Page 2 of 3

Re: Baseball in Decline?

Posted: April 14th, 2018, 9:13 pm
by Voor
zetax wrote:I don't have cable, and don't live near a MLB team, so the best I can do is to watch a few of the televised minor-league games on the local station that plays them (Charlotte Knights games.) I do (usually) watch playoff and World Series games in the fall when they are on. I like watching baseball, it's just not...convenient?


Same here, but I wouldn’t watch regular season games even if I did. But the playoff games are usually on a network, so I’ll watch a few innings the first round, more the next, and finally, whole games for the World Series.

Re: Baseball in Decline?

Posted: April 14th, 2018, 10:16 pm
by jon
A huge problem that the VGC mentioned is pitchers don't last long enough. The manager wusses out and shelves the starter after 100 pitches. I think last night a guy with a no hitter was pulled after 6 innings because of a high pitch count. Then there's all the relievers, most of which end up pitching one inning. It's a joke. It actually gets my blood boiling that "relief" pitchers get paid millions for pitching one freaking inning.

Re: Baseball in Decline?

Posted: April 15th, 2018, 9:11 am
by scotland
The CTE issue is something that MMA should have to worry about as well. Boxing's decline, in my opinion, started well before that became an issue, but seeing Muhammad Ali in the opening ceremony to the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 was certainly eye opening to the dangers of boxing, and now football. I may have to take the advice to watch more tennis.

Does anyone else feel that maybe a decline in sportsmanship or behavior issues matter for baseball or other sports in general?

Athletes used to be held up (maybe falsely) as icons of sportsmanship - of teamwork, or never giving up, hard work, being a good loser, giving to charity, etc. In other words, athletes seen as role models. Many athletes were also part timers, even in the 1970s and made modest salaries.

Between things like doping scandals, horrible off the field behavior, huge salaries, etc, affects my way to seeng a sport.

Re: Baseball in Decline?

Posted: April 15th, 2018, 5:42 pm
by David
Stalvern wrote:The alternative to the helmet rule is pervasive and well-documented brain damage. This rule is long overdue. The suffering of thousands is not an acceptable price for anything, let alone entertainment.


That rule isn’t going to do much to eliminate concussions or just the general impacts during the game. Would you like football to be banned? You should probably ban hockey and soccer as well, along with boxing and MMA. My point is, there’s lots of things that aren’t good for us but we do it anyways because it’s worth the value we each assign to it.

I was listening to a former NFL player on the radio talking about it and he said for him, the tradeoffs were worth it. He was worried more about his knees and back than head issues, but said that the money he made for his family and the experience of playing and competing at the highest level was worth it to him. As long as the NFL and other sports leagues are transparent regarding research I don’t see much of an issue enjoying watching sports. That’s not to say that new rules and equipment shouldn’t be implemented, but I don’t think that rule specifically is very helpful in that regard.

Re: Baseball in Decline?

Posted: April 15th, 2018, 6:45 pm
by Stalvern
David wrote:That rule isn’t going to do much to eliminate concussions or just the general impacts during the game. Would you like football to be banned? You should probably ban hockey and soccer as well, along with boxing and MMA. My point is, there’s lots of things that aren’t good for us but we do it anyways because it’s worth the value we each assign to it.

Besides being factually wrong (67.7% of concussions are from helmet-to-helmet impacts), this is disingenuous. I could give you the exact same BS - you don't like the helmet rule, so you also want to get rid of helmets themselves, and why not just get it all out of the way and lobotomize players from the start? - but I don't because that kind of discussion is worse than useless. And how well do you think your argument would fly if you put it to one of the actual players affected by this?

There are trade-offs to everything. Why is it so important to you that people give up their well-being for the game but not for the game to give up some of its action for their well-being? Is the cost to your entertainment really worse than the cost to players' minds and lives? I hope that you aren't actually selfish enough to think that way. A perfectly safe sport is impossible, but that is no excuse to neglect safety itself or to ignore the consequences of that neglect.

Re: Baseball in Decline?

Posted: April 15th, 2018, 6:56 pm
by Stalvern
I mean, it's nice that you got to hear someone on the radio who didn't have that problem, but a lot of people who have won't be talking anyway because they've killed themselves.

Re: Baseball in Decline?

Posted: April 15th, 2018, 11:58 pm
by David
Stalvern wrote:Besides being factually wrong (67.7% of concussions are from helmet-to-helmet impacts), this is disingenuous. I could give you the exact same BS - you don't like the helmet rule, so you also want to get rid of helmets themselves, and why not just get it all out of the way and lobotomize players from the start? - but I don't because that kind of discussion is worse than useless. And how well do you think your argument would fly if you put it to one of the actual players affected by this?

There are trade-offs to everything. Why is it so important to you that people give up their well-being for the game but not for the game to give up some of its action for their well-being? Is the cost to your entertainment really worse than the cost to players' minds and lives? I hope that you aren't actually selfish enough to think that way. A perfectly safe sport is impossible, but that is no excuse to neglect safety itself or to ignore the consequences of that neglect.


A few things. First, do you know what the new helmet rule is? Helmet-to-helmet impacts are already not permitted. The new rule they’re implementing is not that. This is when players make impact, they’re not allowed to initiate contact with their helmet, which is what every running back does when running into a pile, or when players tackle, or the O and D lineman make contact on the line. It has the potential to dramatically alter the game.

Second, when I asked if you’d rather have sports banned was in response to your “suffering by thousands is not an acceptable price” line. This new helmet rule may have an impact, sure. It also might not, and like I said, will change the way the game is played. And even if it does have a marginal impact , football is built around men running full speed into other men. As long as the game is that, the only way injuries won’t happen is if you ban the game entirely. There are also studies that show it’s not just concussions that may cause brain damage; it’s the repeated hits to the head that happen in football, hockey, soccer even, combat sports, etc that may contribute to it.

Third, it’s not important to me that people give up their well being. Quite the opposite, actually. Players definitely should put their health first. But if football is to exist, it should stay the physical sport that it is. The helmet-to-helmet rule is a good change that can prevent dangerous situations while keeping the game mostly similar. This new one? I’m not as sure. I wouldn’t consider that neglecting safety. And If that’s selfish viewpoint I don’t know what to tell you. No one is forcing these adults to play the game. They all get full rides in college, which is a lot more than most if they’d like to do something else. If you want to discuss if tackle football should be banned from high schoolers and younger, that’s a different question.

Fourth, I used the anecdote about the former player to convey why people who are responsible for their own lives might want to play the game. You don’t have to disagree with or understand their reasoning, but that’s why they choose to play. And I hope you’re not suggesting that football players are commiting suicide at a significant rate, because that’s false. In fact, just googling quickly there’s a couple pages that say that the suicide rate is lower for former players than the general population.

Re: Baseball in Decline?

Posted: April 16th, 2018, 10:24 am
by Retro STrife
See what happened here.... baseball is so boooring that we went ahead and switched this topic to a sport people actually care about - football!

The implementation of this new helmet rule will be interesting, but I don't see it changing the game all that much. A few years back they made a new rule that running backs can't lead with the crown of their helmet when initiating contact in the open field. People worried that this would change the running game. In reality, I have never seen it called in a game since then. I have a feeling that this years' new rule will not change much either. Certainly, I don't see it changing things more than the "defenseless receiver" helmet-to-helmet rule from a decade ago, which was a huge change, and the game has survived that one just fine. So I have no concerns with the new rule. I also don't foresee it significantly reducing big collisions and concussions, but I guess any little bit helps.

I also share David's perspective. These are grown men choosing to play football for millions of dollars - no one is forcing them to do it. Like him, I've heard plenty of players say that the rewards vastly outweigh the head injury risks to them. They know the risks and willingly take them on. Like Stalvern, I hope the NFL keeps trying to improve player safety, but either way, it won't change my viewing habits. I watch the NFL every week it's on and haven't missed a single Cowboys game in over 10 years. At this point it's a weekly ritual, and I can't foresee anything that could ever happen in the NFL that would make me change that trend.

I also played organized football for over 5 years when I was growing up. Based on my own experience, I don't have much concerns about long-term head injuries for youth who play the game for only a short period of time. I would have no problem allowing my future children to play the game if they wanted to. I wish I played it longer too; it builds character and it was one of the best experiences of my life. Or at least the parts that I can still remember..

Re: Baseball in Decline?

Posted: April 16th, 2018, 10:32 am
by Retro STrife
As for baseball.. despite being a very avid sports fan, and capable of watching almost any sport, baseball is one I truly dread. It's so slow and boring. At-bats take way too long. It's a whole lot of nothingness, sprinkled with very brief moments of excitement. Not worth it; I can't sit through it. And, as others mentioned, the biggest problem is that there is no way to care about individual games in the regular season when the season is 162 games long.

Edit: I'd add that, despite this, I still do casually follow baseball, since I'm a big sports fan and always watching ESPN. When the playoffs rolls around, I'll pay closer attention, and I usually try to watch a World Series game or two. But even then, it's a very casual interest. The peak of baseball for me was the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry in the early 2000s (especially because of where I live), but it stopped being interesting after the Red Sox finally won.

Re: Baseball in Decline?

Posted: April 16th, 2018, 11:13 am
by evergreen13
Retro STrife wrote:As for baseball.. despite being a very avid sports fan, and capable of watching almost any sport, baseball is one I truly dread. It's so slow and boring. At-bats take way too long. It's a whole lot of nothingness, sprinkled with very brief moments of excitement. Not worth it; I can't sit through it. And, as others mentioned, the biggest problem is that there is no way to care about individual games in the regular season when the season is 162 games long.


I feel like I hear this argument a lot, that baseball is boring. I feel like I get why people say that, but at the same time I can get sucked into a baseball game more easily than almost any other sport. Sure, it's a bit slower paced, but it's all about building tension. Maybe it's a societal thing; that we've all developed ADHD in some form because of media and the internet that we can't stay focused on a game that doesn't have non-stop action. And I get that you can't put too much care into one game, but the number of games is part of the reason I feel that it is "America's Pastime." It's not about the games, it's about the season. There's always something to discuss, and even crappy teams can pull off a few wins against the best teams.