Yeah, this. If I remember right the hapless Indians was actually in first. SI had a cover that said "Don't do it".

Haven't watched a game since except for the Royals world series.

I understand it's a business but I'm a customer and I don't have to watch. Before anyone says "don't bitch, show them with your wallet"....that's what I did. I'd like to try again but can't seem to give a fuck anymore.

I have Patty in my life. Fuck baseball
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This is it. It was a different time. I remember how pissed my dad was about it. Nowadays ppl would blame the owners.
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Owners brought that on themselves. Ass-raping tax payers while their franchise evals skyrocket into the billions.

It's almost automatic for me anymore. I'm on the players side to get as much as they can. Fuck the owners.
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1997
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Late 90s for me.

The internet helped me follow my team, the Kansas City Chiefs and get the NFL news. I remember getting with a group of Chiefs fans on AOL, so new and different at the time.

At roughly the same time MLB hooked up with cable making it harder to get Royals games out of market IIRC.
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Early 90’s
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Once MLB got all the mega TV contracts for just a few teams and only a few teams win every year for the last 30+ years.

There is no hope in MLB for 90% of the teams.
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This is a big part of it. I have friends that are big baseball fans and they are constantly complaining about how they can't watch any of the games when they live in market because of dumb tv contracts and blackout rules.

Also the way baseball is structured there is no incentive to be competitive. Everyone always talks about how there is no cap, but there being no salary minimum is just as bad. So many teams spend the bare minimum and still make a profit.
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The MLB owners are monumentally stupid. The exclusive cable deals where 50% or more the fans couldn't watch games any more, the steroids that they allowed to prop up attendance and then pretended to be against later and the payrolls that are so far apart that half the league barely competes.

They've done everything they can over the past 30+ years to suffocate the fan support.
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That was it for me. I was an avid Royals fan, now I haven't seen a game of theirs in over 3 years and don't care.
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Nothing better than the radio and a patio on a summer evening. I grew up on Buddy Blattner/Denny Matthews and then Fred White and Denny Matthews on radio. Al Wisk and Denny Trease on TV when it was long before these MLB cable **** ups.

Then they hired Bob Davis and he was just kinda okay but also kinda terrible.

Still the #1 game in my heart. I lived and breathed it as a kid. Watched all those episodes of This Week In Baseball with the show's theme music on my phone during the season.
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I wouldn't say there's no hope, but very little. But the sad reality is that even if a small market team catches lightning in a bottle and wins, like the 2014-2015 Royals, they'll immediately get gutted by the big money teams.
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Baseball is a sport made for radio. That generation is gone
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Wellll my son is a 6th generation fan of the Cardinals. So for at least one more generation, our family has baseball fans.
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Don’t overlook the role fantasy football has played in the popularity of the NFL. It’s been around for way longer, but it really started gaining traction in the mid-90s.
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