“You hear a lot about our game, our society — how do the two fit together? — and is baseball and its pacing consonant with our society,” Manfred said. “I think it’s really important that we use technology to make the game as user-friendly in the ballpark and during broadcasts as we possibly can. You can enhance and provide real fans with information via technology that makes the game move faster and keeps people engaged during the game, without distracting from what’s the core, what’s out there on the field.”

It is accepted wisdom, Manfred said, that baseball’s national television audience skews older, as reflected in the annually sluggish Nielsen ratings for the All-Star Game and the World Series. But, he said, 5.7 million people open the AtBat app every day, and the users’ average age is 30.

Manfred said he was convinced that young fans were hungry for baseball and the daily drama other sports could not offer. But those fans consume the game differently from the way older fans do, and in Manfred, the owners believe they have a leader to capitalize on that interest.

“We’re in the middle of a technology age, a media age, that’s different than it used to be,” said Lew Wolff, the Oakland Athletics owner and longtime Selig ally. “I think there’s room for growth, and Rob is very sensitive to that. One of these days, maybe long after I’m out of it, people will say, ‘Look at what Rob added to baseball,’ just like they say about Bud.”

As that technological revolution unfolds, there are other issues, perhaps more tangible, that Manfred could address. The All-Star Game will be in Cincinnati in July, meaning that Pete Rose’s status will become a story. Manfred has not reviewed the case involving Rose, who was barred from baseball for life in 1989 for gambling on the Reds as their manager, but he offered opinions on other topics.

THE DESIGNATED HITTER “I have never experienced one moment of mental dissonance over the fact that the American League has it and the National League doesn’t. I just never have. It’s interesting, right now, given where offense is in our game. I can’t see the American League clubs giving it up, and right now, given the composition of our National League owners, I don’t see them buying into it. So I think we’re staying where we are.”

DAY GAMES IN THE WORLD SERIES “I don’t rule that out, and the reason is not that I really foresee it in our current situation, but the media landscape is changing so quickly that to say, ‘We’re never going to do that,’ I think, would be foolhardy. And I do see the appeal of that, particularly on the issue of youth.”