Why Won't They Come to the Ball Game?
“Take me out to the ball game, take me out to the”- wait. what? Where’s the crowd? This is the reaction of many of our school’s baseball players as they step onto the field for a game and notice the student body isn’t there cheering them on.
Considering the number of students that show up for basketball and hockey games, it is very surprising that baseball does not get the same respect. To figure out why, we surveyed TABC students about their favorite sports. While more than 70% said they favored basketball and hockey, under three percent said baseball. Most of the students feel baseball isn’t an interesting sport to watch and that it’s not as fast paced as basketball or hockey.
We then asked what it would take for more students to attend baseball games, and this is where the school comes in. Most said if free food was offered and the school treated it like the other sports where free stuff like apparel is given out, they would go to those games. The school should care about this information, as successful sports teams are huge recruiters for incoming students And fans are one of the main reasons a team does well.
A certain student who said why soccer was his favorite sport, agreed with this sentiment:
“I love it [soccer] because I play it and we need more fans at games because of the huge impact it has on us players.”
This impact is felt by baseball players in the same way. Here is what members of the baseball team had to say about cheering:
“Oh, easily one of the most important things in my opinion. Knowing I have fans behind me who want to see me do well definitely give me the extra push I need to do well,” said Natan Mendelsohn (‘19)
For me, I love cheering. I know it helps my game, and also being a big fan myself, I love cheering on my favorite team and it seems to help them too. Look at the connection the fans have with players in the major leagues. All of the best players are super friendly with fans, and both those players and the fans always seem to make each other’s days. It’s just a big part of the game.
“Definitely important” said Eitan Leff (‘18). “Home field advantage is a big thing in baseball, one team is supposed to have that advantage, and that advantage is having people cheering you on. It makes you want to do better more than almost anything else”
Cheering can also get into the heads of the opposing team’s players. Hearing people cheer for someone else puts on extra pressure to succeed because everyone wants the cheering to be for them. Extra pressure makes playing much harder by overthinking things, and also makes errors much more common than without the pressure of opposing fans.
With fans coming to cheer on the team, it is easy to look forward to the upcoming baseball season.
