It takes a special kind of logic to start your segment with a callback to the 1994 strike — the darkest moment in recent baseball history — and then make a full-throated argument that baseball today is in dire trouble. I mean, you think one would at least note that baseball has achieved labor peace, instituted the strongest drug testing regime in U.S. sports and has increased revenues something like 800% since then, but maybe that just slipped everyone’s mind:
To be fair: I am on board with concern about the demographics of baseball fandom. It is somewhat concerning that the audience for the game is getting older. Baseball worries about that too and they’ve actually been working on it. Time will tell if they figure that out. It’s also worth wondering and maybe worrying about who the next commissioner will be. The current battle to replace Bud Selig has one faction which seems to want to take us back to the days when owners and players were at odds and things like salary caps were discussed in polite company. If that happens, we could find ourselves back in the bad old days again.
But to claim that baseball “depends” on local revenue as if that were a bad thing and to cite the Q-ratings of various athletes as if that is some gauge of health is a lot of effort to get around the fact that baseball is doing really darn well these days. Way better than it was doing in the mid-90s, that’s for sure.
