Baseball is struggling right now. Diminishing television numbers, not marketing stars, and an inability to attract a younger audience. They tried to fix the latter two with their What-If Derby (which was a joke). If baseball wants to stay number two, or even retake number one, there needs to be a change. Here is how to fix the MLB.
Fix Number One: Make Baseball Fun Again
Baseball sucks at marketing its top players, partially because they don’t seem like they’re having fun! You know what’s fun? Partying. I get into this more later, but let those players cut loose. You might be thinking, “But Kevin, if these guys are all partying and drinking, won’t the play on the field suffer?” I laugh at that. Dallas Braden was violently hungover during his perfect game. Babe Ruth drank pitchers of beer constantly and is the greatest athlete who ever lived. If guys like Bryce Harper were getting hammered nightly, they might even play better. At the very least, it would certainly Make Baseball Fun Again.
Fix Number Two: Less Games
I’m going to say this once: barely anyone cares enough to watch 162 games. Nutjobs like Carrabis do, but the average fan doesn’t. Owners and players won’t love this because it’d drive down revenues/salaries, but decreasing the number of games will give the average fan more incentive to watch. If you miss 82 MLB games, that’s only about half the season. You know who has the perfect number of games? The NFL. 16 means every game matters. If the MLB went the 16 game route, that means your ace pitcher is pitching every game, players won’t miss times from wear and tear injuries, and guys like Yeli won’t miss extensive time due to injury. To fix MLB, 16 games makes the most sense for this league.
Fix Number Three: Bring the Drugs Back Man
I don’t mean weed (although that should be allowed too). I’m talking roids and HGH. Baseball’s highpoint of the last fifty years was McGwire and Sosa going at it for the home run record. Or Bonds being a freak of nature on the Giants. I want Noah Syndergaard to actually look like Thor by opening day. Outside of the optics, more yabos just means more viewers. It’s one of the most exciting parts of baseball, and people will watch. You know what, 17 years of steroid-less baseball needs more than just bringing drugs back.
I want teams like the coked-out ’86 Mets to be a mainstay of baseball, not a dark mark on the sport. I want Christian Yelich to be on so much coke he can see every stitch on a Chris Sale curveball. And while Chris Sale is throwing that ball, I want him thinking he’s throwing a pitch to Axl Rose swinging his guitar while Donald Trump umpires, like Dock Ellis throwing a no-hitter on acid. To fix the MLB, they need to come out and not only say they aren’t testing for drugs but say they won’t punish anyone caught with them.
Fix Number Four: Free Pete
I mean, this one’s a no brainer.
And there you have it: how to fix the MLB. If there is a labor stoppage, baseball will suffer, and I will be patiently waiting, checking my DMs, for Rob Manfred to slide in there and ask for my help. Hey Rob, my twitter is @BellyUpKev, just so you have that.
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1 Comment
Baseball was king when I was growing up in the late 80s/early 90s. Nearly every boy in my town collected baseball cards and played Little League. It’s clear that baseball needs changes, but I disagree with some of your ideas. Agreed that the season is too long with too many meaningless games, but 16 games is way too low. I would say having 3 to 4 games per week is still fine, however reduce the length of the season to just Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day. Nobody cares about baseball in April anyway.
I agree that MLB needs to come to terms with and bring back into the fold Pete Rose as well as the players from the steroid era. Rose has done his time in exile and the steroid era was what it was. There are people like me who grew up idolizing those players and so when MLB rejects them it’s like they are rejecting me. That said, I certainly don’t want them to “bring back the drugs”. It would turn the game into essentially nothing but a homerun derby and that would get boring really quickly.