{"id":9716,"date":"2019-04-08T00:10:04","date_gmt":"2019-04-08T07:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/BigJimIndustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=9716"},"modified":"2019-04-09T00:15:52","modified_gmt":"2019-04-09T07:15:52","slug":"baseball-is-dead-yeah-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2019\/04\/08\/baseball-is-dead-yeah-right\/","title":{"rendered":"Baseball Is Dead. (Yeah, right!)"},"content":{"rendered":"

from The Guardian<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

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Why baseball spent more than $1bn on three players in a month<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Three of the richest contracts in sports history would appear to bust the baseball-is-dying narrative, but underlying trends have exposed a rot within the mechanics of the sport\u2019s economics<\/p>\n

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by Bryan Armen Graham<\/a><\/p>\n

\"MikeMike Trout, the Angels\u2019 newly minted $426.5m man, has finished either first or second in Most Valuable Player voting in every full season he\u2019s played. Photograph: Kelley L Cox\/USA Today Sports<\/em><\/p>\n

he three generational talents on Major League Baseball\u2019s free-agent market this winter were always going to cash in big. But the splashy numbers as they came across the wire were enough to leave even veteran observers slack-jawed.<\/p>\n

It kicked off in February when Manny Machado agreed to a 10-year, $300m contract<\/a> with the San Diego Padres. Bryce Harper followed with a 13-year, $330m deal<\/a> with the Philadelphia Phillies less than two weeks later, the richest contract by total value in North American sports history.<\/p>\n

That record stood for all of three weeks as Mike Trout signed a 10-year, $360m extension<\/a> \u2013 creating a 12-year, $426.5 million total commitment \u2013 that all but ensures he\u2019ll finish his career with the Los Angeles Angels.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s more than $1bn in guaranteed salary for three players, the sort of money that would appear to dramatically counter the persistent narrative of baseball as an outmoded enterprise.<\/p>\n

The perennial hand-wringing over baseball\u2019s waning popularity and relevancy amid the hastening pace of American life, a tradition dating back more than a century, is not entirely without merit. Average attendance at major league ballparks hit a 16-year low in 2018. Little League participation is down. A Gallup poll shows baseball, which ceded the practical if not symbolic mantle of national pastime to the NFL decades ago, is falling behind basketball in popularity among fans in the United States.<\/p>\n

[ click to continue reading at The Guardian<\/a> ]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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from The Guardian Why baseball spent more than $1bn on three players in a month Three of the richest contracts in sports history would appear to bust the baseball-is-dying narrative, but underlying trends have exposed a rot within the mechanics of the sport\u2019s economics by Bryan Armen Graham Mike Trout, the Angels\u2019 newly minted $426.5m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mirth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}