TheLeviathan

I was just about to post this in the other thread. They're already doing it in the playoffs - cut the between-innings time down and run split screen commercials if you absolutely have to. Baseball is not a sport that demands your constant TV attention like football or hockey, you can walk away for a few minutes and catch up later. If the commercial time is so precious....fine, but then shave down how much it impacts the game play.

I think owner collusion is near certain...but i am warming to the idea the players are as well as a reaction. I think we see a major free agent sit out part of the year.

I'm starting to think owners and players are colluding. If nothing happens in the next two weeks things are going to get really interesting.

Party of family values.

I'm glad it only took two pages for some acknowledgement that...gee, interactions aren't "simple". That inevitably grey areas will arise that threaten the momentum of the movement if handled poorly. If only someone had been trying to point that out.....Alas. In any case...of course nuance doesn't change the point....but it might change our tactics a bit. That's the thing you and others appear to continue to miss. There is some need for defintions and what-not, but largely people agree on the "what". It's the "how" that matters. "How" is what changes zeal into results and we need results from this movement. And that is where it is vital to be clear and nuanced before you get people abandoning the movement before it accomplishes anything other than a few tarnished careers. I'm not sure what happened to Aziz Ansari Sunday night in many circles is the best way to have this conversation. He shouldn't be plastered all over every news site as having been accused of sexual assault. His actions are a reflection of a paradigm in need of changing, but (quite frankly) so are her actions. (Or lack thereof) We need to change the idea that men need to push and women are playing hard to get. We need women to be able to speak up and speak out and for men to hear that and respect it. But all parts of that are vital. That conversation is a tough, sensitive one that will buck long established cultural norms. Humiliating a couple men over it as a tactic to achieve that doesn't help. And the fissures that will be created (enflamed is probably a better description) in the wake of moments like this will be far more likely to kill this movement than anything else.

The chatter online about this is really going strong. I think this was a provocative take. A similar one from Vox.

Pirates take another light package to deal a commodity.

Absolutely, we need to change the idea that you "keep pushing" as Ansari did. That's been pretty engrained for awhile in our interactions. Men need to be less pushy and put the brakes on more often. Men and women do what Aziz did, but the difference is men are more comfortable stopping unwanted advances by women of this sort, but not the reverse. I think it's also deeply, deeply unfair for this to be characterized as an "assault" as it is being done in all the headlines. Aziz is guilty of being boorish or a pig, but he did not assault this person. I think it's important for the survival of the MeToo movement to draw a sharp distinction here or it may be a death nail.

Atlantic article on Aziz Ansari.

I don't understand this feeling. But I love it.

Yet, when football saw a modest decline the last decade - it was soccer and basketball that picked up to those numbers and baseball continued to show decline. Which implies that perhaps that spin is not accurate. The demographics listed later are also rather interesting. I think it's easy to cite revenues and say "all is well", but I'd say that's also misleading. No one statistic is going to perfectly answer this kind of question because there are layers and layers to something like this, but there are plenty of arms to this: World Series viewership is down significantly since the '80s. Even with population increases, the 1980s saw consistent viewership over 30M. Whereas baseball in the last 10 years has only cracked that number once for a Game 7. Typically the viewership is half that, closer to the 17-18M range. Athlete recognition and popularity numbers are not strong for baseball, relative to sports as obscure as MMA or football/hockey where their faces are more likely to be obscured by playing equipment. The average age of a viewer is 55 years old. Maybe baseball is just becoming a regional thing and it will thrive in that form. But I would bet most people would think the sport is stronger when it has a national feel, rather than a regional one.

Financially, yes it is. But I can't imagine that can sustain a diminishing interest level among future fans. Or maybe baseball will continue to bro-out and milk 28 year olds for $24 craft beers. It's certainly working right now.

The bullpen is often a numbers game, it's nice to be on the right side of that, but you're right that there is going to be quite a crunch for roster spots. I don't see how Rogers and Hildy are left off unless they implode this spring, but I guess we'll see what happens.

This team can afford 150M if they are actually serious.

Good move, good terms.

For the record, I don't think this means baseball is dying off or anything. But it may be problematic in the long term. Baseball has lost some of it's magic for kids, for whatever reason. (though I think bird hate on quite a few good possibilities)

That's true, but that doesn't mean the ballpark experience is geared that way. It's geared towards 25-35 year olds with money to spend. From a short term business model it makes sense, not so much from a long term model. Baseball lost some of it's mystique in bro-ing out. I guess that's just my sense, none of the kids I work with could give a rip about the local baseball team.

Straight from gallup.

Any hot takes?http://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/kothfiig8u20hhbxavevjg.png I'm starting to worry that baseball is pricing itself out of many families and new fans. Just from my own anecdotal experience, kids care far less about baseball than I remember caring about it.

I can't imagine the price on Lou Williams at this point. But he'd sure be a nice fit.

It is sad, I enjoy Dave Cameron. But I'm not sure the criticism is that Dave Cameron doesn't know baseball, I think the criticism is more of the inflated pedestal we sometimes put people in his line of work on. Dave Cameron knows a lot (and a lot more than me) but perhaps not as much as people think.

Sounds like they're primed to dash all hopes with a loss to the Knicks tonight! Seriously though....who are we targeting to help this bench? Ilyasova makes perfect sense right? If not, who else do you go after?

Breitbart, Anne Coulter, Tucker Carlson.....all in open revolt. It's popcorn worthy.

It is so tone deaf to the reality of how people deal with one another it will be brushed off as a farce or a fad. It will be so onerous, so unwilling to compromise, and so reluctant to include context that it will be viewed as an irrational overreach. And, I'd suggest, we're already well down that road unfortunately. And a genuine opportunity will have fallen to the way side in favor of righteous indignation. In the mean time, a real issue, with real need of change, will blow in the wind. Or worse....if you decide to socially eviscerate every poor soul who makes an unwitting mistake...you'll engender more than just indifference. You'll strengthen the resolve of your opponents and you'll give them legitimacy to stand on. Our political system is at a constant impasse, incapable of achieving real successes, in part because of our inability to include nuance in our discussions. Nuance allows for debate and discussion. It acknowledges that we agree on something (the overall goal) but we're working together towards a good solution. Instead, so many have taken up the mantle of some kind of "purity" on every damn issue. You're either all in, in a certain way, or you're a dirty, miserable (fill in whatever derogatory right/left term you like). Meanwhile, while those who attack anyone who doesn't pass their purity test....nothing gets done. Perhaps if nuance was more welcome, so too would discussion and compromise. But I'm not holding my breath.

I don't disagree with you, I'm not advocating official actions aren't taken. We need official actions by businesses and the justice system. But there is also a larger call for more unofficial actions and it's to that call that I was responding. We should be careful to take a nuanced approach to that. Not every inappropriate interaction rises to the levels we're talking about and it's important to remember how complex our interactions can be. There are layers of emotions, thoughts, intent, and other things at work. I liken it a lot to the wave of "anti-bullying" that happened 5-6 years back. It's a more than worthy cause that absolutely needed attention, but in our zeal to combat that problem we start crying "bully" at everything. It's taken years of work to try and stem that tide in school systems. Did good things come out of it? Absolutely. Did a ton of confusion and hysteria lead to a really problematic situation in schools? hell yes. And it lingers today. It took schools fighting upstream against a lot of criticism to convince parents and others that not every fight, or instance where someone is called stupid rises to bullying. Schools laid out better policies and criteria (nuanced) and fought for them against criticism. I get that some are too hurt personally to be anything but over-zealous. I get that. But for those of us taht can be more measured, we need to be. It's how the best solutions arise. And I'm interested in the best solutions, because sexual assault and harassment need to end. We can be better and we need to be. I'm not an "ends justify the means" guy though. If the ends matter enough - we need to find the means to do it without compromising other values.