In a 2018 piece for SABR, Jeva Lange asked, via headline, “Women love baseball. Why doesn’t baseball love them back?”
A year later, Danielle Allentuck and Kevin Draper’s New York Times story asked, “Baseball Saw a Million More Empty Seats. Does it Matter?”
In Lange’s study, she writes in a personal tone at times, exploring the themes of the narrative that repeat over and over through time: that women fans are a novelty, a joke (women fans being mocked at an Arizona Diamondbacks game for taking selfies), or an afterthought (acquiring players who’ve committed domestic violence, such as Roberto Osuna and Aroldis Chapman)
Allentuck and Draper highlighted the dwindling attendance over several years, reporting that,“Total attendance across 2,429 major league games during the regular season dropped by about 1 million fans this season to about 68.5 million, about 14 percent lower than a high of 79.5 million tickets sold in 2007.”
Comparatively, in her decidedly optimistic New York times piece, “How Popular is Baseball Really?,” Juliette Love wrote “if viewed through the lens of total tickets sold and local television ratings, a somewhat more optimistic picture emerges: one of strong, local fan bases---and a national following that could a lot more room to grow.” She also points to Minor League Baseball, writing that, “the 160 MLB-affiliated minor league teams sold nearly 50 milliion tickets in 2017.”
Baseball, for all the Americana glory and inspired romanticism, is a business. But how is Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred so completely missing the neon signs about growing the game locally, and tapping into that passion? For all his big planning, very few devoted baseball fans want what he’s selling. And yet, there’s clear proof that those devoted baseball fans haven’t given up.
On the other hand, looking beyond the average white, male fan, there are far too many lifelong fans who are feeling increasingly alienated from the game.
“Of course there are Afro-Latinos like David Ortiz, but in terms of African-Americans? That’s another story,” says writer Stephon Johnson who wrote a brilliant piece for The Week entitled, ‘The Struggles of being a black fan.’ “There’s a specific history with that demographic that changes it’s engagement with the rest of the country. Black people are the bar everyone measures themselves against when it comes to discrimination, prejudice and racism. C.C. Sabathia told a story awhile ago about how he was trying to explain to some white players on the Yankees the purpose of Black Lives Matters. He said they didn’t understand why you didn’t just follow the police officer’s orders? It’s that mentality that dominates the league.”
If that mentality “dominates” MLB, it stands to reason that fans who are African-American see it or, at least, know that the game is more white than ever; that the game is led by men who are utterly disconnected from their personal experience both in society and as participants in major sports. Per a 2017 study by Diversity and Ethics in Sport, the number of African-American players was just 7.7 percent, an all-time low. And a 2014 study showed that just 9 percent of the viewing audience for MLB games was black; 83 percent were white.
The varying reports show that there are signs of life. But what is undeniably clear is that kids, non-white people, women, and many other marginalized groups feel disconnected from baseball.
Who is watching baseball?
Based on the Allentuck-Draper study, it appears the same fans watching baseball, are likely the same fans that grew up watching baseball. Per another study, just 24 percent of baseball fans are under the age of 35.
In her classic baseball fan memoir, “Wait ‘Till Next Year,” Doris Kearns Goodwin, writes poetically about the dreamy life of keeping score when she was a child.
“...the absolute pleasure that comes from prolonging the winning feeling by reliving the game, first with the scorebook, then with the wrap-up on the radio, and finally, once I learned about printed box scores, with the newspaper accounts the next day.”
Her suburban childhood in New York was immersed in the love of baseball, not just as a fun afternoon activity, but as a central point, a touchstone, in her family life.
In Johnson’s piece, he paid loving tribute to his “pick-up baseball days” in the Bronx.
“The field was concrete, the bases were drawn in chalk, and the weather was punishingly humid. I usually played shortstop, but when it came time to step to the plate, I modeled my switch-hitting batting stance after slugging outfielders: Juan Gonzalez from the right and Barry Bonds from the left. After playing, I’d walk to my grandmother’s house across the street for a snack and turn to a game on television.”
That living and breathing of baseball was normal, natural. Summers were baseball. Playing the game and watching it was part of life.
None of the research suggest kids are watching with their parents as they used to, or that they feel what Kearns-Goodwin or Johnson felt. Baseball, once weaved into the fabric of childhood around the dinner table, around a radio and later a TV, at countless ballpark trips, when a day at the baseball game didn’t break the bank, doesn’t quite feel like that touchstone anymore. This isn’t a story with solid answers. The question is as much mine as it is yours. The solutions, whatever we believe they are, aren’t certain. We know we love baseball. But plenty of baseball fans, those who are actually younger than 35, many women and African-Americans or those in the LGBTQ community, do not feel that the game is “theirs” or that it sees their brand of passion, or their identity in the stands or at home in front of the game. The preaching about players who wear their hats to the side is just one indication of tone-deafness. And no amount of manipulation by MLB can create that feeling if they can’t hear the tone.
Baseball isn’t dead. It isn’t our “past” pastime. But what does it mean to us, and to whom does it mean something? And, most importantly, what will become of baseball in the future?
Early in December, the Winter Meetings became the scene of an unfolding story that’s gripping the baseball community that illustrates the glaring difference between baseball fans and baseball decision-makers.
In a proposal that was released to the public, MLB has tentative plans to eliminate 42 minor league affiliates, a seismic gutting of the developmental system that’s served professional baseball since 1901. MiLB is the very definition of “local” baseball, of local interest. As Love observes in her story, the local fan base is where it’s at. The community that baseball creates through love of the Dodgers or Mets is huge; but the community that the farm teams create is integral and special.
We’re talking about connection in all these various ways. Connection is what people mean when they say baseball is romantic. Connection is what creates that lump in your throat when Kevin Coster’s Ray, in ‘Field of Dreams,’ asks the spirit of his dad to “have a catch.” Connection is rivalries, “fan base,” Bleacher Creatures, ballpark proposals (hey, it’s true), and it’s why there are thousands of team items to wear, drink out of, and display on your lawn and child. We are connecting to something we love. And it’s the one thing that MLB executives, and Rob Manfred, seem woefully unable to understand about the very sport they lead.
Oh, fine, the MiLB proposal is, basically, a bargaining technique. It’s a way to show up the minor leaguers looking for a better life, and having the nerve to question the powerfully entitled. Who could forget Stan Brand stand before a room full of baseball execs and reporters at the 2015 Baseball Winter Meetings, and declaring minor league baseball players the natural enemy of the game, because many had joined a lawsuit demanding fair pay?
“I do not want to overstate the threat this suit presents,” he told those in attendance. “So..I ask you to heed the clarion call, man the battle stations and carry the message to Congress loudly and clearly. The value of grassroots baseball and our stewardship of the game needs to be protected against the onslaught of these suits.”
It’s comical to imagine this speech in light of their proposal to eliminate minor league baseball teams, therefore eliminating a lot of “grassroots baseball,” not to mention jobs for locals that aren’t just seasonal.
As MLB works tirelessly to shrink the game but increase profit, many others pursue it’s full expansion with a sense that they too aren’t the focus of those in power.
Blue Jays blogger Tammy Rainey isn’t especially impressed with MLB’s overall outreach to LGBTQ baseball fans, saying, “I can’t say how much is going through the motions and symbolism, and how much is genuine outreach.”
That particular outreach has often seemed half-baked, or, as she suggests, not especially enthusiastic, with teams doing Pride Nights that don’t necessarily indicate much more than to say, “Hey, we’re sort of trying.”
She also sees the youth movement as part of the solution to create more excitement, but that would require them to care about the “local fan base” Love wrote about.
“[MLB has] vast money and they could use it to build connections with young kids but they won’t, or they wouldn’t be jerking around MiLB,” Rainey said.
I set out looking for an answer to the initial question: Who is watching baseball? Perhaps this piece would end with something more concrete. But no. There are obvious clues here: technology, less black players leading to less black fans, women feeling ignored or treated as non-serious; the average working family being unable to afford a day at the ballpark, who turned to minor league baseball, and now, learn that too could be taken, or at least, made more difficult to enjoy.
The answer is in there somewhere. It’s all those things. However baseball transforms and develops over the next few years, building a newer, broader fan base will be a thing that we cannot possibly have exact answers to. But paying attention to what is glaringly obvious, and to how many lifelong fans feel, like Johnson’s frustration and malaise, or Rainey’s skepticism, is the place to start.
Later in Kearns-Goodwin’s book, she wrote about years of adolescence when her interest in baseball waned. Something, however, brought her back.
“If my interest in baseball had seemed dormant, it was awakened with a start when the Dodgers (then Brooklyn) began the ‘55 series with ten victories in a row.”
As her childhood became more complicated, and tensions grew in the world and in her home, she constantly returned to the love of baseball. Something always brought her back: new superstars, exciting turns of events, the unexpected win, the historic moment.
Rob Manfred and anyone else making baseball decisions could stand to consider this reality. There isn’t a perfect formula. Altering baseball like some kind of made scientist won’t bring them to the ballpark. Perhaps he could try listening to the heartbeat of the game, pay attention to those who are missing the game, rather than those who care so little. It’s not so much about hoping million of kids fall in love with baseball like the kids who sat around a radio, but asking what fans who’ve always loved it are looking for.
Those fans passionately expressed their rage at MLB for not paying minor league players a fair wage; for proposing cuts to those teams; for outright sexist abuse of women baseball reporters in the Astros clubhouse, after a playoff game; when players who’ve committed violence against women are embraced and signed to contracts, followed by defiant statements or lukewarm apologies.
Those fans want to be heard and seen. They want to settle in front of their television (or any screen), listen closely to the live feed like on an old radio, go to the local ballpark to the see the newest prospects, check the box score on any number of social media platforms or apps, today’s version of a newspaper; they want to be engaged, included and excited.
The answer in the end is that baseball fans are watching baseball. And if the guys in the high castle pay attention, they’ll watch them.