Time for baseball to become more 'exciting'?

A half-century ago, there was little question about America's favorite sport: It was baseball, as it had been for decades.

Fifty years ago, baseball was so popular that it was considered "America's pastime" (surpassing protesting the Vietnam War and listening to AM radio while smoking).

Now baseball is an also-ran. When it comes to sports, it's the NFL's world – we all just live in it.

Baseball is no better than a distant second to the NFL and may be as low as third or fourth in America's consideration.

This is the opening week for baseball and maybe it needs a boost. Maybe it needs something to move it back up the list.

Fortunately, I have suggestions to appease those who say the game is boring, tradition-bound and will soon be surpassed by mixed martial arts, mountain biking and lawn darts.

Ready? For starters, baseball can eliminate down time. Instead of having several seconds between pitches and several minutes between innings, Major League Baseball should require action. Give pitchers two seconds between pitches! Don't allow batters to step out of the box! No pick-off moves! Make it faster! Faster is better!

It may be time to  increase violence, too – make it more like MMA and football. Baseball should allow runners to plow over fielders. Encourage pitchers to throw at batters. Rather than penalizing teams for bench-clearing brawls, encourage them. You want exciting videos? Watch a collection of brawls and collisions from baseball last night!

Baseball could also open up access. Take social media to the next level and require players to Tweet during games. Strap a camera on each player's head and send us to a website to watch the game from Buster Posey's perspective. Open up the clubhouse to live coverage, like a reality show. Vote a player off each week.

Baseball can't let itself die! The sport should become more violent, more exciting, more tangible.

Then . . .

Then . . .

It will be worse.

Here's the thing. Baseball remains what it's always been – a slow, interesting, intriguing sport for fans who have the patience and interest to follow it. It's less popular than it was three or four decades ago, but it's still popular.

Baseball just requires more attention than other sports. Not only during the game (try watching a three-hour Giants-Marlins game in May with a non-baseball fan and see how they react to long at-bats, batters stepping out to slow down the pitcher and all the scratching), but because it's an every day game.

NFL teams play once a week. NBA teams play three games a week. Mixed martial arts and boxing have championship fights every few months.

Baseball teams? Six or seven games a week. Every week. From April through September.

Week after week.

Month after month.

Being a baseball fan requires paying attention for long periods of time. It requires years to get familiar with the traditions and culture of a team.

In 2016, we think everyone wants new, different, unusual. While baseball has plenty of each, its defining quality is consistency.

For the next six months, the Giants, A's and the other 28 major league teams will play. Over and over and over. Stars will struggle, then recover. Young players will surprise. One game will last 15 innings. The next will have a rain delay.

It requires attention.

That's why baseball is so great. It's also why the percentage of people who consider it their favorite sport has declined.

Being a baseball fan takes patience and dedication. Maybe it's the tradition. Maybe it's my age. Maybe it's realizing that faster and shorter and flashier isn't always better.

I'll keep baseball the way it is. Patience and attention are their own reward: You get to follow a great sport.

Now get off my lawn, punks!

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.