5 Ways to Save Baseball

By Daniel Lopez

About 100,000 saw the Dodgers win on opening day at the Coliseum on April 12, 1961.
Average Dodger attendance today, near the top of  Major League Baseball, is 41, 212 | Photo/LAPL

Baseball was once this nation’s pastime. Unfortunately, that reality is no more as our beloved sport has been supplanted by games flashier, faster and more physical. Yet, baseball still retains its soft spot in the American psyche and can be saved by systematically changing the way the season is played and how teams approach the sport in these five ways:



Change the Schedule, Shorten the Season

The concern people have about baseball is the length of the game and season, an average baseball game runs about 2.5 hours while the season drags on for 162 games. With a schedule that covers nearly half the year (and more with playoffs), baseball is about twice the length of an NBA and NHL season (82 games each) and 110 games longer than the combined seasons of the NFL (16) and NASCAR (36).

Yes, there is something to be said about a long season allowing teams to rise and fall along the natural progression of talent, as is often the case in baseball. That said, 162 regular season games are just too much. I am sympathetic to the tradition argument, namely that that changing the length of the season would fly in the face of a sport that prides itself on its storied history. But it is not impossible and here is where I would start:

The baseball season starts in April and chugs along through May, June and July. Most fans don’t even start paying attention until the dog days of summer wind down and playoff hunts start to crystallize in late August and September.

To avoid baseball’s twin ratings killers (the NHL/NBA Playoffs and the start of NFL/College football seasons), the MLB should shrink the season from June 1 to Sept., 15, cutting down nearly 3 months out of an already long season while still ensuring the season includes about 100 games.

Widen the playoffs

The second facet of this season adjustment - which would raise the level of national interest - is expanding the playoffs. Since 1994, baseball has featured four teams from each league in its playoffs, equaling a tiny percentage (27%, or eight out of 30) ball clubs vying for a championship.

This year, MLB expanded one wild card team to each league allowing for two more teams (33% of the league) eligible for a World Series ring. That still pales in comparison to other sports. The NBA and NHL allows 16 of its 30 teams (53%) in the playoffs while the NFL features 12 out of 32 (38%.)

But it’s not enough to simply expand the number of teams. The league also needs to improve the quality of its playoffs. The top three teams in each division should still make the postseason but should have home field advantage for only the first round, not all rounds. The next five playoff slots should be determined by the highest winning percentage, not merely the best wild card team.

For too long, mediocre to good teams (the Dodgers, Toronto Blue Jays, Rays, for example) have missed the playoffs although they have a robust 80 to 90 win season due to an archaic playoff system now in place. A new, modern playoff system would reward teams that finish strong while opening the door for multiple avenues to the playoffs and allowing baseball to reclaim its fan base.

Expand baseball to the world

There is no reason why major league team (especially one as successful) such as the Tampa Bay Rays should draw 20,000 people a game. There’s especially no reason this should happen when the MLB could easily draw more than twice that amount in a place like Mexico City. (When baseball opened up its season in Tokyo this year, the two games drew more than 87,000 people.) Baseball scouts trot across the globe looking for talent for teams that play in North America. There’s no reason the league should not also play major league games in such fertile baseball areas like Latin America, where MLB could house teams without severely impacting travel schedules of teams.

In the case of my favorite baseball club Tampa Bay, a perennial playoff contender, the city unfortunately does not have the infrastructure/inherent fan base to host a baseball team. Move them to Mexico City and they will flourish. Doing so would also send a very important message to Latin American fans and ballplayers that the league is invested in their community, a vital step in the growth of all professional sports. (For this scenario to truly work, I would also move the Rays to the American League West division, move the Seattle Mariners to the National League West, the Colorado Rockies to the American League Central, the Cleveland Indians to the National League Central and the Pittsburgh Pirates to American League East, all of which would lead to more concentrated divisions and less travel time.)

Cap Salaries

For decades and really since free agency took hold in 1975, Major League Baseball has desperately needed to institute a salary cap.

The disparity in the league is astounding, exemplified here by the New York Yankees’s 2011 payroll of more than $200 million while the lowly Rays and Kansas City Royals are each buoyed by a payroll of less than $41 million. Money may not correspond to wins, but there is a causal relationship in which a salary cap would help create a much needed level of parity the league now lacks.

The collective salaries of each team should be capped at $100 million. For teams exceeding that amount, MLB should then follow the NBA’s luxury tax method of forcing teams to pay one dollar to the league for each dollar their payroll exceeds the tax level. It is unacceptable that six major league teams have a payroll of more than $125 million while six teams do not exceed $50 million. The commissioner’s office has the responsibility of enforcing fairness across the league as opposed to the current system of letting the rich teams stay richer.

Instituting a salary cap would force teams to deal creatively as they would no longer be concentrated with a plethora of overpaid players. Compelling all teams to play on the same level would allow mid-market teams traditionally out of the perennial playoff mix to compete on relatively the same terms as major franchises. If sports reflects the best in America, then it should mirror our belief in democratization.

Standardize the Designated Hitter

Having a one foot in, one foot out approach in which the National League employs a system of allowing pitchers to hit for themselves while the American League subs in a hitter for their pitcher makes no sense.

Consider interleague matchups in which an NL team meets a team from the opposite league, either during the regular season or in the World Series. All of a sudden, an NL team is forced to compete with an AL team laden with one extra player who specializes in hitting. Instituting the DH across the league would increase its disparity, generate more runs and increase viewership.

Again, I understand the traditionalists who believe you may lose a strategic component by shucking the pitcher aside each at bat for someone who actually knows how to hit. That’s all wel and good, but look deep inside yourself and ask: Do you want to see pitchers hit? Sure there are a few capable hitting pitchers, but their at bats are usually embarrassing at best and tragic, injury-prone at worst.

Instead, the DH allows teams to rest pitchers, reducing injuries and ensuring players can do what they do best.

Baseball is a game perilously close to being forgotten. Two weeks ago, 10.9 million people watched the MLB All Star Game, erasing the previous low of 10.97 million viewers set for last year's game. It was the 10th time in the past 18 years that the All-Star Game has established a record low.

If traditionalists truly care about the sport, they would heed these suggestions instead of tilting against the windmills of baseball past while pining for the days of Cobb, Mantle and Koufax. Making these substantive and systemic changes can help lift the anemic sport and help it recapture its spot as America’s past time.
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