NERD 3 WE NEED TO GO DEEPER FULL

And longtime baseball people shake their heads at the bland sameness of it all. Perhaps not coincidentally, per-game attendance this season has dropped to its lowest point in 15 years. Games are averaging about three hours in length and replays almost one-and-a-half minutes per review, according to Maury Brown in a story written for in April.

Emotion and energy is being drained from the game one replay and administrative move at a time (see above re: takeout slides and home plate collisions).

Rules changes have eliminated the takeout slide at second base and the collision with the catcher at home plate.

Strategies like the hit-and-run and stolen base attempt (at their lowest per-game average since 1964, according to Elias) have become endangered species.

While we arguably have some of the greatest athletes ever on the field today-Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson has little over the Colorado Rockies' Nolan Arenado and Oakland Athletics' Matt Chapman, just as one example-they're not on display as often as they could be.

Defensive chances over the past two years have declined to the fewest in history-36.7 per game this year and last year, the first time that figure's ever dipped below 37.0.

Martinez embodies this era of offensive play, ranking among the game's leaders in home runs, on-base percentage and strikeouts.

NERD 3 WE NEED TO GO DEEPER FULL

The race is on for whether it will happen in a full season for the first time. There were more strikeouts than hits in a month for the first time in MLB history in April and, through early August, MLB had accumulated more strikeouts than hits overall.248 MLB batting average is the lowest since 1972, the season before the American League instituted the designated hitter, when it was. The ball is not put in play in roughly a third of all plate appearances, 31.6 percent of which end in a strikeout, walk or hit batter.Hall of Famers are not the only ones voicing their displeasure with an all-or-nothing game in which: Tom Seaver and Steve Carlton are not loving this. But right now it's about the home run and the strikeout and give me five good innings. Says Hall of Famer Don Sutton, now an analyst for Atlanta Braves television broadcasts: 'As soon as somebody decides it's not a good idea, then people will draft differently.

'It just breaks my heart to see the changes that have been made. 'I try to watch a baseball game, and I find it very difficult to be able to watch today. 'We could sit here and talk all day about the way the game has been changed, and not in a good way,' Hall of Fame reliever Goose Gossage says.

Nerd 3 we need to go deeper