Take me out to the ball game

Ilove baseball. I have loved it since my Dad introduced the sport to me as a little kid. One of the proudest moments of my young life was making my very large high school’s baseball team. I remember the joy of telling my No. 1 fan, my dad, “I made the team.” I grew up near Cincinnati, so I experienced both disappointment during the Red’s struggling years and the overwhelming joy the “Big Red Machine” brought to their fans. Beating the hated Yankees in four in the 76 World Series was beyond great.

In the last few years, baseball has dropped in fan enthusiasm. Some question its title as the “national pastime.” e games are too long and some who are not familiar with all baseball’s nuances say games can be boring. But the game has reformed itself. It added time clocks like basketball’s shot clock. Pitchers have 15 seconds to throw the ball when no one is on base and 20 seconds when men are on base. Batters must be in the batter’s box with eight seconds on the clock. is strict timing has knocked 36 minutes o the average game time.

JIM ROHRER Columnist

at’s not all. e bases have been made 3 sq. inches larger, therefore they are slightly closer to each other. Big deal, you say. It is a big deal as now 80% of all base stealing is successful. is year’s base stealing is on target to be the highest ever. It’s an attempt to bring back a game like those days of Jackie Robinson and Maury Wills. Teams are no longer allowed to put more than two in elders on one side of second base. at change has allowed more hits and batting averages are up a whopping 16 points. More action and more excitement have brought fans back and attendance is up 5% so far this season. Good job, baseball.

But more work needs to be done. Consider the famous quote in the movie/book “Moneyball.” “ ere are rich teams and poor teams, it’s not a fair game.” is is not because of ticket sales, but rather the TV and radio income generated by large markets over small markets. e Rockies attendance in a poor year was just under 1.6 million fans while the New York Yankees drew 2.1 million. What really makes the di erence is the mega millions large market teams draw from TV and radio revenues. Last year the Yankees made $143 million from their media deal while the Rockies made just about $20 million. As a result, the Rockies $178 million player payroll, which was about in the middle among all teams, was barely half the NY Mets $348 million payroll. More money means a team can a ord to keep the superstars whose competitive value is high like Nolan Arenado. e Rockies lost him as he signed a $260 million deal. He went to St. Louis which has a smaller population than Denver, but the Cardinals recently signed a $1 billion media deal because of the massive size of their fan network.

Major League Baseball is the only major sport without a salary cap. Football, basketball and hockey all restrict the amount teams can spend on player salaries. Baseball has a provision to which owners agreed to ne teams whose total salaries are above the year’s agreed upon limit. e big markets with lots of cash just overspend and pay the luxury tax, which was $200 million last year.

If my discussion of salary caps and such makes it seem that baseball is all about money, that’s not my intent. It may be this way to the owners, but to the fans and players, it is about the thrill of winning. Recently the lowly Rockies came from behind twice in the same game to defeat the mighty Yankees. ey won two of three here in Denver in front of sell-out crowds. e celebration on the eld and in the stands looked like the Rockies had just won the world series. Maybe they will someday, but even if they don’t, I will continue to root, root, root for the home team.

Jim Rohrer of Evergreen is a business consultant and author of the books “Improve Your Bottom Line … Develop MVPs Today” and “Never Lose Your Job … Become a More Valuable Player.” Jim’s belief is that common sense is becoming less common. Contact Jim at jim.rohrer2@ gmail.com.