Anup Sinha

I am a 42 year-old major league baseball scout-turned-high school teacher and coach. I've written two books, both about baseball.

I was once the biggest baseball fan in the world, but I wonder if I would have even liked it had I grown up today.

While baseball will always be a part of me, I find the game much slower and slower-paced than the one I fell in love with as a child and can understand why kids today don't take to it like they do to football.

The other leagues have done everything to make their games more athletic and faster-paced while baseball has gone in reverse; the television ratings say everything.

I do believe that a league is built upon its superstars, by its transcendent athletes; baseball could have many such talents if it attracted more of the exceptional Black athletes growing up in America.

While baseball appeals to those who like to follow the game through numbers, it has increasingly less appeal to the mainstream sports fan who wants to be thrilled by witnessing drama and great athleticism. It's a great game with incomparable drama when it's played correctly. But no one is going to wait 30 seconds between pitches when they can see 1-2 football and 2-3 basketball drives in the same time. And few are going to watch station-to-station baseball over Blake Griffin's power-dunks or Calvin Johnson's 70-yard touchdown grabs.

I want to see baseball change with the times and I believe by following my suggestions, MLB would be on its way. Could it become the most popular sport again? Maybe not, but it could do a whole lot better than it is.