News of Baseball’s Demise Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

Baseball is big news these days. It made the holy grail of journalism, the Sunday edition of the New York Times , where Jonathan Mahler asked the question “Is the Game Over?” Mahler’s symphony of woe is reminiscent of the premature reporting of Mark Twain’s passing by the New York Journal in 1897. News of baseball’s demise indeed has been greatly exaggerated by the Times . Mahler laments in dirge-filled tones that the former “National Pastime” has slipped from its pedestal.

What we are seeing in Mahler’s article is referred to in physics as the “Observer Effect.” It can be explained thusly: if you are a sports writer in New York City watching the game of baseball pass you by, it will appear diminished in size inversely proportional to the aggregate finish of the New York Mets and Yankees. While an observer in New York will report one size, another observer can at the same time see baseball entirely differently, such as happened in Cleveland, for example, when on Monday following Mahler’s article, the Cleveland Plain Dealer asserted in outsized headlines that filled its front page, “Wahoo! October Baseball is Back.”

The equation is delicate, but suffice it to say that if you are a sports writer in either Cleveland or Pittsburgh, baseball has not diminished in size, but rather has achieved the dimensions of a comet lighting the night sky. The magnitude of baseball achievements as reported in the hinterlands–miles from New York City–has ballooned quantitatively, something that could be called the “Tungusta Effect.”

Despite Mahler’s lack of proper perspective, he made numerous observations about the game of baseball that deserve attention. To his credit, in comparing the development of football and baseball historically, he noted that “baseball was a game you followed, football was one you watched.” As post-season play begins, there is no better time to comment on the perspicacity of the statement. Cleveland and Pittsburgh fans are rightly delighting in the accomplishments of their team because they have been following it for six months. No, they have not watched every contest, neither in person nor on television. But they have “followed” the exploits of their baseball nine religiously, as can be seen from the Plain Dealer headlines.

The same observer effect can be seen when Mahler quotes Bob Costas as another New York City based reporter mourning the possibility of a Tampa-Cincinnati World Series. He fears that television ratings for such a Series would pale in comparison to a subway series in New York City. What Costas is unwilling to accept is the cost of competitive balance.

Yes, there are five major dailies in New York City with a circulation of more than five million. That total dwarfs the closest competition. But even New Yorkers would tire of watching the Mets and the Yankees play every fall. Reaching out to the Red Sox does not provide enough diversity, so Mr. Costas is going to have to give Tampa and Cincinnati their due. You don’t miss your water til the well runs dry, and the other cities are the ones that help New Yorkers learn a proper appreciation of all that they have.

One last bit of wisdom provided by Mahler deserves mention. “Maybe baseball will stop auditioning for another chapter in the Ken Burns saga,” he writes. “Maybe baseball can just be baseball.” Can we hear a big “AMEN” for Mr. Mahler? Baseball fans do not need a solemn oration of its achievement as has been trotted out this season to entertain fans during the pregame in big league stadiums across the country. Baseball needs less walk-up music, less noise generally because as Mahler points out, “Baseball is quiet and slow.”

Baseball is a natural rhythm that begins with the sowing of seeds in the spring and ends with the harvest of crops in the fall. To appreciate baseball is to appreciate the basics and to help in that effort, MLB teams should make certain that each fan is given a score sheet and a pencil when they trade their ducat for entry into the emerald sanctum. To keep pace with the game, fans need to know the rudiments of scorekeeping.

The rich history of baseball is detailed in its vast statistical archive. Fans young and old cannot access that tradition if they do not have some appreciation for how the progress of each game is recorded. I fear that the diminishing appreciation of the game that Mahler describes is derived from so few young fans being introduced to the perspective of recording every out with pencil and paper. Whether the fan is in New York City, Detroit, or Oakland, there are certain uniform observations that do not vary and can only be gained with some form of score sheet.

Yet whether one records every moment of the game or not, as we enter into the best part of every baseball season, let’s celebrate baseball for its own sake as Mr. Mahler encourages us to do. Celebrate it for the slow and deliberate pace of its unwinding. Celebrate the extraordinary skills required to barrel the ball upon the bat and to chase it down when the finest of hitters put it in play. Celebrate it whether in October it is played in New York or Cleveland because it is still baseball at its best. And with certain reservations, whoever wins at the end of the month, this observer still very much believes that the end result will be recorded as another chapter in the long and unfolding story of the “National Pastime.”