Today's sports news is all about contracts and signing bonuses rather than contact and signs. Kids under 12, who used to tell you how much they'd love to hit a ball like Ted Williams or Hank Aaron, tell you today that they hope they'll get to play well enough to make that big money.
Is the commissioner responsible for this? Yes. Even though independently none of this is his doing, the collective damage all of this wreaks upon the ever-shrinking market of major league baseball fans should be his concern.
Baseball has faded from general public's consciousness for so long that we've entered generational disconnect between large segments of the nation and the game. There are more kids who play soccer, football, and lacrosse. A kid is more likely to know Dale Jarrett's record of wins than Randy Johnson's.
The ‘80s and ‘90s were the domain of the power television sports and hyper-merchandising. Jordan, not Bonds, inspired a generation of kids, from whom he cashed in handsomely.
Football and basketball play well for the tube. Football outstripped baseball as America’s Pastime. It's the dominant sport of television, print and radio twelve months of the year, 24/7.
The NBA and the shoe companies largely hold the attention of America’s youth living in the inner city, to the point that fewer and fewer African-Americans even play baseball as children.
Baseball had a stab at taking its title back when McGwire and Sosa's home run mania set in, and Bonds looked to be able to reach Aaron's legendary home run mark. The scandal of the steroids that drove those record hunts tarnished the moments and sent baseball back on its downward run.
Let's not forget that it wasn't so long ago that the sport declined to the point that Commissioner Selig threatened using the nasty “C” word (Contraction). Even the admission that contraction 'might' be a necessity was a mis-step in public relations.
The 21st Century Different
Commissioner Selig isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Neither are major league baseball's chronic woes. Much the pity.
Baseball will need to change with it if it wants to court America and rekindle its romance with the sport. It will need to understand the New World Order that the minor leagues have managed to capture so well.
The internet, and fast shipping to every corner of the globe, have dispersed the economic power from the big cities of the 1900’s.
The largest software maker in the world is in Redmond, not Manhattan. Computer giant Dell is in Round Rock, Texas. Businessmen with laptops rule their empires from a wi-fi connection at Starbucks or a hotel pool.
People are looking for a better standard of living than being stacked on top of each other by the thousands. From the sunny, tree-lined business parks of Florida to the re-developed micro-business economies springing up in the industrial North, the world is definitely changing.
In this world, these people returning to smaller-town America often want many of the same creature comforts that they had working in the major metro markets: Culture, history, and live sports.
These changes, and the improvements to meet this new audience, are why many minor league parks are drawing bigger than some of the major league ones.
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