OC Register: Alexander: Fixing Baseball, Part II

[AngelsWin.com]

Fact: Through Sunday, 14 of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams had experienced attendance decreases from this point last season.

Also a fact: The Red Sox avoided being one of those, by just 20,429 fans, thanks to two crowds of 59,659 and 59,059 in their London games with the Yankees. Meanwhile the Angels, despite being the home team for two games in Monterrey, Mexico in May and drawing 18,177 and 17,614, were just 2,861 behind their 2018 home attendance pace.

That latter number helps speak to the strength of Southern California as a baseball region.

The Dodgers, with their season-long dominance on the field, are not only the first team to top 3 million this season but (albeit with four extra home dates) more than 654,000 fans better than No. 2, the self-proclaimed Best Fans In Baseball in St. Louis. The Angels, in 55 games in Anaheim, are at 2.131 million and averaging 37,505, which really is quite good for a team that was on the fringe of wild-card contention most of the summer and now seems to have fallen out of the race.

The point – and thank you for your patience in allowing us to meander toward it – is that your perception of the game’s condition largely depends on (a) where you live and (b) how the local team is doing. Shifts, pace of game, lack of action, strike zones that sometimes defy description … if the home team is winning (and if you can see it on TV nightly), those issues don’t stop you from partaking. (Unless you root for the A’s or Rays, but that’s a different discussion altogether.)

Still, the game has plenty of room for improvement. A year ago, we made some suggestions on making baseball better, and readers subsequently chimed in with their own opinions. Some were really good, some were funny – totally intended that way, I’m sure – and some were get-off-my-lawn cranky.

(Warning: The proprietor is the only one allowed to shoo the kids out of the front yard in This Space. He rarely exercises that privilege.)

So if it’s early August, it’s time to revisit our brainstorming. Call it Fixing Baseball, Part II.

And we start by critiquing the people responsible for marketing and promoting the game – you know, the ones with such PR savvy that they timed the release of their 2020 schedule for Monday, the very same day that the NBA announced its schedule.

Can they be more tone-deaf? Well …

• Uniforms. MLB’s marketers just can’t leave the uniforms and colors alone. They’ve insisted on unnecessarily messing with teams’ individual brands for each holiday, but their latest plan, for next week’s Players Weekend, borders on out-and-out blasphemy. They scheduled that promotion on the weekend that the Yankees and Dodgers play each other, a matchup of iconic teams with iconic uniforms. So, naturally, MLB mandated white-on-off white for home teams (Dodgers) and black-on-black for visitors (Yankees).

Nary a team color to be found, but that’s not the worst part: It has always been my contention that if you can’t see the numbers distinctly from the top row, the uniforms have failed their basic function. This?  Epic fail. What good are the nicknames on the backs if you can’t see them?

• The strike zone. I, for one, am rooting for the experiment in the independent Atlantic League with an electronic strike zone to succeed. Yes, the box you see on televised games is deceptive and doesn’t always show where a pitch truly crossed the plate, though announcers often seem to treat that graphic as the last word. (And let’s face it: Pitchers are better than ever before at manipulating the ball and creating wicked movement, which suggests both hitters and umpires are overmatched.)

Automated ball-strike calls would solve two problems. The electronic strike zone would prevent catchers from stealing strikes via “framing.” And it would get rid of the Incredible Floating Strike Zone, i.e., each umpire’s interpretation of the zone as if he’s performing a song or critiquing a painting. Giving a pitcher the corner is one thing. Umpiring as if the plate is low and outside is quite another.

Oh, and it’s also time to revise the rule book and move the upper limit of the strike zone closer to the letters than the belly button, please. More strikes means more swinging the bat, and that means potentially more action.

• The shift. I would still prefer a rule change stipulating two fielders on each side of second base, but for some reason I’m not bothered by extreme shifts as much as I was in the past. Maybe I’m getting used to it. Horrifying thought.

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• YouTube. I was prepared to dislike the streaming service’s first foray into live baseball coverage. But I don’t, though the play-by-play guys they bring in could be a little less chatty. (Pro tip: Once you turn off the viewer comments button, it’s a lot more enjoyable.) It is a boon for those who are otherwise shut out (hello, deprived Dodger fans), though I can also see where it’s an issue for those who don’t have smart TVs or are simply grappling with the notion of watching baseball on a tablet or phone.

So, again, can we revise the MLB.TV rules and make everything available everywhere, with no blackouts? The sport has an opportunity to get ahead of the curve here and recapture the attention of cord cutters, rather than being held back by its loyalty to cable networks who are shedding subscribers as we speak.

• The baseball. Is it time to deaden the ball just a bit? Or maybe put the balls into humidors at sea level, as well as at altitude? Yes, people love home runs, but people love sweets, too. In both cases, overconsumption is dangerous.

Those are some of my thoughts. I welcome yours.

jalexander@scng.com

@Jim_Alexander on Twitter

 

 

 

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[Angel Oracle]

Rob Manfred seems to be one of those "touch it even if it works well" kind of guys.

You know, like the people at Microsoft who take a perfectly good Windows format and screw it up. 

And, please don't make the game so much about Three True Outcomes.    I like a little of everything at a baseball game, to truly test each team.