Baseball

Outside the Beltway ponders the dropping fan interest in baseball. As usual, he makes very good points.

As one of those lapsed baseball fans, i think that the expanded playoffs made regular season games almost meaningless. In the NFL, regular season games have real playoff implications. Atlanta can find itself playing on the road on grass in Chicago in January because they were upset by Carolina in November. In baseball, all the Yankees lose is one home game in a seven game series if they finish second to the Red Sox after being swept by Baltimore.

But the big thing is the one OTB hit. In the NFL parity gives fans hope. Except in Cincinnati, every fan can dream of the playoffs at the start of the season. Sure most of us are disappointed in a given year, but few cities go three or four years straight with no realistic hopes. In baseball, some teams/cities are just not economically competitive anymore. Why should their fans turn out to watch the futility?