On Saturday, the 2024 Futures Recreation occurred at Globe Life Discipline in Arlington, the positioning of this 12 months’s All-Star Recreation. Nonetheless, most baseball followers might need missed it, and the blame falls squarely on MLB.
For starters, the sport began within the afternoon, 4:00 p.m. on the East Coast, smack dab in the course of a full slate of MLB motion. That is proper, whereas future main league standouts competed on the identical area, practically all 30 groups from the American and Nationwide Leagues have been additionally in motion.
Basically, MLB made most followers select between the Futures Recreation or watching their groups play a probably necessary mid-July contest.
Even the 2024 All-Star Superstar Softball Recreation obtained higher therapy, beginning at a way more viewer-friendly time of seven:45 p.m. CT. In the meantime, the occasion solely needed to deal with two West Coast MLB video games.
Reasonably than that includes in the present day’s finest prospects within the primetime slot, the powers that be determined that followers would moderately watch the blokes from “Dude Excellent” attempt to hit a softball thrown slowly to them underhanded.
Moreover, a expertise competitors was held instantly following the Futures Recreation. However, with no possibility to look at it stay, these eager about seeing what occurred must wait till Sunday when MLB broadcasts a tape-delayed model at 10 a.m. ET.
The true disgrace is that most of the sport’s finest prospects did not get the highlight they most likely deserved. On Saturday, 26 of the prime 100 prospects performed within the sport, together with seven ranked among the many prime 20.
If MLB genuinely needed to develop the sport, it ought to have given tomorrow’s stars the right stage to showcase their expertise. As a substitute, they have been the warm-up act for popular culture influencers, artists and entertainers.
