Fall Classic dealt a slow, painful death

Who shot the World Series?

When did baseball's grand event become irrelevant to 80 percent of the viewing public? Ordinary citizens used to stop working to watch the World Series. Now the players have the work stoppages, and the rest of us work right through the Series.

The greatest offensive explosion in the World Series' 99-year history produced an 11.9 rating and a 20 share, the worst Series numbers ever. The Series just ended so the coroner's report is not yet official, but here are the three prevailing theories on what happened to the former national pastime.

Death by pitch counts.

This is my personal pick. There was a time when pitchers went out and pitched every fourth day. That was their job. For the 1978 Orioles, Mike Flanagan made 40 starts. Jim Palmer and Dennis Martinez each made 38.

That doesn't happen anymore. Everyone's on a five-day schedule, everyone is on a pitch count. That's why teams carry 12 pitchers on 25-man rosters.

That's one reason that games take forever.

As a result of so much attention being paid to pitch counts on the pitching end, hitters have fallen in love with "deep counts." It's as if someone determined that the Yankees won four World Series in a five-year span because their hitters exercised patience at the plate.

That was no better than reason No. 4, somewhere far behind Mariano Rivera, El Duque, Roger Clemens, etc.

A bigger strike zone would take care of these overly patient hitters, but heaven help us if they all manage to emulate Barry Bonds' eye for the strike zone.

Meanwhile, we get these at-bats that go on and on, and they aren't helped by pitchers who walk around the mound and hitters who must make excessive equipment adjustments between each pitch.

This was one sequence from Game 7 on Sunday night.

Tim Salmon takes Ball 1 from Livan Hernandez. After 33 seconds, Salmon takes Ball 2. After 28 seconds, Salmon fouls off a pitch. Excited about having registered a strike, Hernandez ponders how it happened and then delivers another strike 49 seconds later.

Beside himself now that he has Salmon in a 2-2 hole, Hernandez engages in further reflection before hitting Salmon on the wrist 39 seconds later.

It's not just two-minute commercial breaks that are dragging out these games.

They didn't have as many ads in 1977, but somehow Reggie Jackson slugged three home runs in an 8-4 Game 6 win over the Dodgers that took all of 2:18.

The average game time for the 2002 Series was 3:37. If Jackson played today, he'd be Mr. October/November.

If anything, we learned that offense won't hold viewers by itself. There has never been a better offensive performance than Barry Bonds reaching base 21 out of 30 times.

The fact that the ratings were actually stronger in the late innings than the early ones indicates only that fans have learned they don't need to watch all 31/2 hours of a World Series game to get their fill.

Death by wild cards.

President Bush was right eight years ago. The wild cards remain a bad idea.

The extra interest they generate in a few cities diminishes the value of the regular season and extends the baseball postseason

far too long. Baseball season has been over around here and in Chicago and in Philadelphia and in other major markets far too long.

The major leagues will never turn back because they want that money from those four first-round series. Four weeks of playoff baseball may be great for the game's enthusiasts, but it's far too long on top of a 162-game season for the casual fan.

Death by millionaires.

The fact that players get paid a lot of money isn't exactly news anymore. But can there be any doubt the scrap between the owners and players that lasted nearly all season drove more fans away? They didn't come back, even for a mostly great World Series that featured four one-run games.

As it turns out, this World Series actually needed more millionaires. Namely, it needed the Yankees. Fans love them or hate them, but we know now that the declining Series ratings the last few autumns have not been the fault of the Yankees.

They were actually the team that kept them afloat. A World Series needs a heavy. Two underdog teams hammering each other for 85 runs was great entertainment to those already sold on the game.

The vast majority, we now know, wasn't buying.

Tim Cowlishaw is a sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News.