Whatever harm Barry Bonds did to baseball pales in comparison to the damage baseball inflicted on itself both at the time and since. So say what you will about the steroids era, at least the games were still worth watching.
You can’t say that about baseball today, assuming it’s even available on a TV set where you live. The sport’s popularity is buckling faster than the knees of a hitter fooled by Clayton Kershaw's curveball. The national audience for last season’s World Series — roughly 12 million viewers — was less than half what it was barely two decades ago. A friend tried to put the best face on that vanishing act by saying baseball has become a “regional” game; that’s just another way of saying it’s on the road to becoming a niche sport.
