Doc: MLB Playoffs can't hold attention

I worry for baseball.

On Monday night, I watched the bumbling Michael Vick instead of the compelling Matt Harvey. I watched the Pittsburgh Steelers not block anybody instead of the New York Mets hitting baseballs all over and out of Citi Field.

Vick was the ringleader in what was a bad football game, barely redeemed by its photo finish. Watching Vick play quarterback was the visual equivalent of listening to monkeys play bongos. Steelers-Chargers epitomized all that makes me shrug about the National Football League: Hype rarely justified by performance. Endless commercials. (Did you know you can play fantasy football for money?)

A league totally beholden to quarterback play. A team absolutely crippled by poor quarterback play, a phenomenon not limited to Pittsburgh. Has anyone watched Houston, San Francisco or Tampa this season? Hoo-boy. Games that include two bad quarterbacks? You might as well spend three hours practicing self-surgery on your bicuspids.

The NFL's marketers could sell sand to a camel. But most days, their product simply isn't that great.

Meantime, Mets-Dodgers promised big drama. The real stuff, not the melo kind the NFL produces. You had a roaring stadium of Noo Yawk lunatics. You had the backdrop of the Chase Utley Situation, in which Utley cheap-slid into Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada in Game 2, and broke Tejada's leg in the effort. Baseball suspended Utley two games, but he appealed, allowing him to continue playing.

Would he play at Citi Field?

You also had Harvey, who missed a team workout last week and is not the most popular guy in his own clubhouse, pitching for the Mets. And by the way. . . IT WAS A FREAKING PLAYOFF GAME.

I watched Steelers-Chargers.

That's awful. I succumbed to the very hype-ola that nauseates me.

That says a few things: (1) Baseball simply isn't the game for our times and (A) I'm stupid. On the radio Wednesday, Tracy Jones asked me what I thought baseball could do. I said, "Reinvent our culture.''

Baseball moves slowly, we move fast. The effort to speed up the game hasn't worked as well as anticipated. By mid-August, games were averaging just under 2 hours, 59 minutes. Last year, it was 3:02. Eh.

Baseball skews middle-aged and above; youth rules the world. African-Americans are ambivalent about baseball, no matter how hard the game tries to woo them. That means fewer fans, and athletic gold that is worn elsewhere. Baseball needs a whole lot more Andrew McCutchens.

Baseball is feeling good about its October TV ratings. They're up 9 percent over last season, and at their highest in five years. An average of 5.4 million people have watched postseason baseball games. Good, right?

Steelers-San Diego attracted 12.1 million viewers. The fanfare of Baseball's crowning moments of October is drowned out by the NFL and the quasi-ams who play on Saturdays. (And Tuesdays and Thursdays and Friday nights.)

I like baseball. I appreciate its pace and its peace. I like its everyday-ness, and I'm wistful after Game 162. It's like saying goodbye to a good friend you know you won't be seeing for six months. Baseball is a stream, football is a hurricane. I've got enough hurricanes in my life.

When I was huge Washington Redskins fan (before their owner Danny Snyder made that impossible) I watched lots of football. I found myself clenching my fists a lot during games. Afterward, I was exhausted. Why?

I don't watch or listen to sports to have my blood pressure raised. It's supposed to be fun. Is football fun, if you're nuts about it? Not always. And if you find yourself in an opposing stadium among a clot of bloodthirsty (and Bud-thirsty) fans, you better hope your health insurance is current.

I say all that, and yet I watched Steelers-Chargers Monday, and never gave it a second thought.

Since I'm not in the age demographic sports marketers covet, maybe Baseball doesn't think that's a big deal. MLB is in bed with Draft Kings now, a big reason being Baseball wants the attention of males 18-49 years old, who play fantasy sports and buy lots of stuff. But if someone like me, who grew up loving the game, can easily flip it off (figuratively speaking) to watch Michael Vick, what about the younger generations, to whom football has always been king?