Great article. I too - have been a lifelong baseball fan, and absolutely love the sport and also find it a bit disheartening that the younger generations don't seem to be as intrigued by it. The biggest problem for baseball is kind of a double-edged sword - like you pointed out, the pace of play is what turns a lot of younger fans off, and as others have pointed out, "offense" is what seems to be leading the charge in popularity for football and basketball. Problem is, the more scoring in baseball, the more baserunners, the more pitches are thrown, the longer the games are. So on one hand, a bunch of home runs and 10-8 final scores like the "steroid era" may increase the excitement, but the games will take even longer. Shorten the games, and the intrigue may grow for a while, but eventually the lack of offense could still turn those fans' off.
I'm not sure if I have a solution either, but one thing that has made the NBA much more exciting is all of the off-season free agent stuff. MLB had their quietest off-season in decades this past year, and they need to follow the lead of the NBA and NFL and go back to generating a bunch of intrigue and excitement over their free agency, just like these other sports. Otherwise, they will just continue to fall behind both in popularity. Great article!
Thanks. As you said, the nba free agency is so exciting. Maybe Bryce Harper will change that this winter.