Jonathan Eig: Games belong on free TV
By Jonathan Eig
October 3, 2007
By Jonathan Eig
October 3, 2007
As baseball's postseason gets under way, there are many wonderful story lines to follow. Will our miserably beloved Cubs at last end their losing ways? Will Alex Rodriguez cap his Ruthian season with a flourish or fade again under October's bright lights? Can the Phillies, having emasculated the Mets, continue their thrilling march?
Unfortunately, many Americans will be unable to follow the action this month because the division series and National League Championship Series will be broadcast exclusively on cable television. No one seems too worked up about this new development, and I suppose I understand why; nearly 90 percent of all American households have cable TV. The remaining 10 percent is a minority group without representation, and the assumption is that its members will somehow cope. There's the radio. There's the Internet. And in my case, as a member of the lonely 10-percent club, there's Jake's Pub on North Clark Street.
Yet season by season, baseball, once the most democratic of all games, grows more elitist. Tickets for Yankee games have become not only expensive but increasingly difficult to obtain, a trend likely to continue when the team moves to its smaller, more luxurious new ballpark in 2009. At Wrigley Field, where I've been a season-ticket holder for the last decade, business executives and bachelor party revelers have crowded out two demographic groups: children and the sort of fan who packs his own lunch.
Baseball set another attendance record this year, proof that much is going right for the national pastime. Labor battles have been settled. Questions about steroid use are less often raised now that testing is at last in place. The violent crime rate among the game's players remains low, at least compared with football and basketball. Somehow, despite its ridiculous salaries, baseball continues to give us players who seem human to us. It remains a game that welcomes immigrants, farm boys and oddballs (although more so on the field than in the grandstand).
The folks in the front offices at Major League Baseball did a nice job earlier this season celebrating Jackie Robinson, baseball's greatest force for equal rights and fairness, who played his first big-league game on April 15, 1947. But Commissioner Bud Selig and other officials at Major League Baseball should have taken notice of another date from Robinson's glorious rookie season: Oct. 2. On that date 60 years ago the World Series was broadcast for the first time across network television. It wasn't much of a network. It reached only New York, Washington, Philadelphia and Schenectady, N.Y. Nearly 4 million people watched in bars, through appliance store windows, and in a few well-to-do homes. But the screen was big enough and Robinson's presence vivid enough to carry the day, signaling as never before in the nation's history that a new era had begun.
Since then, television has helped to make baseball a big business. It has stolen some of the game's innocence. It has put an end to World Series games played in sunshine and in slanted shadows at an hour when the kids are still awake. But it has also helped make the game feel like a part of the public domain, something in the air among us.
Let cable TV have the overhyped drama of "Monday Night Football." Let it have the back and forth of basketball's eternal season. But baseball should belong to the people -- all of them.
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Jonathan Eig is the author of "Opening Day: The First Season of Jackie Robinson" and "Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig."
Copyright © 2007, The Chicago TribuneUnfortunately, many Americans will be unable to follow the action this month because the division series and National League Championship Series will be broadcast exclusively on cable television. No one seems too worked up about this new development, and I suppose I understand why; nearly 90 percent of all American households have cable TV. The remaining 10 percent is a minority group without representation, and the assumption is that its members will somehow cope. There's the radio. There's the Internet. And in my case, as a member of the lonely 10-percent club, there's Jake's Pub on North Clark Street.
Yet season by season, baseball, once the most democratic of all games, grows more elitist. Tickets for Yankee games have become not only expensive but increasingly difficult to obtain, a trend likely to continue when the team moves to its smaller, more luxurious new ballpark in 2009. At Wrigley Field, where I've been a season-ticket holder for the last decade, business executives and bachelor party revelers have crowded out two demographic groups: children and the sort of fan who packs his own lunch.
Baseball set another attendance record this year, proof that much is going right for the national pastime. Labor battles have been settled. Questions about steroid use are less often raised now that testing is at last in place. The violent crime rate among the game's players remains low, at least compared with football and basketball. Somehow, despite its ridiculous salaries, baseball continues to give us players who seem human to us. It remains a game that welcomes immigrants, farm boys and oddballs (although more so on the field than in the grandstand).
The folks in the front offices at Major League Baseball did a nice job earlier this season celebrating Jackie Robinson, baseball's greatest force for equal rights and fairness, who played his first big-league game on April 15, 1947. But Commissioner Bud Selig and other officials at Major League Baseball should have taken notice of another date from Robinson's glorious rookie season: Oct. 2. On that date 60 years ago the World Series was broadcast for the first time across network television. It wasn't much of a network. It reached only New York, Washington, Philadelphia and Schenectady, N.Y. Nearly 4 million people watched in bars, through appliance store windows, and in a few well-to-do homes. But the screen was big enough and Robinson's presence vivid enough to carry the day, signaling as never before in the nation's history that a new era had begun.
Since then, television has helped to make baseball a big business. It has stolen some of the game's innocence. It has put an end to World Series games played in sunshine and in slanted shadows at an hour when the kids are still awake. But it has also helped make the game feel like a part of the public domain, something in the air among us.
Let cable TV have the overhyped drama of "Monday Night Football." Let it have the back and forth of basketball's eternal season. But baseball should belong to the people -- all of them.
----------
Jonathan Eig is the author of "Opening Day: The First Season of Jackie Robinson" and "Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig."
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