A Dilemma For Baseball That I Invented In My Head

Major League Baseball could be in big trouble. A series of events are falling into place that could result in a massive loss of its casual fan base. I’m not talking about the impending results of the Mitchell Investigation, although that could have catastrophic effects. After the strike in 1994 interest in baseball took a sharp decline. Stadiums were half empty. Fans left in droves, frustrated with both players and owners. Two events brought the fans back, and baseball back from it’s near death (maybe not death, but perhaps becoming less popular than soccer, I’m not sure which is worse).

The first was Cal Ripken breaking Lou Gehrig’s 2130 consecutive games played streak in 1995. Now that’s something Americans can get behind, a record based on going to work everyday. Trust me I know, I have several perfect attendance awards from elementary school, and people loved me for it. The second event of course was the home run chase in 1998. Fans were riveted by nightly updates of Sammy Sosa’s and Mark McGuire’s assault on Roger Maris’ single season home run record. They both ended up breaking the mark and baseball was back to being America’s pastime.

Those two things brought the casual fan back into the game, but Ripken’s streak ended in 1998 and he retired in 2001. The home run record has not only already been broken, but it’s all been tainted by the cloud of steroids. So what has kept the casual fan interested? Why is the popularity of baseball still high? Many reasons of course, but I think there is one unifying element among the majority of average fans that keeps them watching every night: hating the New York Yankees. Obviously there are millions of diehards who love the game as it is and root for they’re favorite team no matter what. But these are the people who never left, the strike might have left a stain on the game but they were still fans. On the other hand there are an equal number of people who would tell you they like baseball but don’t know much about the game other than what they see on ESPN occasionally. These are the people who needed to be told who Matt Holliday was during the World Series this year. They couldn’t tell you the third starter on their favorite team is, but the do know one thing. Namely they hate the Yankees because they “buy” championships.

Herein lies the problem for MLB. The Yankees are falling apart at the seams. Alex Rodriguez is gone. Joe Torre is gone. Any Pettitte opted out of his contract today and may choose to retire. Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada are free agents. It’s not a great offseason to be a Yankee fan, but this could be bad for baseball as well. Hypothetically let’s say the team does lose all of those players to free agency; that is close to $70 million in payroll subtracted from last season. Add to it Roger Clemens and his $16 million retiring and the Yankees could potentially have only the fifth or sixth highest payroll coming into the season. What will people have to latch onto as a reason to hate them? Because that’s the thing, somewhere along the line it became more fun for the average fan to root against other teams than it did to root for their own. What happens when the evil empire is no longer evil? By June your standard Orioles fan, for example, has given up on the season, they’re no longer interested in watching the fate of their own team. All they have left is hoping the Yankees and their enormous payroll underachieve in the playoffs again. They revel in it, as do many other fans of many other teams. Well there is a chance the Yankees will start the season with a payroll similar to the O’s and expectations not much higher. If that’s the case then by June when they don’t care about their team anymore they have nothing else to care about. They’ll just quit on baseball altogether and this can’t be a scenario that makes MLB happy.

Here’s the kicker, the thing that will make people heads explode: the Yankees, instead of underachieving with a huge payroll like they have the last few years, could just as easily overachieve with a reasonable payroll next year. Then people really wouldn’t know what to do. Who hates the underdog? All of those players leaving in free agency leave gaping holes in the lineup and rotation but it doesn’t exactly leave the cupboard bare. There is still plenty of talent. Instead of being the odds on favorite to win it all they would be a team with a ton of question marks who could surprise some people come September and October. What if Hideki Matsui, Johnny Damon, and Jason Giambi stay healthy all year? Add in Jeter, Cano, Abreu, and Cabrera and that’s still a formidable lineup. They might be starting the season with three rookie or second year guysin the starting rotation. But between Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, and Ian Kennedy if two of those three guys live up to even 80% of there potential then combined with Wang that would be a fairly solid rotation. These are all big ifs, but there not that unlikely. Do I think the Yankees have a shot at the World Series? Probably not. Can they surprise a lot people? Absolutely, and that is the last thing a lot of people want to see. They’ll hate that they can’t hate it. Ever Yankee basher has a standard set of arguments that they rarely deviate from but they wouldn’t be able to use any of them anymore.

Every story needs a villain. MLB needs that to be the Yankees. People are celebrating their demise now, but they’ll get bored. And eventually they’ll get bored with baseball altogether if they don’t have the Yankees to root against.

Of course there is always the new Yankees: the Boston Red Sox.