GOING, GOING, GONE?

transform into a game that isn’t being loved as much as he thinks it should.

His nephew, starting at the age of five, was introduced to baseball, and Pianto wanted him to love the game as much as he did.

Although at first he didn’t find the game enjoyable, he still wanted to give it a try, but in the end, Pianto said he pursued soccer and preferred its fast pace compared to baseball and its slow cadence.

Even though Pianto tried to get his nephew back into baseball when he was older hoping he would have a better understanding, it wasn’t enough as he was more interested constant action that soccer brings.

“With soccer, they are always moving, and they got an object to put this ball in that goal,” he said, comparing it to the slower baseball, where time is often spent waiting for the next play to start.

For a fan back in the 20th century, baseball was the sport of the time. It was America’s game. From 1937 to 1960, baseball was America’s favorite sport until football took the top spot in 1972. Now though, it seems as though the game has been left in the past.

According to a report from Forbes, the MLB saw a 5.7% decline from the 2019 and 2022 season. In addition, the MLB saw its lowest attendance numbers since 1997.

This poses a major problem for the advertisement of baseball on its audience. It symbolizes the current stance on baseball, and in addition represents the place baseball could be in the future.

In the Bay Area, the A’s and Giants have been significantly affected recently. With the pandemic, plus the popularity of the sport on the plummet, the teams saw a decrease in attendance numbers. In addition, ticket prices are continually rising at these games, which causes a lack of attendance.

Decline in MLB attendance from 2019 to 2022

5.3 Million

Number of little league players in 2014, down by almost 4 million from 2002.

57 Years

Age of the average baseball fan in 2023 according to Off the Bench Baseball.

The A’s continue to have a problem as they are known to be one of the lowest market teams in the league ranking just 27th out of 30 teams in team valuations. Their performance hasn’t helped either as they won just 60 games out of 162 games last season, and there has been constant speculation on their movement to a new city. Along with the popularity of professional baseball on the decline, the number of youth participants in the sport is declining as well. Research has shown that there has been a decrease in Little League players from 9 million in 2002 to 5.3 million in 2014. Pianto points out that for a young kid to get invested in baseball they need to have coaches that can create that interest.

“They don’t have the attention span, so you’ve got to make the game fun, especially at that level,” he said. In this generation, children want things now, and they want them to be meaningful. Research has shown that the Generation Z is the most impatient generation, and that the average attention span has decreased over recent years.

Baseball is getting less and less pop- ular for the younger generation, and the age of the average baseball fan being 57 years old, according to Off the Bench Baseball.

Mainly, youths are getting less interested in baseball due to its slow pace.

“It is a slower paced game. In fact, if you take the total time of a baseball game when the ball is actually in play, it’s minutes,” Pianto said. Baseball has declined significantly than most sports due to this problem. The ball is in play 18 minutes of the three hours a game typically lasts compared to soccer where this season in the English Premier League, the ball was in play for around 56 minutes of its 90 minutes.

Despite the lack of action compared to other sports, Pianto said it is the mental preparation and the complexity of the game that players love.

“If you fall in love with the game, and really take these complexities to heart, and the challenges to heart, it’s a very exciting game,” he said.

Junior Taryn Quam, a Branham student who was born into a family of baseball fans, has been watching baseball her entire life. She can relate to Pianto when he says it is a very exciting game.

“Spending my life watching baseball on TV and going to my brother’s games, I naturally fell in love with the sport,” Quam said.

The MLB over the years, with their decline in interest, has attempted to make the game more exciting by adding a clock in between pitches so the game moves by quicker, and are enlarging the bases so that there is more action when batters try to reach them. Making the game more interesting to the eye, Pianto said it will make it more available to all aspects of the community, and when the game catches the attention of more people, more people will understand what players and fans love about the game.

Until the right changes have been made to make baseball less boring, the decrease in baseball popularity that we are witnessing now will continue to grow.

Quam said the atmosphere at a baseball stadium is one of a kind and is truly something special and she hopes that people will soon be willing to expose themselves to the game.

“It’s the suspense, excitement, and rivalry that create the magic of the game,” she said.