Manor Ink July 2020

26 | JULY 2020 | MANOR INK
SPORTS
Is baseball about to lose the game?
By Cam Brightfield | For Manor Ink
Binghamton, NY – I play baseball
and basketball at my local school. I noticed
this spring that there were barely
enough boys wanting to join the baseball
team (only 9) before, of course, the
season got cancelled because of the
pandemic. On the other hand, we had
more than enough boys trying out for
the basketball team that we actually
had two teams in our last season.
Two polls point to the problem. The
respected Gallup Poll last reported in
2018 that football was far and away
the favorite sport to watch in America,
while basketball was second, then baseball
and soccer were fourth. Contrast
this with previous studies: In a 1948
Gallup poll, baseball was far and away
the most popular sport, followed by
football, basketball and soccer. In 1960,
baseball still led in popularity by a wide
margin over the others. Yet by 1980,
football had dramatically passed baseball
as the most popular sport in America.
By 2000, basketball had surpassed
baseball for second place. A 2020 study
by SportsShow.net had football being
the most popular sport to watch on TV,
with basketball next, then baseball, followed
by rising soccer.
Futile fight
Now we face a summer without any
baseball. At the major league level, the
owners of the 30 baseball teams and
the players’ union have seemingly entered
into a fight to the death of baseball
to agree how to have even a partial
season in the face of the pandemic
and the prospect of not being able to
have fans, and their money, in the major
league stadiums this season.
Furthermore, even before the pandemic,
the major league teams were
proposing to significantly reduce the
number of minor league teams around
the country. The fans are left to wonder
why no one cares about us and our love
of the game? With its declining popularity,
why aren’t they embracing this
moment to give us our game back?
MLB should take a cue from baseball
leagues in other countries. The Japanese
league is up and running. They’re
just playing without fans and it is working
– they even put stuffed animals in
the seats. MLB has blown the chance
CUTOUTS The “crowd” enjoys a ball game in the seats of a Tiawanese stadium while
the country was under quarantine during the coronavirus pandemis. wikimedia.org photo
NOTE TO READERS
This article was written just before
MLB announced that there
would be a truncated season of
60 games to begin on July 24.
to make baseball more appealing to
young people while there are no other
sports on TV. MLB could have gotten
the game up and running without fans,
and people desperate for sports would
have watched and maybe it would
have reach more young people.
I also honestly feel it’s not all about
the game itself. If MLB could add little
fun things to the side for people to
watch on TV, the game wouldn’t be
as boring. MLB had an opportunity to
make baseball popular again, and they
blew it. But then, on June 24, MLB announced
that training camps will start
on July 1, and Opening Day will be
July 24 with a season of 60 games.
No season for the Rumble Ponies?
We spoke recently with John Bayne,
managing director of the Binghamton
Rumble Ponies, a minor league affiliate
of the New York Mets. Bayne got
his start in baseball in 1986 as an usher
at the Omaha Royals, and, after a series
of positions at other minor league
clubs, was appointed to his position
with the Rumble Ponies in 2015. He
lamented the current state of affairs at
the major league level.
“They are not doing a very good job
of figuring it out, speaking as a fan,”
Bayne said. “If we do not have any
baseball this summer, it will hurt the
sport a lot.” If MLB could have gotten
the game up and running, maybe
decisions whether to keep some minor
leagues teams and disband others
would not have to be made.
Normally, Bayne would be busily
preparing for the opening of the team’s
season which had been scheduled for
June 20, just days after the date of our
interview. Instead, the focus is on
keeping the stadium and field in good
shape. Bayne said they are working
on plans to use the stadium for other
events such as music shows and fireworks,
if permitted,
and allowing youth
baseball teams to play
on the field.
He hopes that if
the major leagues can
John Bayne
come to agreement
to play this summer,
then perhaps they’ll get some clarity
on their future. “Whether a major
league affiliate or not, I’m confident
that we’ll continue to have baseball in
Binghamton,” Bayne said. He believes
minor league baseball is striving to
address the lack of popularity particularly
among young persons, by “doing
things to make the experience fun for
everyone such as getting fans out on
the field, meeting the players, etc.”
I can only hope that Bayne is right
– that those who control baseball will
let us have it, that they’ll make it fun,
that they won’t strike out in Mudville,
Binghamton or New York.
Cam Brightfield is a guest reporter and
Mets fan. He had help from Art Steinhauer,
mentor and Yankees fan.