Fans left with an increasingly boring game
I don’t hate baseball analytics or their use by crafty baseball operations folks. I look at analytics gurus like Billy Beane, Theo Epstein and Andrew Friedman as smart guys who figured out how to exploit market inefficiencies in the game. But they’ve also inadvertently damaged the game as a fan experience and entertainment product. There’s…
Time to end the government-sanctioned cartel
“Every other sport – like virtually every sort of business – is governed by the antitrust laws.” – Stuart Banner, author of The Baseball Trust: A History of Baseball’s Antitrust Exemption The fact that the Supreme Court of the United States gave Major League Baseball an antitrust exemption in 1922 was…
Lack of action and decreasing entertainment value impacting attendance
As a game and entertainment product, Major League Baseball has plenty of problems. For starters: the pace of play is dreadful; strikeouts and walks are up and action is down; stolen base attempts are becoming extinct; a ball is only put in play every four minutes; just 20 per cent of generation Z members consider…
Indigenous nicknames, logos, mascots and rituals are inappropriate and insensitive
Why is this so hard? In the year 2021, why do some sports organizations still insist on using Indigenous American names, mascots, caricatures, rituals, etc., to promote their team? And in the case of Atlanta’s Major League Baseball team, why do they continue to encourage fans to do the tomahawk chop by turning the lights…
It doesn’t make sense to build a whole new stadium for half of a ball season
Montrealers are happy to welcome new neighbours with a bagel basket or a case of beer, but we’re not buying them a new hot tub. That’s how taxpayers in Montreal feel about the Tampa Bay Rays. They sure seem like a great team. We’d love to see them play some games in Montreal. But we’re…
Just like Canada, baseball has a way of bringing diverse groups together
The Toronto Blue Jays are often referred to as Canada’s team because they’re the only Major League Baseball organization in the country. This season they’re playing the most exciting baseball we’ve seen in years, and even though their ranks don’t include many Canadian players, they certainly look a lot like Canada. There are as many…
Cleveland MLB franchise sees the light and adopts a new name
Cleveland Guardians. Sure it sounds weird. Cleveland’s baseball team has been called the Indians for more than a century. But everyone will get used to it. Most importantly, it was the right thing to do. Yes, the name Indians is less egregious than the blatantly racist name Redskins that Washington’s National Football League team used…
Roberto Alomar was a great baseball player but there’s more to being a human than athleticism. The real hero is the woman who reported him
Public opinion is fickle. We love to sing the praises of individuals and put them on pedestals, but we’re just as apt to demonize these same people in the court of public opinion. Is this type of thinking getting us anywhere? Aren’t we all simply humans with the capacity to do good or bad things?…
A win for the U.S. and its democracy?
Major League Baseball’s decision to move the all-star game out of Georgia and to Colorado will guarantee that state voting laws will be a big story in the days surrounding the game. Colorado’s voting system will undoubtedly get a lot of attention, especially as the July 13 game gets closer. That’s good news, whatever your…
Racism is pointless and will inevitably fail, as it did in baseball. But it is part of our history
My earliest memories of baseball revolve around the 1969 Chicago Cubs. Enthusiasm just resonated off Wrigley Field as the great Ernie Banks chimed, “Let’s play two!” Regardless of the disastrous finish to that season for the Cubbies, a love for the game was planted in my soul as a seven-year-old. These heroes were larger than…