On March 31 of this year, I could hardly contain my excitement. The St. Louis Cardinals were playing their first game the 2011 MLB regular season, and the sports world was almost two months removed from the last great sports event (the Super Bowl).
Opening day in baseball has a magical feel to it. After the deepest lull in the calendar year for sports, fantasy sports are back, and the constant smell of grilled meat is just around the corner.
But that was March 31, and the year won't end until at least late October, and possibly early November. The obvious take-away from this simple breakdown of the MLB calendar is that there could possibly be only three months (December, January, and February) without Major League Baseball.
I love the sport, and I've been known to vehemently argue with those who say it doesn't have enough appeal to be watchable for three consecutive hours. But seriously, does the season really need to be that long?
I understand the basic concept that more games translates to more ticket sales, which creates revenue that flows directly into the pockets of the men who set the MLB schedule. But surely those same men are smart enough to realize (or at least have someone on staff smart enough to realize) that part of the problem that has seen the sport become disenfranchised to the younger generation rests on the fact that the season is simply too long to hold anyone's interest throughout its entirety.
Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware of the fact that many fans avidly follow their teams throughout the Summer (and part of the fall). But even most of those dedicated fans are bound to have at least a dozen instances when they are unaware of the outcome of the previous night's game until they watch ESPN the next morning.
This is a problem — not only because this happens to baseball fans — but because it doesn't happen to football fans. The Cardinals fan in me is fine with checking the box score on many nights; the Chiefs fan in me has to know the outcome of the game as it goes final.
But it doesn't have to be that way. If baseball is willing to really look at the multitude of problems that plague it (and I believe this is the most serious problem), they may just keep fan moral at opening day levels throughout the year.
Some will argue that revenue isn't the only reason to have a long MLB regular season, but they're almost exclusively the hardcore baseball traditionalists who also fail to see the obvious value and upside of instant replay in the sport.
They act like they want to preserve the sport by not changing it, but fail to consider the fact that not changing it could ultimately lead to the sport becoming completely irrelevant.
Regardless of the argument attempted against a shortened baseball season, the fact remains that doing so simply makes too much sense to not happen in the near future. It may result in higher ticket prices, but if we could have six months or less of baseball games, fan interest might end up at an all-time high.
It may not be the way the baseball purists want to see it, and it may put a dent in yearly revenue, but a shortened MLB regular season will eventually happen. And it will change the sport for the better.
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