It's Still The Greatest Sporting Event Of Them All

The news media seemed to take a great deal of joy in announcing yesterday that the 2010 World Series was down 25% in viewership...Why..because the Yankees weren't in it??? Please...or because there wasn't enough scoring??? Hey Mr. Fair Weather fan, go back to baseball school and learn the game.

I blame the media and coverage for the lack of enthusiasm for the pitchers duals and maybe even the status of down ratings in general. There are just too many people that just don't understand or are not passionate enough about the game well enough to understand that baseball is a game where drama is created with every pitch that is thrown. They think they want an offensive game...but the dual...the strategy and the drama is really in that low scoring contest.

All I know that in San Francisco, St. Louis, New York, Philadelphia and Boston, the fans are some of the best fans in the game. All of these markets have some of the best announcers in MLB that break down the game pitch by pitch as well...Fans in these markets are educated and mentored about all aspects of the game as a result. St. Louis Cardinal Broadcaster and Fox national play by play man, Joe Buck went as far to say on national TV that the Giants Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper are some of the best play by play guys in the business. They don't just announce the game, they teach it...sell it...and make it extremely entertaining..That's one of the reasons why the Giants draw over 3 Million, have huge TV ratings and sell-out their games. Giants fans get it.

Likewise..The Cardinals, Buck and Mike Shannon...Joe Casiglione, Dave O'Brien and Jerry Remy of the Red Sox...and Michael Kay, John Sterling and Ken Singleton of the Yankees are music to the ears of those fans. These are true baseball markets, with bonafide baseball diehards...and if I didn't hate the Dodgers so much, I'd throw their fans and announcers in their as well...

Baseball in most all of the markets used to be that way...but lack of a true salary cap and revenue sharing ruined that. It wasn't so long ago that the Small market Pirates, Reds and Royals dominated their National and American league divisions. Lower revenue, means tighter budgets, less talent and decreasing fan interest. Therefore, this economic shift, pushed all of the talent into the big markets and out of the heartland where baseball flourished decades ago. Baseball's lower ratings are the result of its own greed..the trickle down theory that it's the big markets that people want to follow. That gets real old...For me, it was really refreshing to see two teams other than the Yankees and the Phillies in the WS. I want to see more and more non-traditional teams in the Series and bring back baseball to its roots...in which any team has a chance to be in the World Series.