2023 Playoffs Thread

I'm sure the numbers would have improved with a New York team in there, but I don't think it would have been dramatic. Series viewership has been declining for decades, even while attendance and local viewership has been strong.

In fact, viewership for network games was up seven percent in 2023 compared to 2022. Fox, FS1 and TBS all had solid upturns; only ESPN games remained flat. I guess we aren't the only ones who find the ESPN games painful to watch.

D'Backs-Rangers have limited appeal outside of those two (large) markets. Neither team has much of a national following like the Yanks, Dodgers, Red Sox, Cubs, Cardinals and maybe a few others do. Plus the expanded playoffs meant we had the teams with the seventh and eleventh-best records playing. There is a definite downside to having 40 percent of the teams making the post-season.

Personally, I watched maybe half of each game. I enjoyed it. But I love baseball in general, I'm not the typical viewer. I'll stop to watch two teams playing a pickup game in the park. I'll even watch a few innings of a Royals -- Athletics game in late September if the timing is right.

No hope for me. But the rest of you, save yourselves so you don't wind up like that!

What you said Chi. The demise of the starting pitcher is a major blow to the attraction of the game. It removes one of the most exciting aspects. Throwing six or seven anonymous relievers out there who nobody will remember the day after the series ends might -- might -- make sense analytically, but it definitely dilutes fan interest.

I think the vast majority are that way Kaybli. It didn't used to be that way when baseball was the most popular sport, which was the case until probably sometime in the 1970s when it was surpassed by the NFL. At that time, it was like the NFL has been for the past 50 or so years -- fans would watch the championship even if their team wasn't in it, like what happens for the Super Bowl.

A half century goes by and things change. Who'd have thought it?

The 70s had the Miami Dolphins back to back and an undefeated season.  Then, the Pittsburgh Steelers won four championships during the decade.  Cowboys and the Raiders were always in the mix.  Sprinkle in the Eagles and the Broncos, and the Redskins were no slouch either.  Monday Night Football was absolutely a cultural mainstay with that booth of Don Meredith, Frank Gifford, and Howard Cosell.  Great times!

You are so much like my Yankee buddy Joe Simas.  If it was baseball, he didn't care if it was the World Series or Little League.  Joe marked and recalled the events in his life with baseball associations year to year.  Some of the most fun I had watching baseball was the years I held season tickets to the Visalia Oaks Single-A team.  I can still taste those Polish dogs cooked on an outside grill near the left field fence.

I do recall and believe me Joe would have been profoundly humbled by the gesture from a true baseball fan.  Joe and I would gab for hours on end, only interrupted by meals, bathroom breaks, and eventually sleep.  You two would have been fast friends.

Minor league baseball any day of the week.  No trouble parking or traffic jams, no fights in the park or after the game, genuine baseball fans seated next to you, family members with hopeful spouses dreaming of the graduating to the next level, and some 30-year ballpark patron flipping burgers for free and serving as a "foster-parent" to one of the new and not yet domiciled players.  One of the few American dreams still alive and well from tee ball to adulthood.