I’d like you to read this article in the New York Times.
I get that it’s easy for you to tune me out and say all I do is complain, especially when I usually write in a certain exaggerated style for the blog, which I am deliberately NOT doing today.
Here’s the New York Times writing about baseball’s lack of stars, something I have been on about all summer, especially during the “All Star(s)” game. I’ll remind you that I have blogged about baseball every day for 11 seasons and I am on the internet all day, and yet I’m like “who the heck is J.D. Martinez?” (Please read my lengthy piece about Baseball at the Crossroads from this morning if you haven’t already.)
It has been an interesting 24 hours. National columnists writing about things like bullpenning strangling the sport. Articles about fans falling asleep. The media asking Manfred about start times.
This is no longer me being cranky old man, this is now a national conversation, and that’s good. I want the good version of baseball back, not whatever this is being played in October 2018.
So read the Times article, from which I excerpt here, and ask yourself – maybe that crank from the Mets Police is right….
But oddly it also has a problem: Most people, even sports fans, might struggle to name a single player on the field. The percentage of Americans who say baseball is their favorite sport to watch is at a low. Fewer baseball players have crossed over into wider popular culture than did a couple of decades ago. There is no Derek Jeter or Ken Griffey Jr. at the moment. By almost any measure, baseball players just aren’t well known. ESPN’s annual ranking of the most famous athletes in the world includes 13 basketball players, seven football players, several cricket players, two table tennis stars and zero baseball players. And ESPN is a media partner of M.L.B.
Source: Name One Really Famous Baseball Player. We’ll Wait. – The New York Times
