Copyright ©  Daniel B. Botkin 2007

In a recent  Sunday’s New York Times Week in Review,  J. C. BRADBURY wrote that the problem with baseball is the expansion of teams from 26 to 30, because there just  isn’t enough talent in our population to provide for the difference.  His argument was based on what he understood about the ecology of populations and also, I would guess, about what he thought could happen in biological evolution.  But not being a biologist, he got some simple facts wrong. As a biologist and a baseball fan, I feel we have to get the story right if there’s any hope for great baseball of the future.  So here’s the right story. 

In 1980, when there were 26 teams, U. S. males between the ages of 20 and 29 numbered 20 million; in 2005, there were 40 million, an increase in 20 million. Each major-league  baseball team has a roster of 25 players. With 26 teams, there were 650 players; with 30 there were 750. Major-league baseball needed an increase of only 100 excellent ballplayers, while the pool of potential players had doubled from 20 to 40  million, meaning we had only to find 100 players out of 20 million potential new ones.

The 650 players for 26 teams in 1980 were obtained from 20 million Americans plus those from other nations who had players in the major leagues — a smaller number of nations than contribute players today. Thus in 2005 there should have been a pool of a total of 1,300 players with skills equal to those 650 of the 1980 professional baseball teams. Of the 650 more potential excellent players, the teams needed only 100.

These simple facts are enough to refute the author’s argument.  The pool of talent had to be there unless there was a great decline in human athletic talent (inherited), which is impossible in this short a period — biological evolution can’t work that fast (it takes many generations for this kind of change in DNA to occur), or unless fewer men in their twenties sought to become baseball players. The real culprits are probably the lowered status of baseball and less interest among men in the twenties in becoming major-league baseball players. Those with the talent have probably turned to other sports and other professions.

This leads us back to a secondary effect of increased drug use among baseball players —it makes baseball less appealing. It isn’t what Bradley suggests —something about
ecological niche theory or biological evolution that is the cause. It’s the decline in popularity is what’s really wrong with baseball.