Everybody seems to have at least a couple of ideas about the MLB attendance problem; here are two guys’ notions, some old, some new.
A longtime friend pointed me in the direction of an explanation for the continuing MLB attendance drop. He suggested an article by Glen Macnow, a Philadelphia columnist, sports talk radio host, and partner in a brewing firm located not far at all from my home.
Macnow is a genial gentleman whose sports talk show on weekends with Hall of Fame football writer Ray Didinger is a marvel of intelligence and gentle humor, a stark contrast to many sports talk shoutfests on the airwaves.
My friend was referring to his recent column for Metro USA, and suggested Macnow had asserted that MLB attendance woes were the fault of analytics. This was a tiny bit off the mark, since the title of the writer’s piece was “The smarter baseball gets, the more tedious it becomes,” but Macnow does follow up his opening by noting a 1.4 percent drop in MLB attendance thus far this year.
And that drop, he asserts, is because “the national pastime is increasingly slow, boring and one-dimensional.” His overall pronouncement? “The sport has become a snooze fest of ‘three true outcomes’ – walks, strikeouts and home runs.” It’s not clear whom Macnow is quoting there on outcomes, but that’s an admirable sentence.
MLB Attendance: Remedies
His remedies include a pitch clock, but more so, banning an analytics-driven feature of the modern game – the shift. He would also require relief pitchers to face three batters or finish an inning.
Hmmm. Maybe something should be done. By my count, if 2019 sees another overall drop in MLB attendance, that will make the seventh year in a row. (Macnow’s count there is, somehow, four, but let’s not get into which of us is pushing “fake news.”) Last year’s overall drop was close to minus-three million fans, or about 3.9% year-over-year; 2018 saw an MLB attendance drop below 70 million for only the third time since 1998, including that year, and for the first time since 2003.
Macnow’s solutions are not entirely wrong. A pitch clock has been widely employed in minor league baseball for a few years now, so some current MLB hurlers have already been trained to deal with that. There have always been pitchers called “human rain delays.” They need to go the way of the dodo.
The shift ban is an idea perhaps less worthy. Would that mean a fielder could stand directly behind a base, or not, and how is “directly behind” defined? Why not just teach batters to hit to the opposite field?
Finally, I’m not sure about the three-batter/finish-the-inning rule for relievers in all innings. It’s not really a great idea, taking management away from the managers, but I could see it before the 6th or 7th inning.
All that said, though, I could live with all three ideas exactly as Macnow suggests.
MLB Attendance: Further Suggestions
However, before adopting a pitch clock, banning the shift, or mandating a minimum three batters per pitcher, I’d make other, simpler changes to aid MLB attendance.
First, make batters stay in the batter’s box between pitches unless they literally fall down swinging or are “knocked down” avoiding a pitch. If a player walks out of the box after spitting on an outside slider, assess a strike. Believe me, people would learn to stay put.
Second, limit “re-velcroing” the wristbands on batter’s gloves to once per plate appearance. Once upon a time, one guy refastened his gloves at his wrists too often, Nomar Garciaparra. He did it after every pitch; now everybody does it all the time. It’s horrible.
Third, limit the warm-up pitches for relievers on the field to one (unless the pitcher literally falls down on that warm-up on the “unfamiliar” mound; then, he’d get two). What the hell was he doing in the bullpen? Eating ice cream? He was warming up. He probably threw 12 to 15 pitches, minimum.
Fourth, further limit visits to the mound by management staff, and time them strictly, with a ball to the next faced hitter if the time limit is overrun by x seconds.
MLB Attendance: The Bottom Line
Baseball, however, is a slow game because players have to think about what to do next, and the fans should be thinking along with them instead of staring at iPhones.
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A fielder should be thinking with his pitcher and catcher, “Which pitch will or should be thrown? If the ball is hit to me, what do I do with it considering the circumstances?”
With a runner on third and one out, a right fielder may have to answer a question like, “If I’m hit a fly ball and can’t set my feet well for the throw home, am I still strong enough to throw out the guy tagging up and running from third because he isn’t all that fast?”
Perhaps a fielder is planning on possibly faking a throw to first to catch a runner breaking from third for home, as Chase Utley famously did in a pretty important game.
And so on.
Glen Macnow knows all this. He likely also knows the MLB attendance “crisis” is not only because of a slow game. Cost is also involved. For more than one person, considering transportation and/or parking, and a modest amount of food and drink, a trip to the ballpark is at least a $200 dollar day if you want a seat that’s within spitting distance of what appears on a TV screen.
For really good seats, for the middle class? That’s now a once in a lifetime matter. However, baseball management could likely solve the MLB attendance drop issue with a minimum of imagination, including running significantly more specials that are actually special.