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This is RetroSports Radio. Visit RetroSeasons.com for more sports history.

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My guest today will be Dr. Harold Seymour, the Distinguished Baseball Historian. Baseball has long been called America's National Pastime, yet sometimes I wonder if it really is our number one sport, or if it's gradually giving way in popularity to football and basketball.

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This is one item I'd like to discuss with my guest, and we'll meet Dr. Seymour right after we have this important message.

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Dr. Seymour, Casey Stingle has an idea. The right-handed pitcher is out there throwing, have a left-handed hitter. Do they do a lot of platooning in the early days, or do they?

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They do. They did a good deal of it. There's nothing new about that, and I think that this platooning is probably the result of the nature of the ball club.

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In other words, if you have a good man out there, you're not going to platoon him. A good hitter is going to hit left-hand, or right-hand, or anything.

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And I think that when you have to keep changing around, it's because you don't have an outstanding man to play the position in the first place.

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I mean, you don't platoon Ty Cobb, you don't platoon Willie Mays. You weren't platoon, were you?

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No, no, thank goodness. They were telling me also that with football becoming so popular and basketball coming into his own, that baseball had had better looked to its laurels.

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Do you think there's a chance that one of these sports may move baseball as the national pastime?

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I think it's certainly better look to its laurels, and I think the owners and the officials and the powers that they certainly should be more and more aware of that because they can no longer simply rest on this backlog of goodwill and interest.

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There's too much competition from other sports, and not only from other sports, but from our whole new way of life. We have the automobile, we have the do-it-yourself, we have boating, we have the opportunity to get the family out into the country,

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and we have television, we have so many new factors that baseball must take this into consideration and do a lot more to promote the game and to increase the appeal, otherwise they're going to just be bypassed.

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Does this also mean the protection of the minor leagues? I think this is one of the big problems. They are overlooking the minor leagues.

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Well, somebody said they're eating their own young, and I think that's what they're doing. I think they're after the immediate advantage, financial, that is the major leagues, and are short-sighted in the long run.

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And the record shows that the minors are drying up.

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It seems to me a shame that the minor leagues are being dried up because practically every boy wants to be a major league baseball player.

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Dr. Sarrell, see more, it's been a real pleasure having you on the board.

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Thank you very much. It's been a great pleasure to be here and talk with you.

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And that just about does it for now, fans. See you soon.