Tinkering With America's Game

September, Back to school, back to class, back to Cambridge's lovely gray and rainy weather. Fall isn't all bad, though. Baseball heats up in the fall.

Very few things lighten up the back-to-school season better than baseball playoffs and the World Series. Some very exciting League Championship Series and World Series made my last two fall semesters more bearable.

Unfortunately, this shining star in the foggy skies of fall may soon be clouded over for good. Baseball has been America's predominant pastime for over a century. But recently, the game has started to show the fatigue one would expect from any 100 year-old frontrunner.

The grand old game is still America's game, and it is still growing. Expansion teams in formerly baseball-less cities and new ballparks such as Orioles Park at Camden Yards have helped to rekindle interest in the game and, in some cities, boost stadium attendance to record levels.

But widespread interest in the sport is beginning to wane. Some American sports fans complain that baseball is slow and boring. This generation of viewers prefers its news in five-second sound bites; in baseball, a pitcher may throw to first base a dozen times and a "good at-bat" can consist of a hitter fouling off ten pitches before putting the ball in play.

Because of this, baseball has serious competition for the first time in its history. Over the last 12 years, the National Basketball Association has become the fastest growing professional sports league in the world. Under the leadership of its marketing guru, Gary Bettman, the NBA has grown from relative obscurity into a household acronym. The National Football League has also gained popularity, albeit coming from a stronger initial position.

But nothing is a greater threat to baseball as we know it than the newly proposed playoff system. The owners like it--which should already tip us off to trouble ahead. If baseball is Americana, this new system is like the former Soviet Union. It's backward, and it's likely to cause more harm than good.

The new system will divide each of the present leagues into three divisions--East, West, and Central--rather than the two that now exist. The baseball season, which usually ends in October, will be extended into November with the addition of another round of playoffs.

The first round, a best-of-five series, will feature the three division winners and the team with the next best record. The "wild-card" team will play the division winner with the best record; the two remaining division winners will compete in the other first-round series. The winners of each series will play each other in the customary best-of-seven League Championships, with the World Series following.

So why is this bad? Why shouldn't both the Atlanta Braves and San Francisco Giants make the playoffs; they're both great teams. Here's one reason: If they did, none of us would have cared about the National League West pennant race over the last few weeks.

Braves left fielder Ron Gant's hot streak would have been less important. The games the two teams played head-to-head wouldn't have been as intense. Both teams are so far ahead of the rest of the National League West that neither would have played as hard for this last handful of games. With the new system, longstanding rivalries like that of the Braves and the Giants will be destroyed. Sure, new rivalries might crop up. But some of the best teams in baseball won't play each other as often. And America will lose a tradition.

In sports like basketball and hockey, many teams make the playoffs, making each game in the 80-plus regular season relatively unimportant. In baseball, the 162-game regular season is critical; second place is as bad as last place. The winner-take-all aspect of baseball adds a dimension to the regular season that no other major sport can claim. Besides, it's a tradition.

Baseball is a sport steeped in tradition. True, part of baseball's strength over the decades has been its ability to change and continue adapt to its fans' desires. Still, some parts of the game have always been sacred, and should remain so. Baseball's traditions have been passed down from generation to generation of Americans. Baseball isn't broken, so why try to fix it?

There is only one reason: television. As other sports usurp more and more viewer attention, television networks, which pay exorbitant sums of money for the right to air baseball games, have lost hundreds of millions of dollars.

The baseball owners' drive to increase revenues in the face of declining television interest is understandable, but altering the game may not increase revenues as they hope.

Not only is the system changing for the worse, but American fans will not be able to watch most of the playoff games under the new system. The majority of the playoff games will not be broadcast on the major networks as in the past. Instead, they'll be aired on cable--or even worse, on pay-per-view.

Yes, there will be more playoff games to televise, and playoffs tend to gain higher viewership than regular season games. But tampering with baseball and its traditions may decrease its popularity and, ultimately, decrease viewer interest.

The new playoff system will make baseball more complicated, extend the season further, and make it more difficult for fans to watch the games. The demand for the rights to air baseball, even playoff games, may dwindle, along with the revenues they provide for owners.

Baseball should follow the lead of the NBA and begin a strong marketing campaign, rather than changing the structure of the sport. Some simple rule changes to help speed up the pace of the game wouldn't hurt, and won't distort the game the way the new proposal surely will.

Baseball, as it is, will always hold a special place in the hearts of American sports fans. It may be that a midseason game doesn't get higher ratings than the Simpsons on a given Thursday night, but come September, the fans prefer a pennant race game to anything Bart can do.

Change the system, and September will never be the same.