WITH NOTHING TO ADD, ROB MANFRED WILL PRESIDE OVER BASEBALL’S DEATH

As we pray for Epstein — forget it — the commissioner leaves after 2028, allowing the former pastime to become a 9.1-million October collapse as the NFL draws 123.7 million (or more) for a Super Bowl

     By January 2029, baseball might be less relevant than roller derby. Christopher Walken will show more life in a Super Bowl advertisement. When the NFL averages 123.7 million viewers for a championship game, with 202.4 million watching at least part of the telecast, we can say a World Series that draws a record-low 9.1 million is between 13 and 23 times in the stinker.

     So Rob Manfred will preside over the sport’s death until announcing he’ll leave that month. During a commissioner’s pall that began in 2015, he has allowed MLB to suffer inferiority that makes it unappealing to major networks and has all but killed regional sports outlets. Going to a ballgame on a summer’s day remains fun, but it takes on small significance to local football machinery with rare exceptions in Los Angeles and … Los Angeles.

     Imagine Shohei Ohtani playing Atlanta every autumn, as Texas plays Houston, while four-fifths of the major leagues shouldn’t bother caring. At this point, the Oakland Athletics may fold before landing in Las Vegas, and the same could be said for franchises in Florida. Not until last year did Manfred correct pace-of-play issues with a pitch clock. Otherwise, he’ll be remembered for letting the Astros steal signs electronically and allowing immunity for cheating players.

     “A piece of metal,” he said of the Series trophy.

     What made him a piece of froth, in the Bud Selig framework, was an ability to deliver revenues to owners who generally don’t like fans. His financial production wasn’t quite enough for the old men, who gathered at a recent Washington meeting with a prominent marker pointing to a room: “Committee on Economic Reform.” Why do you think the biggest spring-training story involves the four free agents — Cody Bellinger, Matt Chapman, Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery — represented by superagent Scott Boras as all players report to camps? Tension with the Players Association remains high — the collective bargaining agreement expires after the 2026 season, meaning a lockout might be much longer than 99 days.

     You’ve seen players complain about the “breathable” new uniforms, those Vapor Premier jobs designed by Nike and created by Fanatics. They appear to look cheap and fit awkwardly, including smaller names on the back. “It doesn’t look like a $450 jersey. So far, thumbs down,” said the Angels’ Taylor Ward, telling The Athletic that teammate Carlos Estevez’s jersey was “ripping in the back” as he flexed.

     “After a while,” said Reds catcher Luke Maile, “it’s just your toilet paper.”

     Said Manfred: “I think you know, in baseball, with any new initiative, there’s going to be some negative feedback. First and most important, these are Nike jerseys. Just who they are and the kind of products they produce, everything they have done for us so far has been absolutely 100 percent successful across the board. The jerseys are different. They’re designed to be performance wear as opposed to what has traditionally been worn. But they have been tested more extensively than any jersey in any sport.”

     The total landscape looks shoddy when the NFL basks in $120 billion of media money. The NBA is busy making bigger broadcast deals. Naturally, owners blame Boras when, last we looked, he had nothing to do with Ohtani’s $700 million bonanza. The disparity of quality — few teams are “haves,” most are “have-nots” — makes people in Kansas City wonder about a Chiefs dynasty and their non-starter in the Royals. The NFL offers competitive balance. Baseball never will unless the union is bombed, which would lead to the game’s demise. Expansion? Ha ha. Manfred should worry about the A’s and Tampa Bay, where locals want to change the team’s name to the St. Petersburg Rays, and make sure Chicago doesn’t end up with one team.

     “You can only have so much fun in one lifetime,” Manfred said Thursday. “I have been open with (the owners) about the fact that this is going to be my last term. I said it before to them, and I’m absolutely committed to that.”

     At 65, Manfred realizes he can do little more in office. Perhaps he could have provided time while owners spoke to Theo Epstein, who probably wouldn’t want the gig after joining the Fenway Sports Group’s management team. Dan Halem serves the same role as Manfred did under Selig, as deputy commissioner and chief legal officer. He simply would bring more slog to the role, unlike Epstein and his Hall of Fame exploits in bringing championships to the Red Sox and Cubs. If not him, then maybe digital servant Chris Marinak. Something fresh and new might rid baseball of owners trying to spend monstrously, like Steve Cohen of the Mets, and failing. Or how well-lathered clubs, such as the Braves and Dodgers, are knocked out of the expanded playoffs in a few days after an absurd 162-game regular season.

     “I’m sure the selection process is going to look like it looked the last time,” Manfred said. “There will be a committee of owners that will be put together, and they’ll identify candidates via an interview process, and ultimately someone or a slate of people will be put forward.”

     Until then, we’ll see if he has any clue about future media, his biggest failure. “Longer term, our goal is to preserve what is the remainder of legacy cable bundle,” he said. “The economics of that bundle are really important to us. There are some people — including Rob Manfred — who will be clutching that cable remote until I die. I do, however, recognize that there are a lot of people — for reasons completely unrelated to baseball or any kind of programming, for fundamental economic reasons — who opt out of that cable bundle. We have to serve those people.”

     Does he know how? “Put the economics to one side. It’s a question of reach,” he said. “You’ve got to get the games into the household. And the economics of the broadcasts — in some ways, it is secondary to the rest of our business. If there’s a house where there are young kids and they’re cord-cutters and there’s no way to watch baseball — it’s unlikely those kids will be fans and ask their parents to go to a game live.”

     He’s gone at age 70. His 14 years were the worst of any sports commissioner in my lifetime. Must we wait until January 2029 to dump this piece of metal?

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.