Major League Baseball, A PR Disaster
Major League Baseball is in trouble, and they still need to figure out why. It’s simple: their PR stinks. Baseball is the backbone on which America is built, with the nation tuned in to the results of their local team and listening on radios to immortal voices like Vin Scully, Harry Caray, Jack Buck, and Bob Uecker. Kids immortalized players such as Jackie Robinson, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Fernando Valenzuela, and Sandy Koufax. The game thrived and became “America’s Pastime.” Baseball had its golden age and has started a slow decline to irrelevance ever since.
It’s not like there haven't been glimmers of hope to return the game of baseball to its former glory. The great home run chase of ‘98 saw two heavyweights, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire, trade home run for home run. The nation was tuned in to America’s heartland to watch these two greats go blow for blow. Major League Baseball squandered that opportunity to capitalize and grow because they wanted to protect the integrity of the game by ostracizing both players for the use of steroids.
In an effort to get more people to watch and attend games, they made the game shorter by implementing a clock. Baseball purists hate it, including me. Yet they claim it would bring more viewers and more attendance into the stadiums. This year's World Series had 9.11 million average viewers, which so happens to be the worst average rating since they started keeping track of ratings in 1963. So, really crushed that one, didn't we?
The game is the game. Why change it? The difference is that players were treated like celebrities and showcased on late-night TV, in newspapers, and in radio broadcasts. What do they do now? The occasional graphic on social media that gets overshadowed by non-stop coverage of the other major sports in the country. It is a complete disaster.
The game is as watchable as ever, with recent excellent small rule changes minus the pitch clock. There are stars nationwide, including Mookie Betts, Mike Trout, Aaron Judge, Rafael Devers, Bobby Witt Jr., and Ronald Acuña Jr.
MLB needs to start making their star players accessible; they have an excellent opportunity to do it and must capitalize. Push the players. They're what makes the game grow—no better place to start than Shohei Ohtani, who is slowly becoming the second coming of Babe Ruth. Side note: he’s better than Babe Ruth ever was.