[Dr. Sivana]

the fan bases of once great baseball cities will keep shrinking....they know they have zero chance of ever winning.

In the later golden age of baseball, there were plenty of cities with loyal fan bases who showed up even though chances of winning were slim. Boston (AL), Philadelphia (NL), Chicago (both), Detroit. The AL teams got to watch the Yankees run away with it half the time, and that was with only 8 teams in the whole league!

MLB's greed with pay TV for mostly late games kept several whole generations of kids from the exposure necessary to become a fan. The expanded playoffs water-down the regular season product as well.

[basalt]

ever since this huge disparity in team payrolls started, 20-25 years ago, tv ratings for the WS havecratered....hitting rock bottom last year when only 8 million watched game 3 last year. Thats a far cry from the 30-50 million that watched in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Highest rated ever was the 1980 WS...Royals-Phillies, where at least 45 million watched for EACH game. Pittsburgh, Cincinnati etc know they have zero chance every year of winning and fans there just dont care anymore. Thats why the ratings are so bad now. 20-25 years of this has done alot of damage.

[kawhill]

Please tell me your definition of the later golden age of baseball. My Dad’s Tigers one it in ‘84 after starting the season at 35-5, my Royals won it in ‘85, I think George Brett hit about .390 that year.