, a senior lecturer in English at the University of ĚÇĐÄlogo is a former presidential speechwriter and a noted authority on baseball broadcasting. He gave the keynote address earlier this spring at the annual NINE Baseball Spring Training Conference, which examines baseball history and culture. This guest essay is drawn from Smith’s remarks there. Smith is the host of the “Voices of The Game” series at the Smithsonian Institution and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. He’s the author of 17 books, including The Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball and the White House (University of Nebraska Press, 2018) and A Talk in the Park: Nine Decades of Baseball Tales from the Broadcast Booth (Potomoc Books, 2011).
After Pearl Harbor, organized baseball doubted if it could or should exist in 1942âor again, ever. Consulted by Major League baseball, the very next day, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt read aloud what became known as âThe Green Light Letter,â saying, âI honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going.â
Todayâs challengesâfrom culture to the media, and especially televisionâimperil the effect of the great work officials, researchers, statisticians, historians, educators, broadcasters, and others are doing for the national pastime. All face the question: How can we help baseball be worthy of the average fan? What lessons from the past can help solve problems today?
A noted broadcaster and I once were asked what baseball meant to us, growing up. Instantly, Bob Costas and IâBaby Boomers bothâanswered: Everything. It meant everything.
Why was baseball so all-meaning to a Boomerâs era? I begin with the premise that a national pastime must have a national presence. From 1959 to 1964, baseball aired at least four, even five, network television games a week on all three networksâCBS, NBC, and ABC. Not coincidentally, in a 1964 Harris poll, 48 percent of Americans named baseball their favorite sport.
Sadly, a year later baseball slashed its network TV coverage, giving only one network rights to air a weekly âSaturday Game of the Week,â since exclusivity paid more than the several networks had paid separately. Result: by 1968, for the first time, Harris said, âfootball passed baseball as the favorite sport.â In 1988, baseball gave over almost all its regular-season coverage to ESPNâa cable network then available only in six in 10 homesâand killed NBCâs âGame of the Week.â In 1996, baseball signed a new pact with a new partner, Fox, but that deal still only covers 12 Saturday games a year.
A recent Gallup Poll says that basketball for the first time tops baseball as our second-most-popular sportâfootball at 37 percent, hoops 13, baseball 9, soccer 7. As bad, says Market Watch, baseball has easily the oldest average TV viewerâ57 years. Footballâs is 50, basketballâs 42, soccerâs 40. Only 7 percent of baseballâs TV audience is now under 18.
Anyone who likes baseball must be appalled by these facts. So hereâs a five-point plan.
First, hire announcers who bring the game to life. Vin Scully, Dizzy Dean, and Ernie Harwell used language to tell stories. Scully decried those who overly use ânumbers the way a drunk uses a lamp postâfor support, not illumination.â
Second. As noted, revive network TV. It is fine to retain the interested: those fans will seek out cable’s MLB Network or online coverage. But it is far better to grow interest. Get Fox to air whatever it will. Then, renegotiate its contract to add another network weekend afternoon series, begin a show like the 1977â1996 âThis Week in Baseballââand involve CBS Radio, liking baseball far more than incumbent ESPN, with a weekly Saturday game. More networks mean more buzz.
Third, restore TV intimacy. Fenway Parkâs home plate cameraâyour picture windowâsits near the field yet above an angled backstop. Contrast such closeness to many parksâAtlanta, San Francisco, Oaklandâwith a home plate camera so high that the field needs a passport. How baseball-unfriendly is a tube on which little happensâand we canât see what does?
Fourth, change postseasonâs start time. Restore weekend Series games to day coverage. Any Baby Boomer worth their birth certificate knows where they were when Bill Mazeroski homered in the daylight of October 13, 1960. By contrast, last yearâs World Series Game Three ended in a kid-free zone of 3:29 ˛š.łž.ĚýEastern Time. Yogi Berra said we can observe a lot by watching. The country canât watch if itâs asleep.
Fifth, donât make âstop-actionâ a definition of the sport. 1960âs Game Seven saw 19 runs scored in two hours and 36 minutes. In 1962, the average game took 2 hours and 23 minutes. Last year it took 3:04. In 2018, 10 of the 12 League Championship games took between 3 ½ and 5 ½ hours. Commissioner Rob Manfred says he is ânot pleased.â So please people by doing something.
If America could storm Normandy, split the atom, and reach the moon, baseball can uphold the strike zone, keep a batter in the box, and ensure a bases-empty pitch every 20 seconds. As culture turns less patient, pray God, let baseball be less inert.
