanging. And fastballs lose their zip. What is required, in addition to the resilience above, is patience. Bid your time. Stay focused. You can work yourself back into the game.
The long game
The major league game has been played professionally since 1869, when a team from Cincinnati donned red stockings. It has survived wars, depressions, and pandemics. So it will survive today’s woes, but changes must be made, especially in the length of time it takes to complete a game.
But there is one bright light: Shohei Ohtani. Imported directly from Japan, Ohtani is the first true pitching slugger since Babe Ruth. Ruth was a pitcher (and an occasional batter) for the Boston Red Sox and an exceptional one before he was traded to the New York Yankees in 1920. There, Ruth, as a batter, invigorated the game with a new brand of baseball: the home run.
What Ohtani accomplishes this year, or in the future, is speculation. Already he is on pace to hit more home runs in one season than any other pitcher did in his entire career (save Ruth).* And I can tell you one thing. I’ll be watching. I love the game. And its lessons.
*Note: Pitcher Wes Ferrell hit 37 in his major league career.
