Apparently, it’s Mike Trout’s fault. Baseball’s popularity is shrinking because too many players are swinging too hard and hitting too many home runs and striking out too many times and the game’s brightest stars aren’t recognizable enough or controversial enough.
Hence, it’s on Trout, although it isn’t.
That was the insinuation from commissioner Rob Manfred the other day, when his press conference before the All-Star Game turned into a referendum on the game’s ills. And certainly, baseball has ills, from falling attendance, to sluggish games, to an ever-widening chasm between the few good teams and the batch of bad ones.