I dunno I'm not willing to side with a commissioner that has screwed this city on multiple occasions. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. If MLB was so unwilling to turn their backs on that amount of money, then why did they drag out the approval process? But certainly when the 70 million came into play, Crane took it and the franchise. The Astros would probably be moving to the West Coast regardless. At least this way, they'll have a few more games in our time zone.
Yep. I suppose none of us REALLY know exactly how this played out, but it is very obvious that the commish was behind this move, not Crane. And if anyone says they would have turned down 70 million, well......
as a member of this "small subset", I will say that I'm not going anywhere. thanks for chiding us to "get over it"; in the grand scheme of things most of us certainly understand it's not a life-changing deal and there are far more important things. but that said: no matter how small this "small subset" is, we love BASEBALL, not softball; and we love to hate the Dodgers, Giants, Cubs, Mets, Cardinals, and Br*ves. you can crow all you want about "true rivalries" and how more rivalries will be built over the years. but let me tell you, I've already for the last decade or so been sick about how little we've been able to see the Dodgers, Br*ves, and Giants, and Mets--and now I'm just disgusted. so, Selig can kiss our collective asses, that sellout pile of ****. and if you want me to "get over it", you can also kiss my ass while I'm climbing over. see you at the game.
Yeah. I'm sure that's the reason. Young americans prefer the NBA and the NFL to MLB because they think those athletes are "clean." lol
indeed. MLB needs more tats, more drug arrests, and more violent crimes to attract the younger demographic. That, and a couple guys need to "make it rain".
EDIT: NM, didn't realize NFL was mentioned as well. Is there a widespread belief that NBA players are juicing?
I didn't tell you to get over it. I said Crane knows most people will eventually get over it, and they'll still be a fan of the team. 5 years from now, if the Astros have made the playoffs and lost to the Tigers or Rays or someone else, most fans will hate that team and will now consider their big rival. At the end of the day, Crane knows that the move to the AL is a temporary issue for most fans and that it won't affect his franchse in the long-term.
I think every pro athlete has a gigantic incentive to juice. And we know from Lance Armstrong, you can be a juicer and not be a pumped up freak (McGwire/Sosa). I can't imagine how use of PED's isn't prevalent in most major sports. I don't think we even wanna know how much of that goes on in the NFL. Does anyone else find these miraculous Adrian Petersen and Ray Lewis recoveries to be a bit coincidental?
The truth is we don't care. Baseball with its older fans and historic records seem to care, but only after the fact. Very few cared in the 90s. Baseball suffers from being a slow moving game, and it fails to market stars as well as NFL/NBA. They also struggle to stay relevant in urban areas.
I don't know about that, baseball with all of it's new stadiums in downtown areas has done a great job imo of keeping the game relevant in urban areas. As far as their marketing it's terrible, they have Yankee's vs Red Sox and a few years back attempted to make Mets vs Phillies yanks/Sox light but other than a few good regional rivalries there is nothing national people care about outside of records.
There is a reason why baseball stars are rarely from major cities, and there is a reason why there are fewer black americans playing. This isn't just on MLB, but on baseball as a whole.
baseball has tried; the RBI Foundation is a good example of that. thing is, the skills required in baseball take longer to acquire, the equipment costs more, it's hard as hell to play on cement, the game lasts longer, and you need a bigger area. add in the incredibly diminished attention span of the modern over-media-saturated, medicated American child, and you have the slow decline of a great game. the *greatest* game. I'd hazard a guess that baseball thrives much more in areas where parents are more involved than in the inner city, where economic realities and other issues make that very difficult.
No question the sport lends itself better to non-urban areas, where open space is valuable, and the south where the weather is much warmer. Players from the Northeast (a large segment of our population) generally need to be naturals, as there isn't as much development involved. The thing is, football has similar problems, but due to overwhelming popularity, it doesn't suffer from those drawbacks as much. If nothing else, baseball was/is the ultimate Father-son sport.
the funny thing is, baseball still thrives in the Northeast. and yes, it is the ultimate father/son sport.
I don't think that's it. There are quite a few international players who claim they learned to play baseball using nothing more than a stick and a rock. IMO, Michael Jordan is to blame. He was such a global force, I think people tend to overlook that there really hadn't been an African-American athlete (post civil rights) rise to his stature before. (Ali - but he was part of the civil right movement and that meant he had as many detractors as fans.) Jordan was ubiquitous and universally liked; bullet-proof. I can't imagine a 5-, 6-, 7-year old African-American in the late 80s/early 90s having a greater, more meaningful connection to sports than through Jordan. It also probably didn't help that potential torch-bearers in baseball were either fundamentally flawed (Gooden, Strawberry) or unlikable (Bonds). But I think a lot of young African-American kids simply fell in line behind Jordan and it pulled athletes to basketball.
Bo Jackson is the closest thing I can think of for baseball in terms of public image. The most famous baseball player in the world is half black, and nobody notices.
...and they had plenty of time on their hands, and space, with which to gain those skills. the whole "stick and a rock" thing doesn't work as well in the American inner city as it did 60 years ago. especially when hoops and balls are so abundant.
And you know what? You are spot on here because this is exactly the calculus Crane, Selig & the rest used when they forced this down our collective throats. They are banking on the fact that most fans are merely stupid sheep who will support a team no matter how much they are disrespected or mistreated. Hence, they casually wrote those of us off who have been there with the Astros through thick and thin because we simply don't matter anymore. As much as it pains me to admit it - they are right. I remember when the Rangers couldn't draw flies but now they are the hottest ticket in town thanks to two WS appearances and all of those folks who were there when things weren't so great have been shoved aside and forgotten.
You're making the mistake of assuming that if people don't share your feelings, they must be stupid sheep. Maybe some people simply don't care about the NL vs AL as much as you do.
A lot of fans do. I'd guess the majority of hardcore fans do. The thing is most casual fans don't, which will make up the majority when actually good, and hardcore fans eventually suffer it (see msn and myself) because the team has been a big part of our lives and rooting for some other team would be worse.
