Changing of the Guard

Since the modern time of sports, football and baseball have been the limelight of the professional sports world. The NFL and MLB have always been seen as the cream of the crop. Slowly but surely there has been a change of the guard since anabolic steroids have poisoned pro baseball. Also, the emergence of the NBA has hurt the popularity of MLB. Especially with the young talent that blessed the NBA from the rookie class of 2003. Notable players from the class are LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Bosh, just to name a few. Those players also lead the 2008 USA Olympic Basketball Team to a gold medal during the Bejing summer games. Towards the end of the 00's decade, the NBA saw higher ratings during the playoffs than they had earlier on in the decade. The resurgence of the Lakers and Celtics brought back the rivalry that basketball had been missing for some time.

The NBA hasn't been the only thing taking the spotlight from the boys of summer, the juggernaut that is the NFL has been eating up the pro sports world. Every summer baseball was used to having all the coverage, but for the past few summers, the NFL and more specifically Brett Favre has gotten all the coverage. That's right, Lord Favre himself has stolen the thunder from MLB. Will he retire or will he come back has been the question on the minds of every average sports fan whether you love the guy or hate him.

This season has probably been the worst season for MLB in a long time when it comes to media coverage. Since the start of opening day, MLB has been overshadowed by the NBA playoffs and NFL Draft. After the Lakers and Celtics battled in a classic seven game series in the NBA Finals, which saw the Lakers repeating as champs, you would have thought baseball would have taken the fore front in the sports world. Incorrect. The "Summer of 2010" started off with all attention going towards the NBA free agent class. The free agent class featured some of the stars from the NBA rookie class of 2003. LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh were all unrestricted free agents. Other notable unrestricted free agents were Amar'e Stoudemire, Joe Johnson, Carlos Boozer, Dirk Nowitzki and David Lee. The speculation of who was going to be teaming up with who ate up all the coverage on SportsCenter. Especially when it came to LeBron James. Eventually, the free agent period ended with the biggest dagger in the heart of MLB, "The Decision". A one-hour special held on ESPN for LeBron James to announce where he would be playing basketball for the next several years. "The Decision" drew a TV rating of 9.9, the sad thing is that the MLB All-Star game drew a TV rating of 7.5. That means that people were more interested in where LeBron James was going to be "taking his talents", than watching the best players that MLB has to offer. That is very alarming and draws me to the conclusion that the NBA has taken over as the 2nd most popular sports league in America, which leaves MLB at the 3rd spot. After everyone took a week to digest LeBron James' decision to team up with his two buddies Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh down in Miami, you may think that MLB will get back into the spotlight, but that's not the case if you ask me.

According to schedule, now is about the time where the coverage of "Favre Watch" takes over all the sports media outlets. Late July, August and early September is filled with NFL talk and Brett Favre. Training camp and preseason football takes the cake of MLB. More alarming is that once the NFL season gets kicked off, you can pretty much say bye bye to baseball until the World Series, and even that gets overshadowed by mid-season pro football. This year is unique though, not only will mid-season pro football overshadow the Fall Classic, but the preseason hype of the NBA will also do the same. You may say to yourself, "preseason NBA predictions have never overshadowed baseball." That is true, but the NBA hasn't seen three bonafide superstars in the prime of their career on the same team since the 80's Celtics and Lakers. The intrigue that "Miami Thrice" will generate this fall will be unprecedented. Everyone will be watching their every move to see if they are meshing well together. It will be one of the most interesting storied in all of sports this year, whether you like it or not.

At the end of the day, baseball is exactly what everyone says it is, it's America's Past Time. Past meaning yesterday. This generation of sports fans doesn't care about baseball like your father or grandfather's generation did. We like superstars and baseball simply doesn't have that anymore because steroids have been taken out of the game. Heck even the World Cup drew a lot more ratings than baseball did. That's why I believe pro baseball is going down a slippery slope with no hope.