Baseball past its prime as a pastime
Baseball will be around forever but the game once identified as a national pastime is past prime.
Fantasy baseball leagues offered a resuscitation of interest but even that fictional game play shows a drop in activity.
The pace of the world rushes at breakneck speed and baseball will struggle to keep up with youth who have no time for three-hour games, 162-game schedules and diluted talent.
No great baseball teams exist any longer although drama can be achieved with limited talent, goat jinxes, and the end of century-old World Series droughts.
Of course, baseball purists hold onto yesterday as their close proximity and love blinds them from honest perception.
Dispensing numbers and statistics can either prove or disprove baseball’s decline but no argument exists about the lack of black Major League players which correlates to a lack of interest by black fans.
Have you seen baseball crowds? My goodness, they resemble National Hockey League’s homogeneous mixture.
The game which denied black players access now witnesses a black exodus.
Seventy years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier, baseball attracts minimal black interest.
A certain disingenuousness occurs when all MLB players honor Robinson by donning his No. 42. What’s worse is that all baseball records before 1947 stand as real markers instead of being identified with asterisks.
In 2014, the St. Louis Cardinals, San Francisco Giants and Arizona Diamondbacks had no black players on their 25-man roster.
St. Louis and San Francisco, once hubs for black players? None?
Currently, Boston’s Red Sox has four black players, the most for any MLB team.
The diversity issue matters but baseball’s slide includes a fight for attention from young minds who love movement, action and video games.
Many young athletes have no tolerance to stand around on a baseball field hoping for or against a ball being hit their way.
Essentially, baseball is a companion for old people. They can nod out by the fourth inning but wake up in time to watch an overpriced relief pitcher enter in the seventh.
Can feel the spiritual wrath of Bus Saidt, deceased, and impending shadow of The Trentonian’s Jay Dunn, both accomplished baseball guys.
Evolution of the human species and world requires time which means most of us will not live to witness baseball’s backslide.
The Boys of Summer have not disappeared completely but they fade.