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Disgusting, absolutely disgusting!!!  Americans Favorite sport? Really? I’d rather sit by my pool and watch the grass grow.

LOS ANGELES, CA – JULY 23: Los Angeles Dodgers kneel during the National Anthem prior to a MLB baseball game on Opening Day at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on Thursday, July 23, 2020. (Photo by Keith Birmingham/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images).
                          How about this one for a reality check?

As a sports fan, it pains me to say this: I watched not one inning of the 2020 World Series. This revelation is not some preening, pin-a-medal-on-me political puffery — “Those sports ball players are annoying, America-hating commies, so I’m not watching” — but rather the embarrassed confession of a discouraged, disillusioned former fanatic who has come to realize that my erstwhile sports obsessions are really not all that important.

Apparently, I’m far from alone. The Tampa Bay Rays’ instant classic walk-off Game 4 win drew 8.95 million viewers, the second-lowest viewership in World Series history — ahead of only Game 3’s 8.2 million. For contrast, remember that only four short years ago, Game 7 between the Cubs and Indians peaked at 49.9 million viewers. Game 7 of the classic 1986 Mets-Red Sox series had an estimated viewership as high as 60 million.

The ratings numbers have attached themselves to an anvil and tossed the anvil off a cliff into a black hole. It’s a shocking decline. MLB is not alone in seeing its appeal become more selective, Spinal Tap-style. The NFL’s once-vaunted viewership juggernaut is shedding passengers at an alarming pace; the league is left celebrating a 33 percent decline year-over-year for the most recent Sunday Night game, because it represented a slight uptick compared to the rest of this season’s dismal numbers.

And the NBA?  Woof.  Game 3 of the 2020 NBA Finals averaged 5.9 million viewers. For comparison, Michael Jordan’s last game as a Bull, the clinching Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals, averaged almost 36 million viewers. Overall, the Lakers-Heat series dropped 51 percent from the 2019 numbers and 67 percent from 2018.

To extend the Spinal Tap metaphor, the NBA is a few BLM woke bombs away from second billing behind Puppet Show. Let’s be fair: There are mitigating circumstances. Nothing about this year is normal. MLB shoehorned a 60-game season into a pandemic-ravaged sports calendar. The NBA played its Finals at a time of year when teams are normally in training camp. The NFL has clung to something resembling a normal schedule, but the mostly empty stadiums and piped-in crowd noise have lent a surreal, off-putting atmosphere to the proceedings.

Personally, I’ve found it hard to care about sports when the very future of the Republic seems to be at stake, and every day’s headlines bring some fresh hell to torment and terrorize my fragile psyche. Sport becomes far less relevant in times like these, even as simple escapism. There’s no escaping a pervading sense of doom. But after the election, will my apathy magically dissipate, much like I expect the pandemic panic to do? Will I re-engage my former passion for pro sports? It’s entirely possible. A return to normalcy in 2021 would likely include a reboot of a casual interest in the exploits of overgrown man-children and a willingness to set aside their silly political posturing. A post-election de-weaponization of the virus will allow us all to relax, breathe and reclaim life’s simple pleasures. I hope so, anyway.

One final piece of advice: Don’t wait for woke-ism to recede from pro sports before re-engaging. Believe it or not, it is possible to set all that aside and simply enjoy the games themselves. If I let politics control my entertainment choices, I’d be left with listening to the Beatles song “Taxman” on an endless loop, and not much else. Life’s too short, and Jon Voight’s not making many movies these days.

Originally posted 2020-10-30 10:52:09.

Current Events

America’s Sport

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Morin Guys, My good friend and Marine brother, Greg Maresca, who many of you will recognize as a frequent contributor to my blog has written a great piece on the current state of America’s Sport,  what else . . . . . .  but baseball. The article was accepted by “The American Spectator,” a leading conservative journal. He had been trying to get one accepted by them and has finally broken through the ceiling. He’s asking for folks to go to the website and read his article. If he gets enough viewers, he could become a regular contributor. Help a fellow Marine and go read the article. The link below will take you there. It is a paid subscription site, but they do allow some free access provided you haven’t been to the site recently. I really think you’ll like his article, especially for you MLB nuts, which I am not, but it was interesting to learn what has happened to “America’s Sport” over the years.

 

Please pass the word!

 

Baseball’s Pitch Clock Era

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You’re Out!

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What a shame that one of America’s favorite past times is going by the way of the NFL. Millionaires haggling over salaries while playing a game while its fans pay the bill. Not me! I don’t watch either.

MLB’s Alternate Universe

By: G. Maresca

As the Russians deployed tens of thousands of troops for an invasion of Ukraine, Major League Baseball’s (MLB) owners and the players’ union agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement.

MLB’s latest contract ended a lockout that lasted more than three months and barely registered a blip on the news’ radar. Their lockout impacted not just the spring training stadiums, but the local bars, restaurants, and hotels throughout Arizona and Florida. According to Seidman Research, these venues lost nearly half of their revenue when spring training was cut short in 2020.

Once upon a time in America, the national pastime was baseball. The once coast-to-coast sporting diversion is long past its time and prime. Baseball is the Pony Express in the era of the iPhone.

A work stoppage should be the last thing any professional league facing declining numbers needs. Billionaires argue with millionaires who disagree on how to divvy up a dumpster full of cash with the remaining fans paying the freight. Players and owners are heading down the Niagara River fighting over who gets to steer. Such unhinged business practices do not bode well for future growth.

When the MLB minimum salary is well over half a million, it is difficult to convince anyone with a pulse that the players are undergoing financial hardships, while the league’s anti-trust exemption remains. Making it to the “show” as players refer to the majors means the last guy on the bench can afford a wine cellar in their self-driving Bentley, while your average fan is fighting growing inflation that will price many out.

The issue is always the almighty dollar and if MLB’s goal is to drive their fans out, they are clearing the bases. Most could care less about salary caps, player minimums, arbitration, and baseball’s luxury tax structure, which parallels the federal tax code. The more they muddle with it, the more incomprehensible it becomes that has even seasoned tax attorneys bamboozled.

As Jason Gay in the Wall Street Journal put it recently, “the nation’s most self-sabotaging sport is once more setting its own shoelaces aflame” and they have been at it for the last half century.

The league’s television ratings and attendance are proof the game remains in a serious funk. MLB is its own worst enemy and cannot afford to keep their fans away. Commissioner Rob Manfred makes his NFL counterpart Roger Goodell seem like a once in a lifetime lottery pick. MLB attendance last year was down to a 37-year low. The final game of the 2020 World Series had the lowest television ratings ever, while last year’s All-Star game was the second lowest. The league saw 45.3 million fans attend regular season games in 2021, a drop of 33.9% from 2019 – the lowest figure in 35-years.

There remains no joy in Mudville as COVID’s ominous clouds still cast a long shadow as unvaccinated players will be barred from Canada to play the Toronto Blue Jays. MLB’s slow suicide picked up steam when the league stenciled BLM on mounds and outfields, while moving their All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver to appease Leftists – an insufferable and impossible task.

For many, MLB could terminate the season and it would have the same impact if the American Ceramic Society cancelled their annual convention. Even a game as superbly conceived as baseball can be so mismanaged that its fan base is doing a MacArthur and fading away. Those who still find the game worth the time and the expense, MLB’s opening day was Thursday, April 7, one week later than initially scheduled with its 162-regular season games in place.

Greed and envy are just two more nails in MLB’s coffin. In the free marketplace, businesses are at liberty to choose and live with the consequences.

Baseball will survive as it is great entertainment at many levels from the minors to college, high school, and youth leagues, where games don’t last three and a half hours and a hot dog and a beer won’t cost you a small fortune.

MLB’s hubris cares little about their fans just like Hollywood. Fans, however, can be heard by using their pastime money to support the millions of displaced Ukrainians – a grand slam in the humanity game.