Listener Blog Submission
I, like many of you I am sure, start my day with a quick scroll of Facebook. Now, I have had a Facebook for all of my adult life to this stage and if you are a member of the Zone-Heads group know I enjoy sharing my sports related adventures through pictures. Well, that is the same story on my personal feed and recently my feed has been filled with fond memories of spring trainings past. Pictures of various stadiums around the state with various friends typically holding various beers. But thanks to the current MLB lockout, a void sits in the social space of my spring. Even my wife finally noticed, asking why we hadn’t gone to a spring training game yet before realizing there was a labor lockout.
But just because MLB is run by the WORST COMMISSIONER IN SPORTS doesn’t mean there isn’t baseball to enjoy, and it’s even closer and, in certain ways, a much better product. The college baseball season just started and where MLB has let us down in talks of robot umps, over complicated pitch clocks, $400 million contracts, and service time manipulation, college baseball gives us…..baseball. Where many have lost faith in the college system with all the attention football and basketball receive, college baseball has remained mostly unaffected by the incoming of NIL and the transfer portal and maintained the true feel of amateurism.
The notion of playing for the name on the front of the jersey, not the back isn’t lost in this world. A world of rain delay shenanigans, passionate celebrations, team hairdos, alma matters, and a game played the way we remember it. No shifts, hit it in the gaps, move the runner, and playing outdoors. And the viewing public is beginning to notice. According to Nielsen TV ratings, MLB’s World Series ratings have dropped year over year since 2016 as age of viewership continues to be the highest of all pro sports. Meanwhile, college baseball has maintained viewership numbers for it’s World Series at a clip comparable to the always praised for growth MLS. And if you know viewership numbers, that means MLB is still pulling more than 8x the number of viewers compared to college, but considering the difference in coverage, network priority, and just overall league awareness that makes sense.
But that was before the lockout. Before Rob Manfred was caught practicing his golf swing before announcing the league was delaying the start of the season. Before the league couldn’t agree on how long it should take for the catcher to throw the ball back to the pitcher. Yeah, I didn’t make that one up. So take the time this spring to take a trip out to your local college ball park. And at UCF now, grab a various beer. Because MLB has gotten too focused on the “Major League” of that abbreviation and forgotten about the most important one. Baseball.
-Greg Rhodes (mySportsFlorida.com)
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photo credit: @UCF_Baseball