[First off, I am a baseball fan. And by that I mean, I like baseball, period. I follow baseball in two countries - the U.S. and Japan. Before I moved, I had XM Radio and I could tell you at least one radio announcer's name from every team. I do have a favorite team(s) (the Royals in the U.S., and the Hawks in Japan), but since I moved to Hawaii, all they show are Angels and Dodgers games, two teams I'm not very fond of, but I still watch it because I like baseball. I've also been to a few Hawaiian Winter Baseball League games and seen 24 players I've never heard of. I also plan on going to UH baseball games. Just to let you know this article isn't out of nowhere. Oh, and that in no way do I think I'm better than any other baseball fan by writing this.]
Personally, I'm tired of people saying "Oh, this'll be a great story if team A meets team B for the World/League Championship Series." Unless you're a fan of one of the teams playing (and right now, 86% of you are not) the only this these "great stories" are good for?
Getting people to watch the pregame. Then maybe, the first inning or so.
If the game isn't well-played or if it's not close, and I don't care about either team, I don't care who's playing, my interest slowly wanes. I'll watch the whole game, but when it's never close, I usually feel a sense of disappointment.
The same thing goes the other way, if I can't stand both teams (and my list is: Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals, Mets, Phillies, Angels, Dodgers), I will still watch the game between those two hoping for a well-played game. That's why I'm watching the NLCS. That's why I watched the 2003 and 2004 ALCS, they were both very close, tight series. That's why I lost interest in the 2000 and 2004 World Series by the time they were over (though, the way they presented the STORYLINE in 2004, you would have thought the Red Sox were down to the Cardinals 3-0 and came back from that too. Game 1 was interesting, but the rest were not). Face it Red Sox fans - how glued to the set were you in 2005 when the White Sox swept the Astros? People seem to forget their drought was longer. And the games in the 2005 Series were closer than the 2004 Series.
The bottom line is: when you're a neutral fan, what makes a good series is the games themselves. If you're more concerned about the storyline, well, go watch Heroes, or Lost, or Prison Break—at least you'll know without a doubt it will be exciting to the end.
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