Baseball is indeed in trouble, but baseball can't pass up the immediate buck, can't see the future, and maybe failing attendance will wake them up. Pace of game is certainly a big component, cost is another.
And while I can't say for sure that kids are not playing baseball anymore, I can say that it appears that kids are playing soccer more than baseball, or basketball, or anything else. Maybe playing games earlier might help, and how about playing maybe one World Series game in daylight?
Within the game itself, I find it amazing that there is not a backlash about how constant pitcher changes is killing me. After the 6th inning, do i want to endure 8 pitcher changes, lefty, righty, lefty, righty, lefty righty!!! Torture. But, truth is that every pitcher change creates a commercial, both on t.v. and in the stadium, so why would baseball curtail the madness?
And cost? Most here say they don't go to games due to cost, well, stop paying players ten zillion dollars a year, and stop raising ticket prices and be reasonable. Free agency was the best thing that happened to players salaries and owners getting rich with team values going through the roof, but the fan is the loser, whether it's cost of a game, or being tortured by constant bombardment between innings with commercials.
Finally, free agency has also destroyed team stability, with players changing teams every year.
Back to knitting, with the ball in play less than ever, it's not a bad idea.
4
Hey MLB managers, owners and commissioner, are you seeing this?!
My wife roots for the clock, not any particular team, wow!
I crochet all the time at Yankee games. I got an odd look the first time I took my bag in, but I work with a wooden hook and I take very small, TSA-compliant scissors with me. My son mocks me silly but I find it improves my focus.
And hey, a beautiful evening, outdoors, making something while the Yankees murder the competition? I was delighted to pack my back up so I could participate in the raucous cheering last Thursday night when they clinched the AL East.
2
In the 1960's (Freddie Hutchinson was managing the Reds), I took the eventual mother of my children to watch the Mets. She was not a baseball fan, but we could exchange the ticket stubs for $.50 credits at the Automat. She brought her knitting.
The result of a slow, plodding game: Half an Irish sweater.
2
Knitters would love Test cricket, played over five days, plenty of time to pop down to local store to replenish fine yarn, and maybe pick up some patterns, and get back to survey the latest action. But your have to travel overseas to catch.
4
My dad, who was had a “cup of coffee” in the majors leagues back in the day, said that baseball was the only sport where you could read the entire Sunday paper without missing a play. Nothin much has changed.
5
My hands are too shaky for knitting any more but I used to turn out a sweater per World Series.
The other thing that makes the game fly by is keeping score. I learned the standard system when I was a young teen but added my own bells and whistles over time as I think everyone does. For extra credit one can record balls and strikes including foul balls. Time will fly.
I have an in-stadium score card from Dave Righetti's July 4, 1983, no-hitter.
13
If it float's your boat, awesome. I for one have ditched sports entirely due to the length of games. 4+ hours to watch - WATCH! - a game is just nonsense. There are far more active or at least interactive things to do with my time, especially when it's pleasant out.
When I read the heading, my first image was of Madame Thérèse Defarge knitting her coded messages. Perhaps the knitters are sending messages to the dugout.
8
Pinch-knitting?
8
Someone once recommended “3-pitch baseball.” Two strikes - you are out. Two balls - a walk. Strike and a ball? Next pitch, either walk, on base or out.
Faster game. Not boring.
2
Nice story, but problems remain. Basically, baseball is a 19th century sport that people loved listening to on the radio when attention spans were much longer than they are now. Baseball reached the peak of its popularity, I would say, in 1948. That year, the Cleveland Indians (winners of the World Series that year, for the last time to date) set an attendance record (2.6 million) that would not be surpassed for 32 years until 1980 (by the New York Yankees).
Then television sets were soon in every American household after 1948, and pretty soon baseball games were being broadcast by local TV networks. Turns out baseball wasn't so exciting to watch on a screen at home, while football was far more exciting to watch in that manner.
Football surpassed baseball as the most popular spectator sport in the U.S. by the end of the 1960s, and I'd say basketball also surpassed baseball by the end of the 1980s (baseball couldn't match the Larry Bird-Magic Johnson rivalry of that decade, with its contrasts of white and black, rural and urban, "hick" and sophisticate--the public relations people in the NBA were geniuses to promote all that, even if much of it was exaggeration).
Finally, I think it's worth quoting former player Gary Sheffield: "When I was playing (1988-2009), being a $100 million player meant something. Now you can make that much and still suck.”
Fans are aware of salaries. Who wants to watch a lousy player who still managed to land a guaranteed 9-figure contract?
1
@AR
I'm 70 but always enjoyed listening to Dizzy Dean( a former pitcher ) announce a game on TV. Later on for smoothness it was Vin Scully on the radio for LAD or for the World Series on NBC.
There were a few announcer for the Astros in the past but most of the guys were in their 50s and 60s and had done broadcasting in other cities before coming to Houston. Milo Hamilton was funny the older he got due to the mistakes he made.
And you'd have to be at least 55 to remember Harry Carrey.
Go Astros !! I hope Altuve is MVP in the WS.
3
@AR
I'm 70 but always enjoyed listening to Di
Baseball's pace of play is also perfect for me.
5
I find it curious that some baseball fans think the games leisurely pace is a perfect antidote to "our fast-paced 21st century". In reality, baseball was a quickly-paced game in it's so-called golden era, with most games completed in under two hours. The starting pitcher was expected to pitch nine innings, with the bullpen populated by aging pitchers, long past their prime. In addition, most games started at 3:00 pm, and without night lights available, teams were compelled to complete the games before the onset of darkness. And, of course, the needs of television have totally obliterated the pace of the game, as it has done with all American team sports. Witness the three-hour marathon of football. In its heyday, baseball completed its day games in time for the late edition newspapers to report the days scores, and players had their evenings to enjoy a well earned leisure. Knitting at a game speaks volumes on the sad state of baseball.
6
I grew up in a suburb of Philly and my Dad always listened to baseball games on the radio as he worked out in the yard or on cars, or in the basement (where our *only* TV was). His reason for "multi-tasking" was not the pace of the game, but simply his many household responsibilities. I learned my love of the game from him and I appreciate the ability to do other things -- including knitting -- while a game is on. But watching in detail is never boring if you truly understand the nuances of pitching, hitting, and fielding.
12
The joy of baseball is that it is one of the few sports that are not played against the clock. For folks fixated on football, soccer, hockey or basketball this is a drawback.
But for true fans of baseball (who may or may not be knitters the unfolding of a baseball game has its own existence outside of time. Those of us who understand baseball strategy and can appreciate the defensive aspects of the game rather than just hope for home runs are not bothered by any game's particular length.
In our fast-paced 21st Century world baseball's timelessness may well be its ultimate downfall. But until then, I'll just enjoy the game no matter how long it takes.
10
I’ve never been bored at a MLB game. Seen baseball for 50 years. Love it. Go to Scottsdale every year to see the Cubs and the other teams. My grandson is 10 and loves to play baseball and watch his Cubs.
4
Kinda funny! And I like listening to games while working because nothing much happens to interrupt work and the patter of the announcers is basically just soothing background noise.
4
My mother took up knitting when her 9-year-old son began treatment for a terminal disease, to pass the hours at the hospital, etc. She got so good she could watch TV and knit at the same time. Reading this article reminds me of her, and I know that if they were still living, and my dad were to take her to a baseball game today, and if she were allowed to bring along her knitting needles, they'd both be good with that, and so would I.
11
Baseball is even boring on TV. And TV can make even golf kind of exciting.
1
@Scott D
I think the mystique of golf is due to the aspect of how normal sized men could hit a ball so far off the tee and then finese it to the greens along with the mental aspects of putting. It's both fun and sad to watch a player get the yips.
Of course you had a lot of human interest stories starting with the comeback of Ben Hogan and the meltdown and comeback of Tiger.
My favorite player is Bubba Watson. He doesn't like crowds but contains himself enough to have won 2 Masters.
1
What a great article.
My mother used to make rosaries while watching and listening to the ball game.
It's because of her love of the game that spilled over and left a permanent mark on my heart. I could listen to Bob Uecker broadcast those Brewers forever.
There's nothing more relaxing than a summer afternoon at the ball park, eating a brat and swigging a brew.
8
I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed reading this article after a morning of being bombarded by so much President Crazypants news that I wanted to pull a Wreck-it-Ralph and break the internet. Never really thought about people knitting at baseball games, but the idea of it is oddly exciting. This would be a fun film :)
13
And how long is the average NFL game? With absolutely nothing happening between each play?
2 things that aren't worth indulging in when in a hurry: baseball and sex.
4
@S maltophilia
Yes, football games are even longer. The issue, implied but not clearly stated, is that baseball games happen on weeknights, meaning that people have to go to work the next day. Football games are, with a few exceptions, played on weekends--and a four-hour football game on Sunday afternoon is a different species from a 3 1-2-game on Tuesday night.
The length of football games is a problem widely acknowledged. The constant stoppages for commercial breaks alone is incredibly irritating! BUT. But the fact that football has a problem doesn't negate that perhaps--just perhaps--baseball struggles with the same issue.
Just because the sport you love has problems doesn't mean that *you* have problems. Criticism of baseball isn't criticism of *you* for loving baseball. We all love problematic things (I love road cycling: helllllloooooo doping!). It is, within obvious limits, okay to love problematic things.
Don't take it so personally. Football and baseball aren't in some all-or-nothing death match where there can be only one: some people even manage to like them both!
2
Fun article, but I have to say I went from a season ticket plan to half, then twenty games, eight games and now none. the length of the game has made it very difficult to get home a decent hour in order to work the next day. I miss going to the stadium or think I do until I get there and realize I will be home sometime around 11-11:30 pm. All kidding aside, the league keeps trying to speed up the game and yet they get longer every year. There is a reason the opera only does Wagner's ring series once a year.
9
The pace of baseball is the source of its drama. Despite all statistical probability, anything could happen. At any time. By anyone. A very American game. Maybe those who find it too slow should ask themselves what the need for speed is really about.
16
@Miller There is a difference between a need for speed and a need for action.
4
@Miller There are a variety of sports that cannot list brevity as a selling point, with football being the most notable. Games regularly extend over 3 hours at both the collegiate and professional level, yet the passion and interest for football is not waning to the same extent as baseball.
Baseball is simply put, a game of little action that has entrenched itself thoroughly in nostalgia. It is the only sport where absolutely nothing can happen (a la a perfect no hitter) and see that as a monumental achievement. The players stand still for a majority of their time on the field, why is it wrong to label the game boring? If I paid money to watch athletes perform, I'd like to see demonstrations of such. Jogging to catch and throw a ball are not terribly exciting.
Baseball is losing younger people not because their attention spans are low, but because more exciting options exist. Basketball is increasing in popularity around the world, and it is easy to see why.
1
And would be perfect for many others if the ballparks could end the non-stop auditory & visual screaming that they fill every moment with. People could talk. People could look at how the fielders are arranged and pleasantly argue about this. People could exchange news and views. I don’t understand how even the knitters can stand it at today’s ballpark.
15
@Dagwood
Wow, I haven't been to a game since 2005. Baseball afternoons are supposed to be peaceful.
We are training our children to require constant external inputs and stimulation.
I get tired of hearing people say they are bored. I have never been bored in my life.
11
It was cheaper for us to buy a 55-inch TV than to go to the ballpark and watch games live. Our sofa is closer to the refrigerator and the potty than the park, and the price of hot dogs and beer is sure cheaper at home. Best of all, if the game starts late and goes into the wee hours, we just record it for later playback. And we can skip over the commercials when we do: that can reduce a game to nigh unto two hours. My wife doesn't knit, but does other things when the game stretches on interminably. So do I. Baeball may be the Great American Sport, but it's gearned for an earlier, slower, time.
1
Wow! I love this! I’ve been knitting through Yankee games for years. Great to know I’m not alone. I don’t live near any MLB team, so I depend on tv. I really enjoy baseball and particularly the Yankees. Why do people worry so much about the pace of play? It’s not a race; it’s a baseball game. I, and so many other knitters, are more than capable of following the game quite closely. You want a speedier sport? Watch basketball. Soccer can go on indefinitely. That’s why it will never claim prime time. Advertisers don’t know exactly when the game will end. And football. Always changing the entire team on the field, offense, defense. At least you know when it will end, though, if you’re pitching aftershave or snow tires.
If anything needs adjusting in baseball, it’s the extra games in the fall. Two divisions have to get a winner before the World Series. We could without those games, as we did for years before the money got so big.
9
I saw a woman knit her way through a concert at Carnegie Hall one night. No respect for the performers or her fellow audience members.
1
@JamesO
It is not true that this knitter is disrespectful of the performers. One can knit and listen perfectly. Women have been knitting through live performances for hundreds of years. Even Miss Manners allows this, if the needles don't make noise.
16
@JamesO
An activity like knitting can be a godsend for someone with ADD. Knitting takes just enough brain power that their racing, distracting thoughts are kept at bay. Keeping that part of the brain busy allows the person to concentrate better on the main activity, like a concert or baseball game.
8
Kidding, right?
1
If you don’t like baseball don’t go the games or watch on tv. Your lack of interest will only make my life as a fan better. Thanks.
Cubs drew 1,000,000 when I was young. They now draw 3,000,000. It was easier for me to get a good seat 40 years ago. Stay home if you don’t like baseball.
4
Like watching paint dry.
A game for children, played by children, watched by adults.
6
I was at a Yankee game that went into extra innings, and a woman sitting a few rows in front of me who had IVF a week before the game finally gave birth in the bleachers to a full term 8 pound boy.
8
@Michael c Were they playing the Red Sox? Yankee games against them do go on forever.
1
@Michael c
Certainly, a labor of love.
They’re the reason the game needs netting.
1
@AlNewman
I think you mean the people looking at their cellphones. People can knit perfectly well without looking at their knitting. Besides, the article says that the knitters get seats in sections that don't get foul balls.
3
The pace of a baseball game is much better than the pace of a football game. You have to be smart to appreciate baseball. If its popularity is waning it's because people aren't as smart as they used to be.
15
@KC,
Nonsense. Watching the pitcher hem and haw on the mound followed by a pitcher conference, then a visit by the pitching coach, and the infielders, and finally having the batter hit 4 consecutive fouls balls having another pitcher, catcher summit conference....
The players in the dugout spit sunflower seeds or blow bubble gum balloons - even they are bored.
Now the game callers interview the managers, while someone is at bat and will be there for the next ten minutes, ask penetrating questions about the manager's strategy with the answer, "We need to get someone on base".
No matter. I've slipped into a coma by then.
3
@KC So in the old days when baseball was popular the stands must have been filled with rocket scientists then.
3
@KC THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for spelling its and it's correctly!
1
Pace of play is a huge problem, and while I am a lifelong baseball fan, nowadays I find myself preparing my English paper piecing and embroidery for the start of the game when viewing at home. I don't carry my needlework to the ballpark though, despite having more idle moments than I would like, and as the season wears on it gets a bit tedious. Our part season tickets are at 3rd base and behind the netting. My cellphone gets a workout and no beer gets spilled on my work. People around me do the same.
3
This is a serious problem for baseball. As I have gotten older I have found that I appreciate time much more, and even I, who was once the biggest baseball fan, find that now at the end of this regular season, have not watched one game all the way through. I generally watch the beginning of a game, tune out and drop back in from time to time to monitor the score and if the game is close ( which it usually isn't) I watch the final inning. Now, this is for regular season games, which start at 6:30 pm or 7 pm for night games. When the playoffs come, they further compound the problem by starting the games at about 8:15 pm, and with more commercial breaks, and longer commercial breaks the games usually end about midnight, most people fall asleep before the end of the games, including children. A whole generation has literally never watched a world series game to completion. The TV rating for baseball playoff games including the WS are dismal.
MLB is hamstrung by legions of fans who refuse any rule change as though baseball is sacrosanct, which is just silly, it's a sport and a business, and like any business it should change with the times. Any thing that speeds up the game would be welcome, and weekend World Series game should be played while the sun still shines so kids can watch them.
Unless MLB makes much needed rule changes, and resets and repositions itself for the 21st century it will be a sport that's going going gone.
22
Agreed that World Series games should start much earlier: 7:15 would work. Also, no reason the Sunday World Series game can’t be 4pm start. Fox can do a DH of NFL at 1 and WS at 4:30 first pitch.
2
What a good practical idea
4
As long as they're not sitting down the first or third base lines without netting in front of them.
4
If the MLB and MLBPA were serious about speed of play, they would immediately eliminate batting gloves. Does a hitter really need to step out of the batter's box to adjust his gloves after every single pitch? It slows down the entire game. Let's remember that many of the greatest hitters in baseball history -- Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, Mays, DiMaggio, Fox, Williams, Yaz, and Aaron -- never wore batting gloves. Lose the gloves and the pace of play will improve overnight.
5
@Frank
Lose the gloves and they’ll re-tie their shoes. It’s not about the gloves. It’s about sizing up the pitcher, concentrating on what you are about to do: attempt to hit a small hard ball coming at you at 88 to 95 mph.
7
@Frank
Yes Frank! Spot-on! Gloves during batting practice only.
@Voter
Do you mean in the way that Ruth, Gehrig and all the other greats did? They sized up the pitcher pretty well without batting gloves or tying their shoes.
Knitting foul ball screens I’d hope. Stay home where the worst case is a tossed TV remote plunking you on the noggin.
1
I don't know much about knitting but major League Baseball has become unwatchable. The last time I went was the Friday of the Dodgers' series last summer, when Chase Utley was making his last trip into town.
There was a big crowd for that, although it was not a sellout. The fans welcomed Chase Bigtime and he responded to us.
Then the teams started playing and it was just dreadful. No rallies except one started by two walks. A lot of flyballs. A shift on almost every batter-in the infield, I mean.
I will not go to another game until the Phils move back toward playing baseball as opposed to the kind of wiffle ball we played as kids, where you got 1 swing and only homers counted.
1
@Lefthalfbach
You’re obviously watching the wrong team. Try the Yankees.
1
The world would be a better place if people learned how to chill out. Baseball is great for that.
35
@DK
Absolutely! Also, I can't tolerate the obnoxious loud music that's played in-between every single break of action during other sporting events like basketball, football, and hockey to name a few. While baseball may have it's own version of filling in the spaces between play it does not feel nearly as irritable. Maybe I'll take up knitting too...
14
@DK,
Yeah, I do chill out. In fact, I go into a deep freeze and ask the guy next to me to wake me up when the game's over.
At my office I have tried giving away my tickets several times. No takers.
1
@DK
Exactly DK. The point is to relax for a few hours.
3
Without question, baseball needs to speed things up. Whether that means limiting the number of foul balls, number of innings (how about seven?), maybe three balls = take yer base! and two strikes = yer out! Serious changes, not just at the margins. With that however, baseball will still be a game going through its paces at its own speed. Knitting is one activity. The one I like best though, is simply chatting with a friend or relative in a relaxed way, while the game proceeds. Combines two very civilized activity in (usually) pleasant weather. What's not to like?
6
Seven innings would be the answer, however, the purists would never go for it.
3
@Michael Lindsay
Three foul balls - you're out.
A pitcher takes too much time, the batter is given a ball.
Every major sport has time limits. Otherwise a delay of game is called.
When a pitcher rolls out a sleeping bag the catcher comes out and asks if he needs a pillow.
1
Then just invent a shorter version of the game!
It’s a true game that values human life, unlike the pseudo “game” where people cheer as skulls are smashed a.k.a. American football.
9
Given the Mariners' dismal record, many other activities were common in T-Mobile park this season, including wood carving, meditation, calligraphy, solitaire, and oil painting! Seriously, I enjoy the deliberate pace of baseball and am not in favor of recent moves to speed up the game: even the intentional walk rule takes away that possibility of human error that is part and parcel of the game (I do recognize the value in limiting mound visits, though!). Keep baseball truly The Best Sport Devised by Man!
19
Before I retired, our weekly staff meetings were predominately populated with women, most of whom knit during the meetings.
A number of times the few men in attendance (including me) threatened to bring in routers and do some woodworking during those meetings. I guess it was a typical male, juvenile response to our inability to multitask.
26
@CDW Or, maybe your meetings were inefficient and boring? Just kidding, seriously -- it would have been great if you'd brought in power tools! I am a knitter and certain patterns are very easily done without even looking at what you're doing. (I should also admit that my last manager had NO IDEA how to run staff meetings and it was painful to sit through them.)
2
I am a life-long baseball fanatic. There is something lost in the recent discussions of the length of baseball games; and the attempt by the MLB to find ways to shorten contests.
Part of the beauty of baseball is in the experiences. When you attend games, no matter whether high school, college, or the big leagues, it's about the pure green of the outfield grass, the crack of the bat, the smell of a ballpark hotdog, the poeticism of a much-needed double play, and of course, the camaraderie of being with others who share your obsession for the sport or the team.
For me, it's also always been about the history and the tradition of the sport. Baseball has undergone some changes, (Quote opinions about the designated hitter here!) But at its heart, it remains the game of our ancestors and it's one of the easiest ways to steep yourself in the shoes of those who came before us.
So when you find yourself considering how to more quickly muddle through a game, ponder if you're trying to see that contest with the eyes of those baseball fans who are long gone and tread their path. You might find that you want that experience to last a little longer.
11
@Rusty
Yes, "muddle" is they key word.
I'd prefer Shoeless Joe Jackson.
I am a long-time baseball knitter - from home. (Blue Jays) Also, curling is perfect for knitting and no I'm not kidding.
14
@Jen I agree, curling is perfect for knitting. First discovered this when the Olympics were in Vancouver!
1