The most predictable nonpolitical responses on Twitter might occur whenever a baseball wart is noted. If you mention the rising rate of strikeouts or the laborious pace of a World Series game or a big contract signing, a chorus of followers will immediately chime in with: That's why baseball is dying.
Or, That's why baseball is dead.
Or, Nobody watches baseball.
Or, Quidditch has surpassed baseball as the national pastime.
OK, nobody wrote that last one, but you get the point. And you hear news like that announced at this week's owners' meetings, that the Major League Baseball and Fox have agreed to a seven-year, $5.1 billion extension of the current deal -- an agreement with an increase in fees of 36 percent.
I worked to avoid the econ classes in college and never had any interest in going into business. But I'll offer some really deep financial insight in assessing the general health of the sport: If baseball was dying, the folks at Fox would not agree to pay even more money to air it.
If baseball was dying, then players wouldn't glean the record-setting salaries. If baseball was dying, then the franchise values wouldn't climb substantially, which they have. This is not a charity, but a massive business that apparently is thriving to the degree that commissioner Rob Manfred just got a five-year extension from his bosses.
Sure, the World Series ratings were down; regular-season attendance was down. But just about 70 million people went to games last summer, and if you spent any time walking around the ballpark in St. Louis, or Milwaukee, or Boston, or Houston, or Anaheim, or San Francisco, or on the North Side of Chicago, you wade through an ocean of humanity. Nobody cares, except everybody who's there, and there are a lot of people in those places.
Baseball's local television ratings are very good. The revenues continue to grow, apparently. Sometime in the next decade, MLB will have no problem attracting bids for two expansion franchises, perhaps placing one in Montreal, or Portland, or Nashville, or Charlotte. Yes, it's true the ballpark situation for the Tampa Bay Rays has been awful, and the Oakland Athletics have lived through generations of conjecture about whether they'll build a ballpark in San Jose, or Fremont, or in some other city. Those two situations need to be resolved before MLB earnestly considers a 31st and 32nd team -- but it's bound to happen.
During the postseason, Manfred opined that the sport is a victim of cannibalization -- that folks within the industry constantly find fault with the game, and pick it apart. And maybe this feeds the perception that baseball is in trouble.
I'll speak for myself on that: Guilty as charged. I wrote about the growing concern over catcher collisions long before Buster Posey's injury. I wrote about the rate of maple bats splintering, and the netting around home plate. I complained about Willson Contreras's many mound visits during the 2016 postseason, and more recently, I have whined around the lengthening parade of relievers, and the need for the restoration of the preeminence of pitchers. I understand the logic behind the idea of the pitching opener, applaud Erik Neander and Chaim Bloom and Kevin Cash for the ingenuity and execution -- but I still hate it and hope that it goes away through rule changes.
Manfred's point may have been somewhat confessional: He has led the beating of the drums on concern over pace of action, and at the All-Star break, he probably picked the wrong guy to mention when he suggested Mike Trout could do more to market himself.
The current relationship between MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association is a major concern, perhaps the most significant threat to the health of the game. Somehow and some way, the dialogue to address necessary changes needs to move forward.
But despite complaints or suggested improvements, it's important to remember that the sport is doing just fine. If you don't believe that, check with Bryce Harper or Manny Machado in a few weeks after they agree to record-setting deals. Check the metrics for the At Bat app, which indicate that it's the most-used in sports, based on monthly use -- and August of 2018 was its best month to date. Check with the companies that have chosen to partner with MLB, including Amazon, Google and Apple. Check with the folks at Fox, who were well aware of the dip in the TV ratings and just signed up for more. Watch the many incredible young players that the sport now features, from Francisco Lindor to Ronald Acuna Jr. to Shohei Ohtani to Alex Bregman.
And don't believe those baseball-is-dying Twitter responses that are so reflexive and so ridiculous that they may as well come from bots.