We're just waiting for current ownership to pull it's head out of it's ass and put a team on the field that doesn't result in the high pitched whirl of Ewing Kaufman spining in his grave drowning out the PA system.

How cool would a big thick Superman book once a year from Darwyn Cooke be, instead of thin little monthly books that you have to track down in comic book stores?

I went back for the second issue, and found out about the Richard Donner-written arc in "Action Comics" -- so picked that up last week. Tomorrow, I plan to get the first issue of "Superman Confidential" and perhaps the first issue of "Fantastic Four: The End." These three titles take established characters and put them in "special event" kind of stories. That works for me, the casual fan of the characters from other media, but with very little exposure to the comics themselves.

I grant that what appeals to me are titles that don't depend on knowing huge amounts of backstory and past continuity -- and so, it's true, I don't plan on ever touching "Infinite Crisis" or "52." (I haven't even read "Crisis on Infinite Earths," for Pete's sake!) But these limited run special stories, more or less free of continuity but with the big name characters? Those I will likely keep going back to the comics book shop for.

Thanks for a great blog!

I think the comparison is very apt, and accurate.

Before I get to that, though,'Attendance is at an all time high' is a bit of a misnomer. Total attendance across the entire MLB is higher than it's ever been, but that's due more to the number of teams. If you look at the number of people attending a single game, then yes, numbers are actually declining slightly over the past several years. That's part of the reason teams keep building bigger, newer parks--to draw people to the stadium and hope to hook them into watching a game.

Now, if you look at superhero comics and baseball, I'd say that one commonality that is very important is the fact that both are embracing (or have embraced) concepts that they think will bring in more revenue but in the long-term shrinks their audience. In comics, it was/is the direct market. In baseball, it's cable TV.

Growing up in the 70s, there were comicbooks available in every convenience store, drugstore and magazine stand around. And there was a baseball game on a local broadcast channel.

Because of a crash in paperback book distribution that took comics with it, comics turned to the direct market approach and consolidating distribution channels to save money and to market directly to 'their' audience.' And that was successful to an extent. But then DC & Marvel turned away from their previous distribution channels, they cut off any opportunities for people to be introduced to superhero comics without making a special trip to the local comic shop.

I think everyone would agree that the reliance on the direct market is a leading cause of the loss of younger readers.

Now, let's look at baseball. Instead of being on broadcast TV, many teams are being aired only cable (in many cases, a regional FoxSports channel). A large reason that some of these newer franchises have never reached an audience is precisely this: they've always aired only on cable--never a local broadcast channel. Just with that, they've eliminated a portion of their possible audience. On top of that, some teams (like the Franchise That Shall Not Be Named) have set up their own cable network, so they can better reach 'their fans.' They abandon local broadcast channels and regional cable channels and start competing WITH them for space on the line-up. The problem is that when franchises start doing this, they end up reaching ONLY their fans, making it more difficult for anyone with a passing interest to find them.

The problem with both systems is that they're going after short-term savings at the cost of long-term accessability. If comics get back to the drugstores and magazine stands, and the MLB (and this goes for NHL and the friggin' NFL Network) drops their exclusives and gets back on the local channels, we'll see greater growth by both.

And to the Blue Jays fan: screw you! We'll get you back someday! An aside; one of my proudest moments as a Phiadelphian was attending a Phillies game the year MLB was rolling out there "Fifty Greatest Moments" campaingn. One of the nominees was Joe Carter's home run. They played that as part of a promotional clip during a game at the Vet. EVERYBODY booed. What were they thinking? We never forget!

Yeah, really! Stop being so old, old man! Why are you so old? You're old, Greg! Seriously, though, I don't get how you can dismiss a whole medium as awful, especially as a comic fan. There's a lot of that going around in this thread though, this bafflement over the lack of overlap between interests.

I actually had some of these thoughts in vague seed form myself recently, although I wasn't comparing baseball to comics in real life in general so much as I was comparing my favourite team (the Blue Jays, and a big hello to all the Philly fans from me) and my favourite comic (the Legion) in my mind subjectively and specifically. But I think they both are having trouble with bringing in young fans. Sure, baseball's attendance is better than ever... but how many of them are kids? Enough?

There were a few points in the article I disagreed with (I'm dead set against contraction; great players would be great anytime; there's no significant dilution of talent) but nothing to start a big debate about.

But I really don't like the idea that I'm in the last wave of fans of something.

MLB attendance (as well as minor league and college) is at an all time high and the World Series is still second only to the Super (Hype) Bowl.

Your proposal to eliminate teams only makes the game more inaccessible to those poor kids (what about the children!?) and besides, 30 teams is the going rate with the big three pro sports leagues. There are 30 NBA teams and 32 NFL teams.

The time zone thing is certainly true, Robert - I live in Arizona, so we switch between Pacific Time and Mountain Time, but the events end early enough for kids to watch.

And, of all professional sports, MLB is still the most accessible for a family to attend in person based on time and pricing. Especially since a major portion of the season is outside of school years.

And, it should be noted that those complaining about children not seeing the World Series are primarily in the eastern time zone. The last outs of the world series are a bit late in the central time zone and quite reasonable in the mountain and pacific time zones.

Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the comparison you've made here. As a bit of a lapsed Basesball and comics fan at the moments (no money for comics, and no time to watch baseball) I'm a bit out of the loop, but I still enjoy discussions about both, but have never heard them discussed as simialr entities on one site. So nice job there. I also find it interesting that both of these, baseball and comics, are two examples of things that are, for the msot part, American inventions and the fact that they are on a downward spiral (if you're right, which I feel you are, but pray you're not) is a bit sad to think about. Maybe there's something to that.

Attendance is the highest its ever been.

We've gone from multiple teams being on the verge of going under to maybe two teams having problems, and the one (Marlins) is due to mismanagement and the other (A's) has a perfect solution already in place (move down the road to San Jose).

TV ratings are down, but TV ratings are down on basically EVERYthing.

So I don't think baseball is doing worse now.

Richard - I was a sports nut long before I was a comic guy. I was raised in Philly on crappy sports! That's why I'm a Phillies fan, Derek - it was bred into me!

Baseball is doing a LOT better than comic books are (and that's not me all being "Woe is the comic book industry!," but rather, "Baseball is doing well.").

Are the ratings down for the World Series?

Sure, but the ratings are down on EVERY TV show. It's just what happens when you introduce so many programs via cable, etc. The way TV networks make money, though, is by advertising rates, and you may note that advertising rates for top-rated programs are the same, if not HIGHER (and I'm adjusting for inflation) then the ad rates of popular shows in the past.

This is because, with such a fragmented marketplace, any show that can deliver you a big chunk of the audience is that much more valuable.

Therefore, even though baseball ratings have gone down, they still provide a valuable product for the networks. To wit, during this World Series, only FIVE TV shows had a bigger audience. And this World Series featured a match-up of two teams from the 11th and 21st ranked Media Markets. Had the Mets made the World Series, that number of shows that got better ratings likely would have shrunk.

Meanwhile, baseball teams are all flush with money and the attendance for the games is at an all-time high.

So whether or not the comic book industry is in trouble, Major League Baseball is not.