"I don’t think Shohei Ohtani is responsible for saving it"- Karl Ravech rejects idea of Dodgers star being baseball's savior

Karl Ravech doesn't think Shohei Ohtani has saved baseball from the doom of irrelevance. However, he clarified that if this question were asked a few years ago, his answer would be different.

During his conversation with Awful Announcing, Ravech recalled a time when he believed that the game "was in trouble." It was when it used to take four hours to get through the Yankees vs. Red Sox game a few years ago.

But now, he doesn't believe Shohei Ohtani is the only reason to watch baseball. He believes many young prospects are gaining a lot of traction, especially players like Bobby Witt Jr. and Gunnar Henderson.

“So, the focus is not just on one guy," Ravech said. "I don’t think Shohei Ohtani is responsible for saving baseball, partly because I don’t believe baseball currently needs to be saved. I think what baseball has to acknowledge is we live in a football society; we live in a football world.

"So, the grand ‘ol pastime is no longer present No. 1. It’s not. It’s very easy to see. Football rules the roost."

"Baseball absolutely has a huge place on the Mt. Rushmore of sports, but it’s shifted. In the 1950s and 60s, baseball was it. And all of a sudden, football and college football and all that have passed it. Now, baseball fits somewhere between the NBA and the NHL, and that’s where it is right now. But the changes they made, I think, helped immensely," he added.

Karl Ravech gets nostalgic about Baseball Tonight

At one point, baseball fans loved to get their updates from the show titled 'Baseball Tonight,' which is now called 'Sunday Night Baseball'. However, Karl Ravech believes the show isn't the same anymore.

Ravech is still a big part of ESPN's baseball coverage, calling Sunday Night Baseball games. However, he has a soft spot for the old format of the show.

Speaking with Boston.com, Ravech talked about his nostalgic tweet.

"I’ll be honest,” said Ravech, “That tweet was obviously reaction to the program — which I know they loved, and I understand that with the people that were on it, with Peter [Gammons] and Harold [Reynolds] and [John Kruk] and [Bobby] Valentine, and there was no other place to get something like that.

So, Ravech misses his old friends and how passionately the show followed the games of the MLB.