LAMM AT LARGE: Baseball no longer National Pastime

When’s the last time you heard anyone refer to baseball as America’s National Pastime?

That label was given to baseball more than a century ago, but it began to fade in the 80s when the boom in football — and auto racing — started. The speed and violence in those sports were more appealing, especially to young fans.

But baseball kept its head in the sand. The leadership did nothing to speed up the game until the last 10 years — but to no avail. Games routinely last more than 3 hours, 4 hours in most post-season games.

And those post-season games are now all played at night. Every World Series game this year ended after midnight in the Eastern Time zone, eliminating most younger viewers and a lot of older viewers as well.

Baseball needs fixing or its fan base will continue to shrink.