Will baseball survive or go extinct per DS9 history?

[Xerxes1979]

All of our modern sports are relativly new 19th century inventions with maybe the exception of tennis.

Is the extinction of baseball realistic or unlikely? Remember Data tells us that TV died out around 2040, but I really don't see a better form of entertainment until the holodeck is invented.

Will professional sports die out as a simple side effect of the demonetization of the Federation? Perhaps spectator sports will fall to the wayside as people seek more direct involvement.

 

[Jono]

We seen that a few decades before TV dies that Earth has a combined TV/internet deal in Past Tense. Just had a look on MA and they call it the Interface. That makes sense that television on its own would be replaced by the net. The ability not only to enjoy more then just tv, you can surf and stuff but also that you could get what you want and watch it when you want rather then just be limited by what broadcasters think you should watch.

While we didn't hear about anything explicitly but football sounds like it still continued in a form of professionalism. Someone asks Sisko about a footballer and Sisko knows the player and comments on how he has been performing. Plus there was a world cup in the mid-22nd century.

As for baseball, it really is mostly just an American thing. That market dies, the game would die professionally. How likely is that? I have no idea given I don't know anything about the state of the game but maybe the game just becomes unprofitable. They pay their players huge amounts but for whatever reason crowds stop showing and sponsors move on either due to competing sports or something like the US economy tanks in a huge, huge, huge way. Add to it in Star Trek we have a world war also happening around when baseball dies and post war effort to revitalise the sport fail.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Baseball will never die.

 

[Broccoli]

Trip makes a comment about football to one of the emotional Vulcans in "Fusion". Also, in "Fortunate Son", a football is tossed in a low gravity environment. That suggests that that game is still around.

Plus, Archer is a fan of water polo, which is apparently still played, at least on college campuses. That also suggests that colleges still engage in competitive sports.

I can see sports going by the wayside in the face of a major war. WWIII, the few times it has been mentioned, seemed like it was really, really devastating. Perhaps after the rebuilding, some sports were restarted, but, for some reason, ones like baseball, were not.

On a side note, it seems that movies were still produced at least until the 22nd century according to "Home." Interesting that TV would die out, but not cinema. Then again, as someone else suggested, perhaps TV morphed into something else.

 

[Hober Mallow]

As for baseball, it really is mostly just an American thing. That market dies, the game would die professionally.

Don't tell that to the Japanese.

 

[Timo]

Or us crazy Finns, who imported the game a hundred years ago. We just play it with a handicap - vertical pitches, for less transfer of momentum (so the pitcher stands next to the batter and serves as his or her own catcher), and much bigger diamonds.

Then again, Finns are probably extinct in the 24th century, too.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hober Mallow]

I've been thinking baseball could use a little more competition, a little more tackling. I mean when an outfielder goes to catch a fly, why can't a member of the opposing team run over and clobber his ass before he can catch it? How boring to just let the other team catch and do what they want with the ball. Crack some heads. Take out the basemen as you run the bases. We could start XLB, sort of like XFL.

Oh, and cheerleaders. Baseball needs cheerleaders.

 

[Green Shirt]

Baseball will never die.

Yeah, 1994 proved that.

 

[Timo]

Take out the basemen as you run the bases.

Yeah. I mean, you are already holding a frigging baseball bat! Why should you throw it away when you start running?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Too Much Fun]

Take out the basemen as you run the bases.

Yeah. I mean, you are already holding a frigging baseball bat! Why should you throw it away when you start running?

Timo Saloniemi

There was already a joke like this in Family Guy. Watching a baseball game for the first time, Stewie says: "Why does that man drop his club before he runs? I would bring it with me!"

 

[Karnbeln]

Here's what will happen.

The Cleveland Indians, in 2032, will finally make it back to the world series. They win the first three games no sweat, but then drop the ball and lose the next four, once again failing to win.

After coming so tantalizingly close to actually winning the series, Clevelanders just can't take it anymore. It would help if ONE of their teams ever won anything, but that just doesn't happen. Lebron James never even got them a basketball championship. And now the Tribe has let them down once more.

They snap.

In the biggest riot in sports history, enraged Cleveland fans destroy every baseball diamond, every bat, every ball, every glove, and every baseball equipment manufacturer in the world, and send all major and minor league player into hiding.

The game never recovers.

In an unrelated incident, Sisko "accidentally" unloads a quantum torpedo on Cleveland while the Defiant is in orbit of Earth.

 

[Jono]

As for baseball, it really is mostly just an American thing. That market dies, the game would die professionally.

Don't tell that to the Japanese.

Probably should have put the thing where I said I have no idea what I'm talking about before I made that statement...

 

[Skywalker]

I really don't see baseball dying like DS9 says it did/will. While it's been overtaken in the US by football in terms of popularity, it's still a very popular sport here, as well as in East Asia and Latin America. I do think, however, that soccer would become even more prominent in a Trek-like future where the nations of the world eventually unite under one flag. It's already the closest thing the world has to a "national" sport.

 

[Sykonee]

I figure the major leagues will cosmically implode if the Chicago Cubs win the Pennant. Perhaps that's what happened to baseball?

 

[Xerxes1979]

I figure the major leagues will cosmically implode if the Chicago Cubs win the Pennant. Perhaps that's what happened to baseball?

It is the will of the prophets

 

[dave_R_treker]

As for baseball, it really is mostly just an American thing. That market dies, the game would die professionally.

Don't tell that to the Japanese.

Probably should have put the thing where I said I have no idea what I'm talking about before I made that statement...

Baseball may be played mainly professionaly in the USA, but by the looks of it a great deal of the players are definitly not US citiizens, atleast not natitve to the US (may have imagrated or have dual citizenship now).

 

[willg]

The fact that baseball was extinct in the 24th century came up in a season one TNG episode IIRC with the frozen people from the 20th century. As many know, early seasons of TNG loved to show how different humanity was in 2360's compared to the 1980's. Even in the Original Series they never went that far. I almost want to say that they went "too far" with pointing out those differences and baseball did fall beneath the cracks.

 

[TheGodfatherSJP]

Here's what will happen.

The Cleveland Indians, in 2032, will finally make it back to the world series. They win the first three games no sweat, but then drop the ball and lose the next four, once again failing to win.

After coming so tantalizingly close to actually winning the series, Clevelanders just can't take it anymore. It would help if ONE of their teams ever won anything, but that just doesn't happen. Lebron James never even got them a basketball championship. And now the Tribe has let them down once more.

I feel the pain, or rather I used to. Phillies fan. When you guys finally win one, it'll make the championship parade the sweetest day in your life. And it won't matter what team does it. You'll be jumping up and down in joy.

Now to get back on topic, from a monetary standpoint, Baseball is making almost as much money as football. In fact, it's right behind, call it Number 2, but just barely. Now even though there's a recession, if the game continues to grow, and become more profitable, it'll supplant football again. In fact, given the trend over the last 5 years, that was going to happen by the middle of the next decade.

Baseball's not just an American sport anymore. It's huge in the Americas, North, Central, and South. The Japanese and Koreans are also huge fans. Europe doesn't care much, nor does most of Asia, but it's very much an international game at this point. The biggest stage is The Show (Major League Baseball), but if you look at the nationalities of the players, it's an international cast. David Ortiz, Ichiro Suzuki, Alex Rodriguez, all major stars, all from "foreign" countries from an American perspective.

The game's growing, not shrinking. Hardly the aspect of a dying sport. The one major sport in America that fits that bill is Hockey. After the strike and the loss of a season, the game's been badly hurt. There's really not a big fanbase for the game outside of certain regions. Canada (obviously), the Midwest (including Colorado), some cities in the Northeast (Boston, Philadelphia). Otherwise, no one cares. Just look at the crowds drawn by cities on the West Coast and South.

 

[Karnbeln]

It's true, maybe with luck the World Classic may even reach near World Cup status one day (with MUCH luck).

 

[EnsignRicky]

It's a freakin' stick and a ball; It'll probably outlast civilization.