There is a growing narrative suggesting baseball is losing young people, whose shorter attention spans and forays with instant gratification don’t blend well with a game bound by no clock that’s based on patience, among other humdrum virtues.

Let me suggest that we members of the older generation are losing patience with our erstwhile pastime as well, frequently confused as to what the keepers of the gate hold dear.

To wit: I’m tired — also annoyed, exhausted, irritated and fatigued — at the frequency with which I’m watching games now saying to nobody in particular, “what is he talking about?”

I’ve spent ample time in recent years mocking baseball’s analytical revolution. It’s not that I don’t appreciate new and different ways of gathering and applying information. It’s just that nobody ever explains the context and relevance to all the esoteric jargon associated with it. Why does launch angle supersede situational hitting? We’re just supposed to accept it and move on because the intelligentsia says so?

The latest example came earlier this season and has been reiterated lately by David Cone, the otherwise entertaining and knowledgeable YES and ESPN analyst. Cone has made several references to the analytical pitching term “induced vertical break.”

I mean, I’d just come to terms with “sweeper.”

Now this.

And so just what I want to do while watching a ballgame. Hit pause and look up “induced vertical break,” after a few innings without explanation. Induced Vertical Break (IVB) is “distance, measured in inches, that represents the amount of vertical movement a pitched ball experiences due to the spin imparted on it by the pitcher. It specifically refers to the upward or downward deviation from the expected trajectory of the pitch caused by the spin.”

This got me to thinking: Isn’t this what was once called “spin rate?” Methinks “spin rate” has become common enough for the commoners to use, thus necessitating more pedantic language.

Again I ask: Why? I’m just trying to watch a ballgame here.

It’s almost as though the purveyors of such self-indulgent sophistication are happy to turn the game itself into a sideshow, simply to show the rest of us how smart they are.

Sorry. But I’ve had enough. Any hint of critical thinking should raise suspicions about the analytical revolution. Sure, analytics often contradict old-school notions that inspire healthy debate. But they also purposely create narratives espousing contrarian opposition to traditional ideas — ideas that became traditional for good reason.

This is why I’ve always viewed them skeptically. They’re a tool in determining a player’s worth, not the gospel. We don’t need to add FIP, BABIP and WAR to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

I honestly don’t need to hear the word “induced” any time during a baseball broadcast. “Induced” is the domain of obstetricians. Inducing something vertically requires the swallowing of a little blue pill. Otherwise, can we at least explain the physics lectures if we must endure them?

It’s not just me. I hear this everywhere. My longtime friend Tony Cafaro, a former teacher and assistant football coach at Fitch, is a passionate baseball fan of 60 years. He asked me the other day to explain “WAR,” an analytical term frequently used and rarely explained.

No expert myself here, I said that WAR measures a player's value by showing how many more wins he's worth than a replacement-level player (like a free agent) at his same position. I’m unclear myself why this is sacrosanct, but then, as previously explained, it is rarely explained.

Unexplained analytics are on every broadcast and in many print articles and columns covering baseball now. You’re losing me, folks. You’re losing others. I’m rather enjoying the NHL and NBA playoffs at the moment. Keep it up and you’ll lose a fellow who grew up sneaking his transistor radio to bed to listen to Phil Rizzutto, Frank Messer and Bill White.

Funny. I never needed a physics lesson explaining how the transistor radio worked. I just accepted and enjoyed the fact that it did. The same applies to baseball. So take your induced vertical breaks somewhere else.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro