What do you think of when the word “baseball” is said? Maybe it’s summer, grass, warm, dirt, youth, yelling, and beer. On the other hand, others will say PEDs, cheating, steroids, tainted home runs. Others may focus on the game aspects and say fastball, 100 mph pitch, 450-foot homers, bat flips, chin music and so on. Still others may name players or teams. Among all these words and thoughts there is one that casual fans, and even non-fans, think of when baseball is brought up. Boring. “Baseball is a slow boring game.”

What is worse is that youth of today are starting to think that and are shifting their attention away from the sport and playing others like basketball or football or soccer. How can the MLB change this phenomena you may ask? There are many ways, some kind of crazy and others somewhat obvious.

Youth Baseball

The most obvious change is at the level of playing where youth start playing, tee-ball or coach pitch. This is sometimes the most fun times of a young person’s summer, getting to stand out on the field to learn a fun game and hang out and meet friends. But what some may not realize is that the coaches are just parents, and with parents come favoritism as well as encouragement. But that is not a bad thing for the parents to do to the kids, the problem is that the kids think that the parents expect a lot from them. Parents need to back off and relax and let their kids have fun, that is what playing that young is all about, having fun.

Length of Game

Another reason that youth do not like the game is the length of MLB games. MLB has made efforts to speed up the game, but they have not made significant strides. They have many options here to speed the game up. Three possibilities are adding the designated hitter to the National League, having a courtesy runner for the catcher, and having the pitcher warm up in the bullpen between innings.

Having the designated hitter in the National League would cut down on the number of pitching changes due to having to hit for the pitcher. The DH rule also will bring more offense to a game severely needing it.

Having a courtesy runners for catchers that does not count as a substitution will cut out time that the catchers use to get their gear on and get out on the field.

The last rule would eliminate the need for warmup pitches for pitchers coming from the bullpen. This is the most plausible because those pitchers do not need more time to warm up after warming up for however long they were up.

All Star Break

Now on to some crazy changes they can do to make it interesting to youth. First a question, what is the best part about NBA (yes NBA) All Star weekend outside of the dunk contest? Three point, skills challenge, how about the rookie challenge? Well the MLB has answers for some of it. The Home Run Derby is comparable to Dunk Contest, the Futures Game is like the Rookie game. MLB, however, do not have a answer for the skills challenge or three point contest.

Let’s fix that. They could have a skills challenge just like the NBA during the All Star weekend. First, do a relay featuring a 60 yard dash, pitch placement, throw distance from the plate, and hit distance off of a side toss. This would be a exciting event to watch. Just think about a team of Billy Hamilton doing the running, Jake Arrieta doing the pitch placement, Yoenis Cespedes doing the throwing and Giancarlo Stanton doing the hitting. That is some entertaining stuff right there.

To make it more interesting, they could make the teams based on division and pit them division against division. This would be the most interesting part of the All Star break. These could also turn into individual events and do a running relay around the bases which would also be interesting. Anything that could be added, especially one of these events, to the All Star break to make it more substantial than just two games and a Home Run Derby.

Home Run Derbies

This is the craziest idea of all of them, but it has a great chance to make youth love the game again. There is also the possibility of more hate from fans. Let’s stop beating around the bush and get into it: add more Home Run Derbies each season. Now I know what you are thinking, “Why add more of these to the season? Where would they add these in? SERIOUSLY, WHY WOULD THEY DO THIS?” Now let me tell you why. The Home Run Derby is the most watched and most exciting part of the season as well as the All-Star break. That is what makes it unique and why people would not like this idea, it would take away from the uniqueness and excitement of the regular Derby.

With more Derbies, however, we the fans will see more home runs, as well as more excitement and more players. Usually with the Derby we get some of the best mashers in the league, but every year there are some snubs from this event. These other Derbies could showcase some of the “B-Class Power Guys” in the MLB and set the table for the full event at the All-Star Break. Now the question is how will these work? These would have to include another thought of shortening the schedule to 140 games and creating more breaks for the players. But at the quarter mark for every team give every team a three game break and do the Derbies then. The location could be interesting aspect as well. It could be held at the host for the All-Star that year or at a neutral site, but they can figure that part out.

Up To MLB

Whether the MLB chooses to use these ideas or comes up with some of their own, something needs to be done to bring youth back. Yes, most of the best players now are 25 years or younger, there are thousands of players the same age that never panned out and that number will continue to grow. If the MLB doesn’t stop losing their possible talent to other sports, we may see the game disappear entirely.