Since there is no sports at present (although NASCAR is starting up in a couple of weeks) I thought I would write about baseball and why it is the best sport ever.
First and foremost almost everyone played some form of baseball growing up. Unlike many other sports, you don’t need freakish size and/or athletic ability to play baseball. Baseball is reasonably safe and is played outdoors in God’s natural sunshine and fresh air. As I kid, I played baseball every day from mid-April until late October and loved every minute of it.
Second, major league baseball was mainly played in the daytime when I was young. Most games ended early enough on the East Coast to listen to on the radio in the evening. I remember delivering my newspapers and listening to World Series games at the same time when I was in middle school. I could get radio stations all the way to the Midwest in the evenings, so I usually listened to a game (or multiple games) in bed every night.
Third, players were tied to the same team for their entire career unless they were traded. I was in my 20’s before free agency began. There is no doubt that the system was unfair to the players, but it was much easier for fans to develop strong ties to their chosen team.
Photo by Luis Quintero on Unsplash
Fourth, there were a lot less teams back in the day. 10 and 12 team leagues were much easier to follow. We knew almost every player on every team. The leagues were separate then, so many of us only followed the league our favorite team played in.
Fifth, I believe we had better coverage of MLB when I was young. I read my Sporting News every week and I really felt that I was totally up to date on the goings-on in MLB. I even read every boxscore for every game played. Try to find a single source for that today! USA Today Sports Weekly started out as a really good source, but they lost their way a long time ago.
Finally we could identify with MLB players because they made real world money. In the 60’s the superstars were making about $100,000 per year (many players made much less than that). The average worker made about $10,000 so the stars made 10 times our salary which we were totally OK with. Today, the AVERAGE MLB salary is $3.9 million and the average US worker salary is around $56,000. That means the the average MLB player makes about 70 TIMES as much as the average worker. The superstars making $30 million plus per year are making more than 500 TIMES the salary of the average worker. How can fans identify with players who make that kind of money? Yes, they have amazing ability and work very hard year round to stay in top shape, but come on!