Baseball has an opportunity to be the national pastime again by drawing on the immense power of its network of affiliated minor league clubs whose attendances have been on the dramatic upswing in the last fifteen years.  It's a powerful system that no other sport has.

Major league teams need “super” markets to draw enough fans, from hundreds of miles around, to help pay for those immense salaries, sell team merchandise, and sponsorships. Get fans to turn out in super-regions for teams affiliated with the nearby major league club.  Build a loyal following that can follow on television and the internet from the heartland where playing baseball is still strong.

The Houston Astros obviously "get" the trend.  Changing affiliations last winter, departing New Orleans with their Triple-A franchise for Round Rock, Texas, was genius.  With teams in Round Rock and Corpus Christi, Houston builds a super-market: A base of fans that not only turn out for the minor league games, but, through their Texas roots, become entrenched Astros fans as well.

It’s not just about the feeding tube to the major leagues either.  Sure, fans like to see a Felix Hernandez or a Dioner Navarro pass through as they claw their way into the majors. 

The Joe Thurstons and Mike Coolbaughs of the world, great players with talent, dignity, and class, who, but for the math of high-dollar baseball, might find an opening in the diamond ceiling, are box office draws regionally.  Their cups of coffee, or their big breaks into the majors are celebrated by their minor club market, and make fans in the super-region feel connected to their major league club. 

Like the sign on the Clinton campaign’s wall, one should be affixed in the Commissioner’s office: “It’s about the game, stupid.”  Fix the abuses of the profession, bring out the super-market fans, and baseball can be stronger than it ever has been.

The Visionary  

Who can lead Major League Baseball back to its place as the national pastime?  Sadly, we do not see this Commissioner in that role. We at MLN believe that the most qualified person is someone from a family that has a history of healing baseball; someone who has personally been the shepherd of one of the great renaissances of the game.

Branch Rickey Sr. developed the farm system in the 1930s.  He healed the racial rift between the white and black games in 1950s by signing Jackie Robinson to the Dodgers. Now his farm system is poised to stoke the game with fans that can make it thrive. Who better than his grandson, the able and powerful president of the Pacific Coast League, to bring the game into the 21st century?

Branch Rickey III would be the perfect person to steward the game of baseball.  He possesses the pedigree, intellect, integrity, passion for the game, knowledge of its history and the statesmanship.

Of course, he’d probably prefer root canal to what would surely be an arduous and thankless job.

Branch is a profound student not only of the game itself, but of the business behind it.  He reshaped the Pacific Coast League into one of the most profitable organizations in all of sports through the studied adoption and adaptation to new ideas that turned the PCL into one of baseball's biggest growth markets. 

To an old baseball guy, a stadium is a stadium, right? Wrong.  The numbers said that parks that had better facilities for women and kids did bigger box office.  Branch would tell you that, in this regard, his wife might be the baseball genius. She told him what women want to see in a ballpark [See 10 With MLN: Branch Rickey III].  The minor leagues have always done the unusual and often even the bizarre to attract fans, from imitation Blues Brothers bands to ballplaying midgets. Clean bathrooms, white wine, and salads.  Who would've thunk it?  Rickey worked with cities, and with his owners to modernize. Memphis, Sacramento, Oklahoma City, Round Rock and Albuquerque are showcases of baseball done right.

Baseball needs an articulate spokesperson.  There is no more passionate advocate for the game, or more interesting student of its history.  Branch draws upon his generations of baseball knowledge to shape the present with a complete understanding of the past.  Reporters of many years’ standing who have never interviewed the impressive Mr. Rickey come back with comments like “That’s the best interview I’ve ever done.” 

Why? Branch has a way of speaking with people that would make him a great commissioner. Even with his vast knowledge, he never comes off to the listener as preachy or a know-it-all.  He radiates an invisible magic, an infectious enthusiasm for the game that casts its spell upon listeners from the fan to other league presidents.  He has the tact and diplomacy to make even the most vicious of the sports-talking heads sit back and listen to what he’s saying.

Even though Branch Rickey has been involved in the game at every level as a professional, he still has a child's love for it.  He once told me that if you bring him someone who says that they don’t like baseball, he'll take them to a game, and have them converted before the seventh inning stretch. 

While that’s a bit tricky to do one fan at a time, cast in the role of the Commissioner of Baseball, he could bring hundreds of thousands of people back to the game.

A low-key,  outstanding communicator, he might be the first guy in decades that both the PA and the owners could trust and work with to make Baseball better. 

The only problem is that baseball's visionaries are either happy accidents or spawned from moments of utter desperation. As long as the cash cow can be milked, Branch Rickey can probably rest easy that the phone call from the owners will likely never come.

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