Majors find getting fans back difficult

Play ball! Here we go again, the same thing only different. For baseball, the attempt to regain its hold as America’s game remains the objective. Major League Baseball is finding the task a difficult one. Let’s start with the end of spring training.

The majors made a huge mistake when it began the building of new spring sites that ended up being, “Honey, I shrunk the park” re-creations of the major league yards wtih major league prices. That is not what spring training is about. No longer can the fans walk with the players between training fields and get close as they work out.

Instead, the new spring sites separate the players and the fans, and autographs are nearly impossible to get. The fans are left behind mounds of concrete. Dodgertown in Vero Beach is about the only old-type site and still draws big crowds. The other sites, with some exceptions, have lost the spring crowds and part of the reason is the setting.

MLB has returned to promoting the former great players, trying to stir the emotions of fans and connect the current game with the year of Ruth, Gehrig, Williams, and especially Jackie Robinson, in this the 50th anniversary of breaking the color barrier at the major league level. Why they ever shied from the great name and the wonderful history will remain a mystery, but re-creating “that old feeling” for the fans is not an easy task.

One reason that connection is difficult is the continuing movement of players from team to team. Fans need to connect with players from year to year in order to identify with their team. Money has made that almost impossible.

Dodger GM Fred Clair last week was angry and bitter about the situation when he talked about the trade of David Justice and Marquis Grissom from the Braves to the Indians. “That deal is all a questions of finances for the Braves,” he said. “They have to sign Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux. They can’t afford all their star players, and that was the reason for the deal. It is the reality of the game today and fans have to understand that.”

Claire and other GMs and owners often take the brunt of the boos for such deals when popular players are traded away. Claire’s point is the clubs have no choice. While no one need shed a tear for owners and the millions they make, largely from the value of their franchises, Claire is right aboulargely from the value of their franchises, Claire is right about the necessity to make such deals.

That means there is less chance of popular players staying with a team for a career. That makes the job of selling the ol’ home team to the fans more difficult. MLB is trying to figure out how to deal with that.

They will try this year by connecting the past with the present, the history of the game with today. MLB will try to sell the game, no matter who is playing it where. They want us to just love the game. That conflicts with television’s desire to sell heroes, real or TV-created. Will we love the game for itself, or are we stuck on jewelry-laden, tattooed athletes who are out to sell themselves?

Play ball, and let’s find out.