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    Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
    In the US, there are/were a lot of GoM that worried soccer would supplant baseball, and yet less obvious concern about how much American football and basketball already have.
    Football? Oh, there's plenty of old-school baseball fans who resent the idea of the NFL being more popular than the national pastime. Distaste for the NFL's dog and pony show seems to be ingrained among most hardcore baseball fans, especially those over 30. I've seen plenty of people wishing/hoping the CTE crisis will turn American youths back towards baseball (I have heard seedlings of anecdotes that this could well be happening, youth numbers rising in some areas etc).

    There's less attention paid towards hoops, although I am with the old fart baseball fans who think the NBA is believed to be somewhat more popular than it actually is. There's only a handful of NBA teams who draw bigger TV audiences than their MLB counterparts, despite the NBA being a winter sport, having less day games, etc. The playoffs get big ratings, but Game 7 last year between the Cubs and Indians bought more viewers than any NBA game *ever*.

    As you can see, part of the baseball indoctrination is knowledge of a series of facts to rebut the 'baseball is dying' myth that gets thrown around constantly.

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      Baseball isn't dying - I've read those articles too - but football is definitely bigger now by many measures. Mainly, it's more popular on TV and more popular among "casual" fans. Outside of Boston and a few other places, baseball seems to be more like hockey in that the people that care about it care a lot about it, but there's not as much of a bandwagon periphery of fans.

      Basketball is not bigger overall, but it is in many specific places, especially among African-American kids in cities and that's something MLB is worried about.

      But baseball needs to forget about being the "national pastime" not because football or another sport will be the national pastime, but because our culture just isn't like that any more. The long tail is here to stay. It's true in music and TV and film. Why would sports be any different?

      We have a thousand TV channels, including whole channels for each sport. Once it was hard to get any sports information beyond one's local sports page, which was dominated by old white guys. If you lived in a big city, maybe you had a choice of papers or a Spanish paper, but the sports options were pretty limited. Now anyone can get an avalanche of news and information on any sport they want from any corner of the world. Meanwhile every sport is trying to "grow the game" - lacrosse, field hockey, rowing, whatever. The days when little league baseball was a de facto mandatory experience for kids is long gone.

      So instead of arrogantly sitting on the "national pastime" thing, baseball needs to reintroduce itself to kids of all ethnicities and genders and promote stickball, wiffleball, softball, etc. I feel like the current MLB administration is trying a lot harder to do that than the previous.

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        Well, this is not going well.

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          Haha on Saturday, the Padres made up 5 runs in the 9th inning to break the Dbacks winning streak.

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            I'm just checking, did the Dodgers slump begin at exactly the point I posted this:

            Originally posted by Ray de Galles View Post

            23-08-2017

            So, if one was coincidentally in LA for World Series week and HUGE IF the Dodgers got there - how would they sell tickets for the home games given there will be a necessarily tight turnaround time from the pennant games? I can't imagine they are all spoken for with season tickets and the like.

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              Yep, you Jonah

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                Having a cappuccino watching the Giants leading the Dodgers. This is great.

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                  Originally posted by Ray de Galles View Post
                  I'm just checking, did the Dodgers slump begin at exactly the point I posted this:
                  It was also when I fb'd Inca after the trade with the phrase "I envy Yu."

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                    The Spikes finished with a winning record, but did not make the playoffs. It's ok. They had a lot of good players get promoted, which hurt their chances down the stretch. They've been three of the last five years and won the NYPL title twice in that period. Plus, they've had a winning record every year they've been affiliated with the Cardinals after never having one in the Pirate years.

                    The Altoona Curve (AA-Pirates) swept Bowie in the divisional round of the Eastern League playoffs and will now face Trenton (Yankees) for the title. They'll probably lose, but I hope to see at least one of the games. I haven't been to a curve game this year yet, sadly.

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                      I'm not mad. I actually think it's funny.

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                        Any combination of Diamondback losses and Dodger wins totaling ten will eliminate Arizona

                        It's a complete non-event.

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                          SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP

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                            Patrick (or anyone), if you still want to watch baseball, mlb.com are doing the rest of the season for $9.99. And a lot of the postseason games will be blacked out in the USA, but not in the UK.

                            Check for details.

                            The struckout part is true, but I am not certain that post season games are included in that price.
                            Last edited by Gerontophile; 13-09-2017, 01:32.

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                              SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP

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                                The Cleveland First Nation Citizens That Christopher Columbus Thought Were Citizens of India are 3 outs away from tying the American League win streak record.

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                                  And they tied it.

                                  And they're 4 games out from the Los Angeles Dodgers.

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                                    August 24
                                    Los Angeles 90-36
                                    Cleveland 70-56 . 20.0

                                    September 12
                                    Los Angeles 92-52
                                    Cleveland 88-56 . 4.0

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                                      The 1899 Cleveland Spiders won 20 games n a full 154 game season

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                                        That looks like the (good) old Muttley.

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                                          Well, Kershaw in SF broke the losing streak. They tried their best to blow the game after he left, though.

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                                            Lose home series to Yankees for the first time since 2014, lose 3 straight to Cleveland, blow save in Toronto, and that probably does it.

                                            2018 schedules are out, btw.

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                                              If declarations were allowed, the Padres should have gone home in the 7th inning stretch last night.

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                                                Originally posted by jefe View Post
                                                .

                                                2018 schedules are out, btw.
                                                How reliable are these? Would there be much change between now and, say, May?

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                                                  Oakland has decided they want to put their new stadium downtown, by Laney College off the 880, hopefully by 2023.

                                                  PT: Very reliable. Barring odd and random events-like hurricanes/wildfires/riots-dates and locations will not change. You do run the risk of individual games getting rained out through. Who are you thinking of seeing?

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                                                    As a frequent visitor to Oakland, I wouldn't quite call Laney "downtown", but the site is certainly a heck of a lot closer and more urban than that of the Coliseum.

                                                    Here's a map (Howard Terminal and the current site were the other serious options)



                                                    That looks like the (good) old Muttley.
                                                    I don't recognise any other.

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