In 1999, Atlanta Braves pitchers Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine made an iconic commercial for Nike.

The tagline was: “Chicks dig the longball.”

Well, there's been a lot to dig in Major League Baseball this season.

Pitchers need a clubhouse chiropractor to treat their sore necks from the whiplash of watching homers fly out of the ballpark.

There should be a new sabermetric stat for exit velocity on bat flips.

If you're not homering, you're not trying.

As of June 18, nine players already had smashed 20 or more home runs and eight more were sitting at 19.

Arizona outfield Ketel Marte is one of those 20-homer dudes.

Coming into the season, his career high was 14, which he accomplished last season — in 520 at-bats.

The Minnesota Twins are on pace to slug 313 home runs as a team this season.

Seattle, 284.

Milwaukee, 281.

MLB teams have blasted 2,911 home runs so far this season in roughly 45 percent of the season.

That's a pace of well over 6,000 home runs.

Unless you are in Miami or Detroit or, um, Pittsburgh, there's a pretty good shot you'll see more than a few dingers from your home team each game.

Baseball has become a game of the three true outcomes.

Home run.

Strikeout.

Walk.

It's become less and less exciting and less and less interesting because of it.

Sure, home runs are fun to watch. They make for a good highlight on MLB Network or ESPN. Of all the stats in baseball, it's probably the most celebrated.

But it's also the least interesting.

Also uninteresting is the strikeout, which is also happening at an alarming frequency in Major League Baseball.

Since Chris Sale remembered he was Chris Sale, the Red Sox pitcher is averaging 14.7 strikeouts per nine innings.

Milwaukee reliever Josh Hader is punching out nearly 18 per nine innings.

Crash Davis said it best. “Strikeouts are boring, but besides that, they're fascist.”

Boring is not something you want associated with the sport.

But that's the dirty word being used by fans of the MLB these days.

The league is concerned about dwindling attendance and long game times.

Home runs and strikeouts are the top contributors to both.

Baseball needs to somehow encourage players of putting the ball in play again.

How? Who knows.

Chicks may dig the longball, but fans aren't really digging baseball these days.

Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.