America's National Pastime.

Those three words are what I was raised to believe when it comes to the sport of baseball, but those words no longer hold any merit in this great country of sports. Baseball is a dying sport, and everyone knows it. Of the current "Big Four" sports, which are football, basketball, baseball, and hockey, baseball is the third most popular sport in America. And it likely won't stay that way for very long with soccer rapidly growing in both viewership and participation.

So what's wrong with baseball? Why is the oldest professional sport in America losing fans?

It's simple really: baseball is a lost art. Fans no longer crave the methodical pace of the game, instead opting for the up-tempo game of football, the fast pace of basketball, the intensity and violence of hockey, or the finesse and quick game of soccer. While baseball certainly isn't the lowest scoring game out there -- that title likely belongs to soccer -- younger fans would prefer to see the high scoring outbursts that only football and basketball can provide. While baseball fans like myself and others love to see a great pitching duel that ends in a 1-0 victory, a majority of people would call that a boring game.

Baseball used to be among the best sports for young kids to play, but the youth population is rapidly declining. In 2000, The Wall Street Journal estimated that 8.8 million kids between the ages of 7-17 played baseball. That number decreased to 5.3 million in 2013, and it's likely it's dropped even more in the last few years. Kids at that age see baseball as a slow and boring sport rather than one that takes an immense amount of skill. While immense athleticism isn't always necessary for the game, though make no mistake that baseball players are very athletic, it's the level of concentration and skill for the game that makes it truly an amazing sport.

Hitting a baseball is considered the hardest feat in all of sports, which many people don't realize. Consider the fact that a pitch approaches home plate anywhere from 90-100 mph, which gives the batter less than a second to analyze the pitch, swing the bat at the right time, and make ample contact just for a chance to get on base. Some of the best hitters in the league, like Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers for example, make hundreds of millions of dollars for getting a hit three out of every 10 times they come to bat. That's insane.

So why don't people appreciate just how difficult baseball is and why it's so great?

If I had to guess, it's the rapidly declining attention span of the average person in the world. With all of the technology we possess nowadays, the need for immediate gratification and the need for speed are at an all time high. A study from the Microsoft Corporation in 2015 found that the human attention span has shortened from 12 seconds to eight seconds over the last decade. That attention span is shorter than a goldfish, which is notorious for having a short attention span at 9 seconds. People simply can't stay focused on a "boring" sport like baseball anymore.

And this isn't just a problem with young people anymore. This has been a trickle down effect, starting with those that actually pay to go to baseball games, which is obviously the middle-aged to older crowd. In 2015, there were 20 MLB teams that averaged less than 80 percent average stadium capacity for the entire season, with the lowest being my Cleveland Indians at 41 percent. For a comparison, not a single NFL team averaged less than 80 percent average capacity in 2015, with 11 teams actually averaging 100 percent or better.

Having grown up playing baseball, and still being an avid fan of a mediocre team year after year, it's saddening to me that the game is in decline. Youth leagues all over the country are shutting down due to lack of participation, MLB teams struggle to sell tickets, and fans don't even watch from their couch anymore. If a comeback is going to be made, it's going to start with increased youth participation. At the moment, that doesn't seem likely, and things are looking bleak for the game that made me fall in love with sports.