The Mets Police

The Baseball Mafia is very excited about the TV Ratings for Game One of the MLB Finals!

The network averaged 11.48 million viewers for its broadcast of the Philadelphia Phillies’ 6-5, 10-inning victory over the Houston Astros on Friday. That’s up 6 percent over last year’s first game (10.81 million) and the best for a World Series opener since 12.19 million watched game one of the 2019 series. Fox also got a 2.9 rating among adults 18-49 for the game, up about 15 percent year to year. (via The Hollywood Reporter)

Sure, I guess that’s better than DOWN, but fortunately THR has some perspective..

On the flip side, Friday’s telecast is still the third-lowest opening game on record for the World Series MLB Finals, ahead of only the previous two years. (The 2020 series, played after a pandemic-shortened season, holds the all-time low for average viewers across the full series and for each of its six individual games.)

Looking at things another way, baseball is twice as popular as FIRE COUNTRY on CBS which did 5.3 million.  On Fire Country, a young convict joins a firefighting program looking for redemption and a shortened prison sentence. He and other inmates work alongside elite firefighter.

Season 97 of Blue Bloods got 5.8M if you’d like another comparison.

Thursday Night’s TNF game with Tom Brady, which wasn’t even on “TV TV” drew 10.01M….which is worse than baseball, which is back baby!  The 18-49s love it!

The MLB Finals feature the 6-seed Philadelphia Phillies vs. the Notorious Illegal Bat Using Cheaters Houston Astros.

 

A friend sent this over (thanks friend) – if you have access to The Atlantic

(I guess I do via the NY Times subscription) it’s good article about how analytics ruined everything, but in this case lets focus on baseball.

Singles have swooned to record lows, and hits per game have plunged to 1910s levels. In the century and a half of MLB history covered by the database Baseball Reference, the 10 years with the most strikeouts per game are the past 10. (link)

Wow I knew to the eyeball test that things were bad, but NINETEEN TEN LEVELS?  THE DEAD BALL ERA??????

If you have access, I highly encourage you read this.  They nailed it here…..

In baseball, winning the World Series is a finite game, while growing the popularity of Major League Baseball is an infinite game. What happened, I think, is that baseball’s finite game was solved so completely in such a way that the infinite game was lost. (via The Atlantic

)

….

I did not watch last night’s game, after all, baseball is boring, but the boxscore tells me the game was played in a comparatively-“fast” three hours and 18 minutes.

Meanwhile, as much as I praise the NFL and plan on watching for 7 hours – some great games, I am looking forward to Bill Belichick hanging a 50 on the Jets (ugh, Iron Eagle is calling the game – back to that in a second) – and as a 49ers fan I am fascinated by their whole “are they good? Do they suck?” Jekyll & Hyde routine – 49ers/Rams at 4pm.

OK as for Iron Eagle – when he debuted on WFAN many moons ago he would say “Ian Eagle with an Eye on Sports” which is the worst hackiest thing a person could say.   So I haven’t been a fan since day one.

Along the way, people who like basketball say he’s good at calling basketball.  I don’t watch basketball so I will accept their premise.  Also he seems to be well liked.

However, he is terrible at calling the NFL.   I want you to pay attention to this today – he screams every play.

A sweep to the right ends with OUT OF BOUNDS THIRD DOWN AND SIXXXXXXX FOR THE JETS!!!!!

Maybe switch over to Jim Nantz calmly calling a game. Modulating his voice of course, when appropriate, but not yelling every play.

Then I want you to watch Mike Tirico tonight calmly call a game.  Modulating his voice of course, when appropriate, but not yelling every play.

Now let’s take it up a notch.

I want you to watch Joe Buck tomorrow night….calmly working play by play into the conversation. Modulating his voice of course, when appropriate, but not yelling every play.

Finally, your masters course.  On Thursday, I want you to watch Uncle Al Michaels, calmly working play by olay into the conversation. Modulating his voice of course, when appropriate, but not yelling every play.

Iron Eagle’s style is better suited for hockey where a SHOT AND A SAVE!!!!!  or CHECKED INTO THE BOARDS!!!! every two seconds is appropriate, as is that staccato style of just yelling our player names with no other words around them.

For football, hard pass.  I know how unpopular this opinion is, because the Iron Eagle Mafia is almost as strong as The Baseball Mafia.  But I am here to speak truth to unpopular opinions.  Watch the game and tell me I am wrong.

 

It’s that annual time of year where no news happens during the playoffs….more caps for you.

Dear Baseball,

Who is this sport for right now?

I guess fans of the 6 seed are excited, and Joe Davis probably has family in Los Angeles but…

..as I squint at the box score this morning I see time of game 4:35. Did this game really end at 12:35am?

Who is this for?

Now someone is going to point out that playoff games have been ending past midnight for decades now. Yea, I ageee

And do you think the sport is more popular now?

Do you notice the younger millennials and all of Gen-Z don’t care about this sport?

So yes, games have been ending past midnight and guess what – you lost a generation a half.

But now you’re losing the Me people. Generation X, and maybe we ain’t that young any more. I didn’t look at one pitch and have no intention of watching the 6 seed play The Cheaters.

Meanwhile I watched MNF, TNF and will watch at least 7 hours of Red Zone tomorrow. I like my new tv and I like sports. I might even put on some soccer now.

But you plod along with your 4 hour games? Dialing past midnight, with little action and the baseball mafia declaring every game an instant classic because the score changes late. Well if so, the NFL has about five instant classics in the 1pm window alone every week

This is all so broken. Baseball used to be good. Last night even the mlb twitter account seemed excited about a hit and run – that made me laugh – wait, so we don’t want to just Launch Angle this thing and wait for a home run? (By the way remember that time Judge hit 62? Unforgettable, right? Who did he hit it against again? Anyone remember?).

Enjoy your sport. I have better things to do, including going to bed. I hope the west coast enjoyed the game.

I realize this looks like I clicked on it and the image faded because of that but nope….that is what it looks like.