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MLB’S FIRST HALF OF 2023 PROVIDES A GLIMPSE INTO A BRIGHT FUTURE
BY ROBERT D. MANFRED JR.I have watched baseball all my life. For more than 30 years, it has been a privilege to be a part of this great game professionally. I cannot recall a better first half than what we have enjoyed so far in 2023. The memories of these first few months are a huge credit to the talents and dedication of our players. And the success of the beginning of 2023 is a glimpse into what we can accomplish when we listen to our fans, take hold of the future together, and broaden the game’s reach—in our homes, through our devices, and across our global communities.
This run of success started with a thrilling World Baseball Classic, which ended with an epic battle between Angels teammates and two of the game’s greats—Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout. The passion of the players and the crowds produced a truly memorable tournament. The Classic showcased that baseball is a global game and MLB is proud to embrace the sport’s culture in different parts of the world. An important piece of the game’s growth will stem from continuing the tournament in 2026 along with consistently showcasing MLB games in locations around the world.
The excitement continued on Opening Day, which marked the formal introduction of our rule changes. The effects were immediately clear: a quicker pace, runners being more aggressive on the base paths, and infielders showing off their range. Since Day 1, the new rules have worked as intended, delivering more of what fans wanted. A welcome benefit is that parents have told me that they can take their kids to games during the school year and that they can now stay until the last pitch of the game has been thrown. When families are enjoying the ninth inning together, that’s a great outcome for our sport.
The rules changes returned the game to its most dynamic and best form. We are back to watching the most skilled athletes in the world utilize the full breadth of their athletic abilities. We have been thrilled by Ohtani’s unprecedented two-way performances and Ronald Acuña Jr.’s athleticism and all-around play. None of the success would be possible without our great players, who adjusted quickly and provided valuable feedback that helped us fine-tune the rules. I do not believe unilateral implementation of this approach would have been as effective as the joint process that led to these changes. I hope that this will serve as a model for how we can collectively grow our sport.
The 2023 version of our game has generated broad support from both loyal and casual fans alike. The numbers at the turnstiles back it up. On Father’s Day, more than 603,000 fans attended games, marking our best Sunday since 2008. Less than a week later, we had our best Saturday attendance since 2015. London Stadium was sold out for two games, with the UK’s sports fans embracing a look at our American pastime. In all, our attendance is running 8% ahead of the same point last season, and we are seeing similar turnout in Minor League Baseball. I’m thankful that the new rules, coupled with this season’s debut of a more balanced and national schedule, have been embraced by our fans. They are the ones who drove this process, and it is their enthusiasm that means the most.
While we improve the game on the field, we will also continue to innovate away from it. Tomorrow night’s All-Star Game presented by Mastercard on FOX will include the use of drone cameras for the first time in the event’s history, capturing new perspectives for our fans. We will continue to have in-game interviews with players while they are in the field, access that is unique to baseball and brings fans closer to the game and its stars. Continually showing the sport and our players in new ways, coupled with the game’s crispness brought about by the rule changes, has helped drive viewership growth for our national broadcast partners, record streaming numbers, and increases across our social media platforms.
All the momentum of this season will create significant opportunities to expand the game’s impact in our communities going forward. As an everyday game, we are fortunate to have a prominent place in the lives of our fans. Our new MLB Together platform drives support for meaningful community improvement initiatives and awareness for the important causes supported by our game. As one powerful example, last month’s Lou Gehrig Day festivities brought the ALS community together and highlighted the need for additional funding to combat this terrible disease. I’m grateful that our work has been recognized by those outside of sports, such as TIME’s 100 Most Influential Companies list.
The game on display each day has never felt better or more vibrant to me because of the steps we have taken to listen to our fans and to highlight our outstanding players. In addition, we will continue to take innovative approaches to game presentation and bolster our effort to expand baseball’s reach both domestically and internationally. Energized by the excitement across the Major League Baseball fan base, I have never been more optimistic about the vision of our game’s future as we enjoy this year’s All-Star celebrations.
In a Sportico column today, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said that he "cannot recall a better first half than what we have enjoyed so far in 2023."
On rule changes:
"We are back to watching the most skilled athletes in the world utilize the full breadth of their athletic… pic.twitter.com/Inw4DR4YIE
— Sportico (@Sportico) July 10, 2023
I do like the pitch clock as it makes the game more fluid. Not sure the bigger bases have changed anything.
We like to complain about how the game has changed, but from what I see the players today are as good as they have ever been. I have been to two in-person games, and the ballpark experience out here (Denver) is really good. Despite the poor home team, the fan experience is good and the Rockies draw pretty good. It would be nice if beers and hot dogs were more like $5 rather than $12-$15 or so. But I tell you, the lines at the concessions can get pretty long – people are paying the price.
Huzzah for the National game!!
“Coupled with the game’s crispness brought about by the rule changes”…Yeah, these rule changes have made the game more like celery…
The pitch clock has made the game a much better pace. But chances are I’ll continue to watch from my home. The cost of attending a game has far outweighed the added joy. I went to a AAA game and seats were $18 in the 4th row 1st base side and concessions were still outrageous. Oh well, can say I went right? But definitely isn’t something I’ll regularly do. Same as I’ve not been to Busch in 3 years now because I’m not paying it. I did see the strike/ball challenge at the AAA game and have to say I did like it and it was EXTREMELY fast. No waiting around at all.
The pitch clock is stupid. So what if we cut 23 minutes and 41 seconds off a game.
The pitch com is stupid. There’s always problems with it.
Way too much celebrating and showing up the opponent. One of these days……
And those stupid capes and helmets people wear after homeruns. Extremely unprofessional and stupid. Should not be allowed.
There is so much going on in today’s game that literally makes a mockery of the game. Baseball, at times, is hard to watch. And that includes St. Louis.
r/Esteemed Rat
I like the pitch clock.
The size of bases has no discernable impact.
The 10th inning second base runner sucks beyond all sucking and the person who dreamed it up should be locked in a room and bombarded with non-stop Brad Thompson blather for life.
Good point CIF – I am not a big fan of the ghost runner rule. I understand the need to not extend games too long and stress pitching staffs. I would implement a hybrid rule where if a game is still tied after 12, then bring on the runner.
As for the goofy stuff, baseball teams are a young man’s fraternity. Fraternities usually have silly rituals that are aimed at enhancing comraderie. Being a 20-something once and in a college fraternity for awhile I can relate, although today I think back and some of that stuff was pretty dumb.
And the Cardinals have had a tradition of silliness. Dizzy Dean and some of his Gas House mates built a fire in front of the dugout on a scorching hot day, and huddled over it with blankets as if it were sub-zero weather.
I have a picture of the ‘40s Mudcat band some of the guys on those teams put together.
Or how about Bob Uecker catching fungoes in a tuba, before a World Series game no less. GM Bob Howsam hated that, and traded Uek a year later. 😀
Yeah, I’m not crazy about the capes, helmets or cheeseburgers either, but I really liked Chief Noc a Homa. I wish they’d bring him back.
Chief Noc-a-Homa was great! I also liked Chief Wahoo in Cleveland. Does Bernie the Brewer still do that slide when a Milwaukee batsman homers?
Back in the day, Gussie made it so that the Cardinal bird “flew” around after a Cardinal home run.
Another St. Louis classic was Bill Veeck’s midget being sent up to pinch hit. To this day that guy has the greatest on-base percentage in baseball history! 🙂
Yeah, for a while that Redbird flew around in a figure eight up on the board and hollered, “tweet, tweet, tweet,” if either team tatered up. I didn’t like to see him when the opposition hit a HR.
I didn’t realize the Cardinal flew around on a visitor’s homer as well, 1TD. That is odd. I can imagine what Bob Gibson thought when Willie McCovey blasted a monster shot, and then that bird flew around. Whatever it was, we cannot print it here! 🙂
Eventually common sense intervened and that Redbird took flight and chirped only when a HR was hit by the home team, but for several years he took off no matter who tatered up. And yeah, good point about what Gibby must have thought about that nonsense. Heck, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had something to do with getting that Redbird to sit still and be quiet when the enemy hit a HR…Haha! At any rate, everyone, including myself, thought it was fun to see that neon Redbird fly the figure eight around that board and then take a bow and tip his Cardinal hat when the baseball was hit for a HR. They didn’t have the fireworks back then, but it still seemed like the fans would make a lot of noise.
Cool history, 1TD. Comiskey was the first park to do the big display with the fireworks and all. Bill Veeck was a showman as we all know. He always felt the game took itself too seriously and tried to add fun and novel ideas.
When the Browns had Satchel Paige at the end of his career, Veeck had a rocking chair in the bullpen for “Old Satch” to sit in until he was summoned to the mound.
Veeck was a genuine treasure, Bikemike Lots of great quotes attributed to him, but my favorite has to be, “I have discovered in 20 years of moving around the ballpark, that knowledge of the game is usually in inverse proportion to the price of the seats.” I’d have to acknowledge that the primary reason it’s one of my all time favorites is because I was always so broke that my ticket was almost always a general admission…Haha! I remember the sort of older guy who was at the ballpark by himself and always seemed to sit near to us. He was the guy who had brought along two newspapers, a scorecard and pencil, binocs, a transistor radio and a pint of bourbon…He’d chain smoke cigarettes or Phillie Perfectos, take a sip or two of his pint between innings and tell you what was going to happen three innings prior to it becoming a reality…This guy could have managed the Redbirds to a winning season this year…Haha!
I remember much the same 1TD. My cousin and I would use our lawn mowing money to take the bus down Gravois to the game. We always got the General Admission ticket, where you could sit anywhere in the top 8 or 10 rows all the way around the bowl. We always saw this old guy by himself in the same seat with a scorcard, binoculars and a bottle of Apple Jack. He had the pocket transister radio with the ear phone. We would always stop for a bit of small talk.
The advantage of the general admission seats is it was easy to work your way down as the game went along. We usually ended up in the field boxes along one of the base lines. The bleachers were .50 cheaper, but there was a seperate entrance and concessions concourse and you could not get to the rest of the stadium without scaling a gate when nobody was looking, hopefully. There were times, though, when we just didn’t have the extra .50.
Yeah, those field boxes were like going to heaven once you surreptitiously crossed the border and quickly scooted past that guy who was checking tickets leading to the tunnel while he was busy checking someone else. When you can hear the chatter on the field and from the dugout you knew you had genuinely arrived in baseball heaven. It wasn’t too difficult to get down there and not have to move during the 70’s, but once Whitey and the rest of the fellas arrived those seats were usually all filled up for the duration of the game. We didn’t care. Once the 80’s arrived and the Cardinals were again the premier NL team, we still yelled insults at Carter, Ho-Jo and Dyktra as if they could hear us from our seats located right under the decorative precast concrete arches atop Busch Memorial as over 50,000 Redbird fans along with Ernie Hayes on the organ were rocking the entire house…Haha!
By the 80s I was married, working, had a half share of season tickets in the loge level right above the field boxes and was living riteous, more or less.
The top row right in front of one of those arches was a good place to be on an especially sweltering day. Shade and a breeze. Feet up on the back of an empty seat in front of you. That was living large in those days.
I recall going to some games as a teenager in 1972 – a buddy’s dad got the hotel and bus tickets from Denver for us, and sent us off for a week of Cardinal games.
Getting in early for BP was special, and then once Ernie Hayes started playing the organ for the pre-game, it was pure magic. He would always include the song “Summer Samba” (think that was the name of it), and it just seemed like for a few minutes life was perfect. The only drawback was the Cardinals were bad in 1972. I saw Steve Carlton shut us out in fact.
Oh yeah, a game wasn’t a game without BP. We always showed up early and were allowed entry to the stadium at least a couple of hours prior to 1st pitch. We had no interest whatsoever in anything being over in a hurry. Being there early for BP was almost as important as being there for the last out in close game. No question about it.
I have never figured out why that when teams want to make as much money as they can from concessions that they open the gates so late that most or all of BP is over. Then again, I guess I shouldn’t expect them to do things that can actually increase fan interest, especially with young people. That would make too much sense.
Yeah, they’d almost have to make more money. And when you’re a kid waiting beyond the OF wall to get one of those numerous BP monster shots into the seats, even if you didn’t get one you almost always came close. That hooked you for life right there. We almost always got at least one BP baseball hit into the seats. After a while, they were nothing special. I never snagged a genuine game time souvenir baseball until I was in my mid 30’s, but I ran down a lot of BP souvenirs even ending up with a couple of them at times during one visit to the ballpark. And oh, you’ll have to pardon me for saying so, but the only game time foul ball that I got was off the bat of Brett Boone and was snagged with one hand and NO glove and I’m going to boast about it because it was a genuine web-gem! I got a standing O from the entire section in which I was seated…Hey, when you’re good, it ain’t braggin’…Haha!
I remember 1972 for a couple reasons. It was the last season for regularly riding the bus to the games, since the next year me and my friends started getting driviers licenses and after school jobs and such. Kid life as I knew it was over. The other thing was Dal Maxvill got traded and I was floored. He had been a Cardinal everyday starter forever as far as I knew, and he was just gone. It was like when your dog you had as far back as you could remember up and died.
Yeah, players changing uniforms really had an effect not unlike hearing about an American citizen defecting to the Soviet Union back then. You just couldn’t understand why this was happening…Haha! I’ll never forget the way I felt when Cepeda was traded away for Torre after the ’68 season. I couldn’t believe it! By the time the dust had settled four or five years later, I’d been jilted by at least a half dozen girls and I don’t think any of them bothered me near as much as that trade…Haha!
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