June 28, 2012

The Slow Demise of Baseball?

"I sure do love watching sports for the mental battles and subtle nuances" Says nearly no one my age these days. It seems that in this day and age, if you don't cover yourself in pads and fly into each other in potential debilitating hits, the people in the sport aren't athletes. Don't get me wrong, I love hockey and football just as much as the next person, there just seems to be a lack of respect for the mental side of athletes. The fact of the matter is, people would rather watch Blake Griffin posterize Kendrick Perkins than Joey Votto draw a full count walk from Derek Lowe without stepping out of the box once. A lot of you reading this won't even understand the significance of that. And that is a problem.
Some of the blame lies with television. Right now, if you were to watch Sportscenter, you would probably hear more talk about the Detroit Lions offseason legal trouble than you would about the recent injuries to the New York Yankees pitching rotation. Now on the flip-side, this isn't all ESPN's fault. On the whole, our society today has a notoriously short attention span. A majority of my fellow college students can't go five minutes in a class without checking their smart phone (not me though I'm a perfect child. Hi Mom and Dad). Football is the perfect sport for this. You watch a 30 second (tops) play, then you have another minute to update your status about how great of a play that was. Boom. Instant gratification.
Truth be told, the time between a play in football or a series in basketball is not that different from the time between pitches in baseball. That being said, until people can start appreciating the artistry and the skirmish within the battle within the war that each pitch in baseball is, my generation may be leading baseball to a slow, painful execution.