WI: Baseball still America's game

What ways could major league baseball have prevented football from overtaking it's spot as the most popular sport in America? If CBS have never put the 1958 NFL championship game between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants on air would we see professional football growing in smaller numbers than what had occurred after that game? Would having a much less competent commissioner than Pete Rozelle have kept baseball being the king of American sports for many years to come?
 
Any possible rules changes that could speed the game up?

Or have the majority of players doing more than just waiting for the ball to come there way?
 
Not having some of the rules put in place that made football safer could leave football under a cloud due to relatively common player deaths which limits its TV coverage.
 
You have to make football less appealing

If Frank Gifford dies from that infamous Bednarik hit, that opens up a big can of worms right when football is starting to boom
 
Avoid football. If an Alt-NFL is anything like the NFL we have, nothing can stand in its way.

Of course the argument could be made, I would agree, that baseball is still the national pastime. Yes, football is the media giant and is swimming in so much cash that it not only makes Scrooge McDuck blush, it can do whatever it wants wherever it wants. But if you take away football and accept that people simply have a lot more choice for their entertainment dollar today, I think baseball is still dominant.
 
Baseball just isn't designed for television, unfortunately. It's too long and too tedious. Maybe shorten the game some? Honestly I think you have to force the rules to change with the times.
 
There are plenty of chances to have a rules change. I think one of the schemes to add a third league might result in some interesting possibilities. More teams = more pressure to succeed and thrive = more experimentation. We already have a few rule differences between NL and AL, so I imagine more interesting changes would be possible of, say Branch Rickie's third league (or another incarnation) came into being. I'll leave it to others to think of actual gameplay changes.

With many extra teams there's at least the possibility that something like promotion/relegation might be introduced. It's unlikely but certainly not ASB. I think this unique (for American sport) form of competition would enhance rivalries and team loyalties and might make baseball a stronger competitor.
 
Or have the majority of players doing more than just waiting for the ball to come there way?

Make baseball a contact sport? Seriously. I once had a discussion with a friend about how to introduce player-on-player hitting in baseball. One of our ideas included tackles on the baselines and in the outfield.
 
A few decades ago, the average major league game was only 2:30 - not short, but not really long, either. Now it's past 3 hours, if memory serves.

Ironically,a lot of that has been because of TV - your single game of the week and a few dozen local games have been replaced by gobs of games everywhere, meaning more commercial timeouts, more players grandstanding and taking time between pitches, etc..

Also more relievers and coaching visits have hurt, too. Along with higher scoring; the '70s and'80s were excellent for baseball speed yet, it doesn't have to be the dead ball era type of the '60s.

My answer to the challenge to destroy American football (starting with the Steelers keeping Unitas) would be a start. I invented a play that caused a player's death, not knowing of the Gifford concussion; I just read about that, wow. It was in 1960, so would have caused a big stigma, yes. I thought having it later, in a Super Bowl equivalent, would have more impact but the 1960 one could work, too.

You then have to have some way to keep baseball going on TV without the longer breaks for commercials, but I don't know how. Signs ont he outfields in the '60s and '70s parks like int he old time ones can only do so much.

But, if the 1960 hit does kill, perhaps that butterflies away the genius of NFL Films - I have in that challenge response a World Series being covered instead. It would be better as a season, though, or something to cause a ball club to see the great value of the marketing of the sport.

Because, one of the problems, as someone put it back in the late '80s,w as that for many years, "Baseball's marketing strategy was to say, 'We're the national pastime - come watch us.'" Whereas, a forward thinking man could have done some wonders.

Hmmmm, there was that crazy debacle of a Commissioner in 1965 after a lot of dithering and compromising. Maybe if Rozelle, not the first choice, doesn't get hired baseball could tap him?
 
You could do things to improve baseball, like speeding up the games, avoiding long work stoppages such as strikes or lockouts, and preventing the PED scandal by testing at a much earlier date before use became so widespread. But to keep baseball as the most popular sport in the US you need to screw football. Perhaps have somebody die during a live televised game. After that the networks become reluctant to broadcast games, and it causes parents to rethink allowing their children to play.

To speed up baseball you can do a couple of rule changes. Limit the number of instances a team can call time on the field. Maybe give each team 9 timeouts per game, with added timeouts if the game goes to extra innings. So when a batter calls time at the plate, or a runner calls time at a base, or a fielder calls time to talk things over with the pitcher, or a manager comes out to talk with the pitcher it counts as a timeout for that team.

Then create a pitch clock, similar to the shot clock in basketball, or the play clock in football. After a pitcher receives the ball on the mound they have 24 seconds to make the next pitch or throw over to a base occupied by a runner. If they don't get the pitch off in that time the pitcher is assessed a ball toward the current batter count. If the batter is responsible for going over the clock, like by not getting back in the batters box quick enough, then the batter is given a strike toward the current count.
 
What about having D1 college baseball have the same status and massive media coverage as D1 basketball or football? Maybe have some March Madness equivalent for college baseball where it dominates TV for a month.
 
Then create a pitch clock, similar to the shot clock in basketball, or the play clock in football. After a pitcher receives the ball on the mound they have 24 seconds to make the next pitch or throw over to a base occupied by a runner. If they don't get the pitch off in that time the pitcher is assessed a ball toward the current batter count. If the batter is responsible for going over the clock, like by not getting back in the batters box quick enough, then the batter is given a strike toward the current count.

They have one. It is just that no one enforces it and technically it doesn't apply if runners are on base.

With the current crop of umpires who believe they can define the strike zone as they please (though they are getting better I will admit), I cannot see MLB forcing this issue.

What about having D1 college baseball have the same status and massive media coverage as D1 basketball or football? Maybe have some March Madness equivalent for college baseball where it dominates TV for a month.

The problem with that is that it would require a POD so early as to butterfly everything away. College football and basketball are big because for decades each was the pinnacle of the sport, both from lesser appreciation of the professional games and the actual non-existence of the professional game. College baseball on the other hand was small and not very important when baseball turned pro. There is also the practical aspect of football and basketball talent being quite apparent for college kids but not so obvious for baseball players. When was the last time anyone cared about the number one pick in the MLB draft after all.
 
When was the last time anyone cared about the number one pick in the MLB draft after all.

Bryce Harper recently had a pretty big to-do about him, maybe just as much because of the hardball negotiating, though. (And it's possible he wasn't #1 though I'm pretty sure he was.)

But, even he proves your point. He wasn't a college player. Pro players have come from the high school ranks and done well for so long, that any college tournament way back when would be worse than college basketball is now, where you have a good crop of one-and-done or two-and-done players but not a lot of superstars because the players are going tot he NBA so quickly.

So, this hypothetical replacement for Commissioner Eckert needs to push for marketing the minors in the '60s, not just the majors, so people can know of the young, promising stars. There were some really good ones coming out of college then, too.
 
A couple of possible PoDs that could make the change:
  • The Federal League teams survive after 1915, albeit rolled into the two existing major leagues. That would lead to two leagues of 12 teams each, not unlike the National League for much of the 1890s. In turn, that means the major league game would have outlets in places like Baltimore, Kansas City, and perhaps Milwaukee and the Twin Cities 40 to 50 year sooner.
  • Move the St. Louis Browns earlier. There was a proposal made at the 1941 winter meetings to move the Browns to Los Angeles, and all the logistics had been worked out. Unfortunately that took place just days after Pearl Harbor, so wartime travel restrictions shelved that idea. But have that proposal come up in, say, 1938 or 1939, and chances are it flies. Now the AL has a west coast outlet, so the NL won't be far behind: perhaps the Boston Braves or the pre-Leo Durocher Dodgers might make a move to Frisco.
  • John McGraw strong-arms the Giants' ownership into breaching the infamous "Gentlemen's Agreement" in the 1920s. Upon his death, it was discovered McGraw had a list, complete with contact information, of black players he coveted for the Giants. If he had managed to force the issue, the game becomes more wide-open in the 1920s and stays that way with the barnstorming style of play becoming more prevalent (OK, Ty Cobb would go ballistic but he was nearing the end of his career anyhow).
  • Earlier expansion: the major leagues acted when they did in response to the threat of Branch Rickey's proposed Continental League. Put expansion teams out there maybe five years earlier, especially in conjunction with pre-war west coast baseball and now the game is truly nationwide, with teams going into (say) Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, and Houston.
  • Repeal the rule against the spitter, shine ball, and so forth--and perhaps limit the size of gloves. That should keep things in reasonable balance while still allowing batting averages to inch back toward where they were in the 1920s (the super-juiced ball of 1930, though, skewed things very badly).
 
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