MLB Opening Day Debacle: What Went Wrong and Why?

AP Photo/Ross D. FranklinBaseball has been America’s pastime for over a century, but you wouldn’t know it with the way MLB orchestrated this year’s Opening Day. The landmark that traditionally transitions fans from winter to spring once offered non-stop coverage from 10am to midnight. Not this year. Thank you very much, Rob Manfred. A tentpole event like Opening Day should dominate the sports news cycle, but that wasn’t the case this year.

The first televised games didn’t start until mid-afternoon, and ESPN’s offerings elicited little more than a few yawns. A Yankees-Brewers match followed by a Dodgers-Tigers tilt won’t draw much of a national audience. Perhaps that’s a little revenge on the…