Perhaps ‘the Nation’s Pastime’ has passed its time

For the past week or so I’ve had this nagging thought that I forgot to do something. Yesterday it finally came to me:

Oh, yeah, I meant to watch the World Series.

For most of my life, forgetting the World Series was as unthinkable as forgetting to watch the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby or the re-runs of “Friends.” It was “Must See TV.”

Apparently, I’m not the only one who forgot about what baseball fans like to call “The National Pastime.” Not counting last year’s pandemic-affected game, this year’s first game of the World Series was the least watched opener ever. Fox reported 10.8 million viewers tore themselves away from “The Bachelorette,” “The Voice” or “FBI” to watch the Houston Astros play the Atlanta Braves.

By contrast, when the Yankees played the Dodgers in 1978, 44.2 million tuned in for that opener. OK, those were major markets. But 30.8 million watched Philadelphia and Kansas City’s opener in 1980.

There are all sorts of explanations offered why, as The New York Times put it last week, baseball is “in danger of fading even more from the national conversation.” Why “many young people believe it is not cool — that it is the exclusive domain of nostalgic old men and data geeks.”

The pace of the game is too sedate for a multi-sensory generation. Not enough flash, not enough pyrotechnics, not enough loud music, not enough dancing girls. How can the Phillie Phanatic compete with the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders?

Pitching has become too stifling, although baseball purists like to rhapsodize about pitchers’ duels. They’re the same kind of fans who get turned on by 1-0 soccer matches.

The sport is failing to produce megastars on the level of Tom Brady and LeBron James. On a list of the most-followed Instagram sports accounts, the first baseball player is Mike Trout — he’s No. 31. There are 25 basketball players and nine football players ahead of him. (In case you’re wondering, the first three on the list were soccer players. The fourth was an Indian cricket player.)

Whether baseball deserves to call itself the national pastime is a matter of opinion, of course; the title is subjective. Merriam-Webster defines it as “something that amuses and serves to make time pass agreeably.”

According to one report, mixed martial arts is the “new national pastime.” I can’t think of anything more depressing than watching tattooed men punching and kicking each other is this nation’s preference for passing the time agreeably.

Major League Baseball is aware that it has issues and is working to find solutions. But it needs to up its game before “Must See TV” merely becomes something we meant to watch.