The 2012 baseball season came to a conclusion a little more than a week ago when Sergio Romo struck out Miguel Cabrera to earn the San Francisco Giants their second World Series title in three years. There were, generally speaking, three reactions to this finale: 1) From Giants fans: “Woohoo!”; 2) From Detroit Tigers fans: “Noooo!”; 3) From all other baseball fans: “Meh” (or else, “Of all the seasons I’ve ever followed, this was certainly one of them.”).
Due to its structure, which includes scheduled competitions almost every day for seven months, Major League Baseball tends to be followed by fans in a different manner than the avid followers of other sports. We typically cheer for our favorite teams, but don’t necessarily care all that much about what other clubs are doing so long as it doesn’t affect the one that we support. This is a by-product of there being such an ample supply of baseball to be followed. We have to pick and choose, or else we’d be reduced to living our lives without much in the way of variety.
This is likely best seen by comparing nationally televised games of baseball to nationally televised games of football. While baseball plays out a 162 game schedule, the National Football League’s regular season schedule consists of a mere 16 games for each team. Nationally broadcast games of football absolutely slaughter nationally broadcast games of baseball in terms of television ratings partly because there’s a more limited supply of content for fans to consume and more meaning behind each game. This caters to the neutral observer in a way that 162 game schedules simply can’t.
Despite the differences in the way that baseball is played compared to other sports, stories still emerge throughout each season that transcend the boundaries that normally govern our favorite team-based interests. Here, in my opinion, are the top ten stories to do this from the 2012 Major League Baseball season.
