By the time you read this, we will either have and agreement between the Major League Baseball owners and players, or the lockout will have begun cancelling several games including moving back opening day.

Either way, this work stoppage isn’t good for either side, nor the fans.

Baseball has lost fans over the years for various reasons which we will point out, but can the professional sport keep slapping its fans in the face and recover? That’s the multi-billion-dollar question.

One of the reasons fans have turned from baseball and don’t watch the games, or attend games in person, is cost. Going to a Major League game used to be reasonably priced, when compared to the other major sports. Just 20 years ago, a family of three could spend a day at the ballpark for under $100 dollars. That’s not the case now in many cities.

In 2008, you could purchase a box seat ticket in the front row at old Yankee Stadium for $55. Now a comparable ticket costs $525.

Granted, that’s New York City and the Yankees. However, ticket prices have risen substantially all across the country. In Phoenix, Oakland and Tampa, you can still take three people to a ballgame and get out of there for less than $100. Average ticket prices in those cities are $25-30. In most MLB ballparks, the average ticket price is $40. The Yankees, Dodgers, Cubs and Red Sox have the highest ticket price averages at over $50 per ticket.

Another reason people have stopped watching baseball is because in this instant fast-paced world we live in, many people think baseball is too slow and the games are too long. That’s one thing the folks at MLB have been trying to remedy, and some of the ways to cure that is what is causing the lockout to linger.

MLB would like to institute more rules to try to speed up the games, as they have in the minors, but the players are rejecting certain aspects of the idea. One thing to speed the play is a pace-of play (or pitch) clock. If you’ve been to a Tulsa Drillers game, you’ve seen the red digital clock to the right of the outfield batter’s eye wall. That indicates how long the pitcher has to begin his windup, how much time can be taken between plays and between innings.

Another thing in the minors that MLB would like to use to speed up games is putting a runner on second base to begin each extra inning. The majors have already limited the number of mound visits a catcher or coach can make in a game, and they’ve instituted a rule where a pitcher who enters the game in the middle of an inning must pitch to three batters before being removed from the game.

Whatever the case may be, nobody enjoys sitting through a three-plus hour-long boring baseball game, especially when your team is losing, so some of these changes make sense. However, I’m a baseball purist and don’t want them changing the game so much, that I either don’t recognize it any more, or it takes away the uniqueness of a particular game; be it a 12-inning slugfest or what have you.

Another major turn off for the average fan is that they can’t wrap there head around why the two sides are fighting in the first place. How can billionaire owners and multi-millionaire players not reach some agreement in order to stay in business and continue to make those extravagant amounts of money, from television deals, sponsorships, endorsements, etc. You would think the two sides have more to lose by not playing then by reaching some compromise and getting back to playing games. You would think.

ORU TO SUMMIT TOURNEY

The ORU men’s and women’s basketball teams are heading to the Summit League Basketball Tournament in Sioux Falls, S.D., this weekend. I will be along with the ORU Pep Band, and you can follow me on Twitter from the tournament; @JeffBSports. The ORU Pep Band also has a Twitter account, @ORUPepBand.

The ORU women are the No. 4 seed and will play No. 5 North Dakota, Sunday at 12:30 pm. If they win, they will play Monday at 12:30 pm.

The ORU men are the No. 3 seed and will play No. 6 Western Illinois, Sunday at 8:30 pm. If the men win, they will play Monday at 8:30 pm.

For information on the basketball teams and the listen to the broadcasts, go to www.oruathletics.com.