This was the first year my kids have gotten slightly interested in watching baseball. They are eight-years old and almost six, and this was the year they started to show an interest in the game. We made a playoff chart where the kids did illustrations of all the team’s logos, and we picked teams to root for (Blue Jays, Rays) and teams to root against (Astros).
In the early rounds, I just kept the games on, and they’d watch one or two innings before getting bored and going off to do something else. I was able to turn a couple of the early games into ‘events’, and we'd make popcorn and they'd pick players they liked. The early rounds were nice. It's been a fun postseason.
And then the World Series came. My kids decided to root for the Rays, and they made signs for them, and it has been a fantastic series that shows baseball at it’s very best…and my kids are missing it. They’ve watched maybe two or three innings of the World Series this year.
My kids go to bed around 8:30, which means we usually have them reading or doing something quiet by 8:15. I am not a doggedly routine-obsessed parent, so I’ve let them stay up for a few of the first innings in the earlier games, but…it hasn’t felt worth it. They know they’re not going to be able to watch a full game, or even a significant portion of the game, and their excitement is limited. And when the first inning ends and the clock is at 8:45 or 9:07, I have to go through the bedtime rituals and they’re grumpy and I’m grumpy because I'm missing a little bit of baseball, and the whole thing ends on a sour note.
If you think this is one of those ‘baseball is ruining it’s future’ articles, well…that’s exactly what this is. By having all of the World Series games start at 8:10 pm on the East Coast, baseball is making the game inaccessible for the very fans who are primed to care.
My kids don’t have social media accounts, and despite the current transition to online learning, they aren’t distracted by a host of games and entertainments and distractions available to them on the series of tubes called the internet. They are willing to care, and they have a father who is willing to engender that caring, and baseball is saying: "To hell with you, kid. I got Jim Beam advertising dollars to rake in."
A confession: I watched Game 4 last night…until the 8th inning. I missed the end. The whole game, it felt like it was going to be one of those games, an instant classic. Just the tenor of the game felt like both teams were going to keep punching until time expired. It was a classic, and I missed it. At about 11:45 I went to bed.
All day today I’ve been pondering why I quit on the game last night. I knew something was coming...as I'm sure all of you baseball obsessives sensed it as the game progressed. It just had that feeling. And I still love baseball: I’ve enjoyed watching the games as much as I ever have. This year baseball has a salvation, a respite from an absolutely crummy year. Baseball’s been great. I’ve enjoyed it immensely.
But…I enjoy my kids, and my partner. Very late on a Saturday night, my mind invariably shifts to thinking about what the plan is going to be for us on a Sunday. What are we going to do? Make something good for breakfast, waffles or cinnamon rolls or french toast? A hike or bike ride? What are we going to do?
A World Series that starts at 8:10 pm isn’t something we can do: it is something that I am doing alone. It makes an ask on me that is an individual pull
On one level, that’s fine. There are many things I care about and enjoy in life that are mine alone. But baseball feels like it should be something I can share with my kids. I am trying not forcing it on them, but they’ve started choosing it, and I’d like to help that along. I’d like for baseball to be something we have together.
It’s not, and if things hold, it never will be. There is a crucial window between now and when a whole host of other entertainments and opportunities for connection flood in, a window between when they can stay up late to watch a classic and when they have to stay up late to finish homework, or want to stay up late with someone else. That window is a brief thing, and by not giving younger fans one game that all of them can watch, baseball is losing a generation.
I have said this before, but I will say it again: baseball is skipping generations of fans. The number of people who can stay up past midnight night after night for weeks on end following the game is low, and it will get lower. Catering to prime time is going to crater the game’s fan base.
I don’t want much. I am asking for a few games that start at 7:00, and perhaps one Saturday World Series game that starts in the afternoon. Give me a chance to watch a game with my kids, before it doesn’t matter.
David Fleming is a writer living in southwestern Virginia. He welcomes comments, questions, and suggestions here and at dfleming1986@yahoo.com