Baseball: A time for change

Matt Beaudin

September 28, 2009

schedule 2 min read

With just over two weeks left on the MLB regular season schedule, and the wild card races all but secured, there’s not much drama to be had until mid October when the playoffs start.

On the flip side, the beginning of the football season, NCAA and NFL, has stolen the attention of the media and the fans away from America’s favorite pastime.

While the baseball diehards will continue to follow the season right down to the final pitch, a large number of sports fans drawn away as football begins, fail to return to baseball for the postseason. I have no problem admitting that I am one of these fair-weather fans; as soon as football season begins I abandon baseball for the gridiron.

This is why I think Bud Selig, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, should consider moving the World Series and shortening the regular season. The baseball purists will lose their minds at the thought of moving the post season from October to September or even August, but hear me out.

By shortening the regular season, each game would have added significance, where as now, playing over 160 games in a season, becomes very mundane. So, shorten the season and put more meaning into each game. It’s not a secret that football demands so much attention because each game could change the outcome of the season.

The second step: moving the World Series up would keep the sports fans tuned into the baseball playoffs rather than flipping the channel over to whichever football game is floating over the airwaves. Not only would the baseball postseason receive better ratings, but also the weather would hold up. Those few who did follow the World Series a year ago remember the anti-climactic end to the Fall Classic, as the deciding game in Philadelphia had to be postponed, and made up, due to the unruly weather.

This is not a knock on America’s pastime; it’s just a realization that America’s pastime is quickly changing from hulking clean-up batters smashing baseball’s into orbit, to hulking linebackers dismantling unsuspecting quarterbacks.