Changing the Way the Playoffs are Played.

This is going to be the last blog of they year (some tears) but what better way to write the last blog on the LAST thing to do in a baseball season,  playoffs. There are mixed ideas on how to playoffs should be played. Carlson takes the approach of the baseball playoffs on how soccer is played. He uses the idea that there should be a relegation and promotion rule to keep the lower half of the baseball team interesting. Something to fight for. But, this in my opinion can't work because all of the lower levels teams are not different organizations. They are all under one team. The farm system in baseball is almost too hard to switch to a soccer type approach of the lower levels teams. He also argues that the World Series should be played in 10 days or less. "The baseball season needs to be shorter. Owners will take a hit at the gate in the short term, but over the long haul people will enjoy the product more if each game matters more. Fans also need a chance to miss the game." (Carlson). This is actually a bad idea because baseball players and pitchers need rest after games. The season is so long, there bodies can't take a rushed playoffs. All of Carlson's ideas are good ideas, but not really can be put to work with how the game of baseball has already been developed over the years. This source also was not reliable at all. I mean, who starts their article off with "But don't worry, a couple friends of mine and I were at a bar last night and we figured everything out." (Carlson). Not convincing at all. 



---EL
Sources- Carlson, Nicholas. "How To Save Baseball In 8 Easy Steps." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 22 Oct. 2010. Web. 21 May 2016. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-get-people-caring-about-baseball-again-in-9-easy-steps-2010-10

Different Variety of Foods at Ballparks

I wanted to use this source again because it had 20 IDEAS on how to help baseball. Hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Jaffe had another good idea to bring more people to ballgames. DIFFERENT FOODS. The Dodger's are like a billion dollar franchise, couldn't they add like more types of food to games? Imagine instead of just cheeseburgers, hot dogs, peanuts, etc. They served tacos, noodles, sushi, etc. MLB franchises are very rich, they could use this to their advantage and get high quality foods of different varieties. People may not be attracted to baseball games because they don't like the food there. Or they don't like how "unhealthy" the food is at ballparks, they don't go. ADD HEALTHY ITEMS. With the growing bodies of America, people are worrying about their health more than before. Now imagine that there a quality salads, and healthy food choices. Imagine there is a stand for vegans and such."Every ballpark should spice things up by featuring an abundance of quality taco options for meat-lovers, vegetarians, even vegans, because unlike the mystery meat in those scary, processed hot dogs, you can see what's filling that tortilla." (Jaffe) Jaffe is thinking exactly as I am. The popularity would increase if people know that baseball over any sports serve quality food choices and not cheap meat. I mean, you can't go wrong with a Dodger dog, but not if the meat is a mix of everything wrong of an animal. With these healthier choices, more people would go to baseball games instead of other sporting events, increasing popularity. I say, more food choices increase popularity and helps save baseball


---EL
Sources- Jeffe, Jay. "20 Ways to Improve Baseball Right Now." Sports News, Scores and Highlights from Sports Illustrated. N.p., 28 Mar. 2013. Web. 12 May 2016.

http://www.si.com/mlb/strike-zone/2013/03/28/20-ways-to-improve-baseball-right-now#

Make Opening Day a National Holiday.

Another day, another way. There has been a thought in my mind about baseball. Why isn't it more published. I am thinking of going to a game for my birthday (May 20) and I told my dad to look for tickets. I told him to buy cheap ticket, and then we could just move our way up to a good seat. I then realized, how sad that is. I know that people can't go to watch a game at 7:10 P.M on a Tuesday night. But baseball is better than that. I thought of all the good sporting events in America have a big event. The Super Bowl, The Finals, The Stanley Cup, etc. Baseball has the World Series of course, but that isn't enough. We should look at the start of the baseball season, Opening Day. We should push for America to make Opening Day, a national holiday.  "Return the privilege of officially starting the season to the Reds, since Cincinnati was the birthplace of professional baseball. Send the President to Nationals Park to throw out a ceremonial first pitch. Pair the previous season's pennant winners in a match up, since inter league play is now a daily occurrence. Schedule a quadruple header to be divided among the national broadcast partners, and make sure every American (and Canadian) has the day off to enjoy it all." (Jaffe). Jaffe puts this perfectly. If kids and parents alike got the day off because of BASEBALL, the popularity would boom. Kids would pray to the baseball gods thank you for giving them the day off. This may single handedly win the youth to like baseball if all things goes right. Do basketball, football, tennis, BADMINTON, have a holiday. No. But with this happening, baseball will have this IT factor, and this would help baseball.


---EL
Sources- Jeffe, Jay. "20 Ways to Improve Baseball Right Now." Sports News, Scores and Highlights from Sports Illustrated. N.p., 28 Mar. 2013. Web. 12 May 2016.
http://www.si.com/mlb/strike-zone/2013/03/28/20-ways-to-improve-baseball-right-now#

Using Technology to Baseball's Advantage

Another day, another topic. There was a question in my English class on how to expand their topic for more blog posts. Lucky for me, my topic expands beyond the edges of the universe. Baseball as you know is a dying sport, so they say. It is long, tedious, boring, etc. to most people. So how would you make people engaged in sports? Their technology. EVERYONE in America is connected to the internet somehow. If baseball used a poll type user interface, the fans would get captivated. Each team hires someone who really understands game strategy. "Then 10, 15, 20 times a game – as much as feels right or the on-field product allows – have the person quickly put up questions on the board and bottom of the TV screen. Runner on first, no out in the sixth of a tie game: Should Terry Collins a) sacrifice b) hit-and-run c) straight steal d) swing away? Starter beginning to fade, big hitter on deck, should Joe Girardi a) stick with Shane Greene or b) relieve with Dellin Betances? Lefty or righty reliever? Double-steal? Suicide squeeze? Infield in or not? Which pinch-hitter?" (Sherman). This suggestion from Joel Sherman I found searching the web is PERFECT. People scroll past baseball games on T.V all the time, I am even guilty for it. But imagine if you could directly affect the game? By giving these polls your answer, managers may get persuaded to do what you voted for. Fans would be feel great if their selection happened in real life, and WORKED. It would almost be like a game for them. You could show these at the games and on television. Then, fans at the games and on T.V would be engaged in the game. You could even make it more special for the fans at the game with special voting polls. This could attract many fans to be attracted to the game and watch. This could absolutely work to help the game of baseball.

---EL
Sources- Sherman, Joel. "How to Make Watching Baseball Fun Again." New York Post How to Make Watching Baseball Funagain Comments. N.p., 18 Aug. 2014. Web. 11 May 2016.

ht    nypost.com/2014/08/18/instead-of-making-ballgames-quicker-make-slowness-more-fun/

The YOUTH of the Future for Baseball

I thought about the future of baseball. What does it need. And I looked online and found this website by Barstool Sport. It says baseball needs the YOUTH of america to like baseball again. If the youth of America don't like baseball, baseball is going to die off faster than a plant in Antarctica. The MLB needs to target kids in America to make baseball great again. I asked some kids when I visited a baseball park what they like about baseball. They said they love to go to baseball games and meet their FAVORITE players. "Let me first just say that I love Cal Ripken Jr. He was my idol growing up. My AIM screen name was CRipken2131x8." (Carrabis). This shows how kids of America love baseball because of the players.Why don't baseball franchises directly advertise to the youth. Many parents get sucked in to doing things for their kids on what they want to do. If kids beg their parents to take them to a baseball game, more parents would bring their kids there. Look at all this REVENUE coming in by kids in the picture above. Now if you involve more of them, it's instant cash. They should do more special events for the kids. Instead of selecting just 9 kids to run out on the field to meet a player. Maybe let 3 kids per player. It is just autographs. The players would take an extra 10 seconds for a kid's special moment of a lifetime. Kids also like to have little fun things to do at the ballpark. At a spring training game I went to over the summer, they had mini fields for kids to play on. These type of things bring kids BACK to the baseball games. Aim more and more things for kids so they want to return to the lovely game of baseball. This blog is all about making baseball the best again. If MLB franchises aim at youth, they will slowly rebuild into what is was long ago.
---EL
Sources- Carrabis. "MLB Wants To Change Baseball At The Youth Level To Keep Kids From Choosing Other Sports." Barstool Sports. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 May 2016.
http://www.barstoolsports.com/baseball/mlb-wants-to-change-baseball-at-the-youth-level-to-keep-kids-from-choosing-other-sports/

Rules Changes to Help the Game.

This blog has been about how to save baseball, and to make it more fun again. We have never touched the face however maybe it's baseball itself that is making it boring. The new generation of kids love everything that is fast paced. Basketball, football, hockey, soccer, even *cringe* lacrosse is fast paced all the time. Baseball is a unique sport where there is no time limit in anything but the middle of the inning. Some critics consider CHANGING the rules of the classic that is baseball. Stephen Moore even went to consider that it should be 3 balls to a walk, and 2 strikes to a strike out. (Moore). There is a real problem with this though, it would change the game drastically. Ever since the strict policy of steroids, teams have been hitting less. With this rule implemented, pitchers would be even more dominant. The strikeouts would skyrocket through the roof. Just two strikes to get an out... unbelievable. Pitchers are so good in the MLB, they throw more strikes than balls. This would lower the balls and increase the strikes. This would completely make the game lopsided and even MORE boring. Pitchers striking out more and more players means less hits. And the most fun of baseball to most people is players getting hits. Trust me, playing baseball for over 10 years of my life, everyone get excited about hits. This would actually hurt the popularity of baseball instead of helping it. Another way he said to help baseball was to "Give the pitcher a maximum of 45 seconds between pitches or else the umpire calls an automatic ball." (Moore). This would actually HELP the game instead of hurting it. This would speed up the game without changing the rules drastically. It would make the game more fast paced to keep the fans entertained. Rule changes should never happen to the game of baseball. But changes to speed up down time would be great to help baseball become popular again.


---EL

Sources- Moore, Stephen. "Six Ways to save Baseball from Extinction | Fox News."Fox News. FOX News Network, 11 July 2014. Web. 03 May 2016. 
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/07/11/six-ways-to-save-baseball-from-extinction.html

Giveaways, Free Stuff, and More.

I have been thinking about new topics on how to make baseball great again. I wondered what attracts me as a consumer of baseball games to find new topic. Obviously cheerleader would be a HUGE plus (That's a good idea. I'm going to keep note of that.) but there are many other ways fans want to come to games.  Then it hit me, what does every fan or consumer always want, free stuff. Many baseball franchises give away free stuff on "promotional" days to attract customers. But these only happen maybe 30 out of the 81 home games that are played. They sometimes have cool promotions such as free replica jerseys, free hats, or even free mini bats. Or they have real bad ones such as coolers,  stickers, coupons, even a 10 cent beer day (Plautz). Baseball teams should give away stuff EVERY home game. Just give it to the first 10000 in attendance. Not first 25,000 to 30,000 fans. That way you can get more attendance while not losing money giving a lot of merchandise. Imagine having a promotion where you can get a free hat, you would be attracted to go. there is no one in this world that would say, " I hate to get free stuff." It is one of the few things in the world nobody hates. As a fan myself, I get attracted when I see a free hat giveaway, or a free jersey. I want to go to those games MORE than other games. Now imagine there are millions of me, and they all feel this way. But the promotion are 4 out of 5 games. I would have a reason why to go to those games more than the others. Ballparks attendance would go through the roof. More and more people would want to come to a game. Leading to a rise in attendance. This idea, I believe, will help make baseball great again.




---EL


Sources - Plautz, Jason. "Five Ballpark Promotions That Went Wrong." Mental Floss. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 April 2016.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/16719/five-ballpark-promotions-went-wrong