America’s pastime has always been baseball, right? Well, think again.

On Monday night an absolutely terrible NFL game, Tennessee against Jacksonville where back up quarterbacks played the whole second half, beat out a fabulous American League Divisional series playoff game in television ratings 7.2 to 6.5.

Not only that, the baseball game was played against two teams, the New York Yankees and the Texas Rangers, who are both in top five television markets in the United States.

Nobody can argue that the NFL is the most popular sports league in the United States right now, but you could expect the casual sports fan would tune into a playoff baseball game over a regular season NFL game decided by 27.

Does this mean football is becoming

America’s new pastime? I think so.

Does the future hold well for baseball in this country? I don’t think so.

While the NFL is the most popular right now, baseball is probably second with basketball nipping at baseball’s heels. I think baseball is in trouble because of the youth of this country.

When they become grown ups, I do not think they will even care about baseball. In the last ten years, traveling and club baseball teams have sprouted up across the country.

Unlike your usual Little League season, which lasts from April to about June, these leagues can go all year long with little break.

Summers aren’t dominated with pick up games at the end of the street or wiffle ball home run derbies, but with travel, tournaments and hotel bed rooms. These kids have no break from structured baseball for years of their life.

Now while I’m not saying structure is bad for children, but part of the love of these sports comes from messing around with your friends.

Instead, these games aren’t the type of games that make you love the game.

These are the games kids are stressed out over whether they mess up or not. These are the type of situations where kids don’t think about having fun, but wonder if a strikeout will affect college scholarships five years down the road.

These are the games that burn you out and take away the love of the sport. By the time these kids stop playing, do you think they are going to watch a sport they have nothing but resentful, stressful memories of?

The MLB does not help itself out either. Games consistently start at 7 or 8 p.m. so the young audience cannot catch the ending.

While even youth football can be time consuming and much more grueling, after three months it ends. It does not have the same burnout factor as travel baseball, a football player has nine months until they start again. I am not saying the ratings are a sign of the beginning of the end for baseball.

But get used to saying as American as football and apple pie.

Dan Cusack is a senior journalism major. He can be reached at 581-7942 or

[email protected].