World Series No Longer Special
By STEVE SMITH
Oct. 26, 2004
I miss the World Series. I know it's still on, but I miss it. Not the World Series that is now, but the World Series that used to be.
And it used to be something. Closing my eyes I can go back there. It's a bright, sunny afternoon in early October. The temperature is pleasant but autumn is in the air. The players are lined up along the foul lines as the stentorian voice of Yankee PA announcer Bob Sheppard introduces them to the crowd. There's an air of anticipation as Sheppard's voice rebounds around the vast stadium. "Now batting (batting, batting). For the Yankees (Yankees, Yankees). Number seven (seven, seven). Mickey (Mickey, Mickey). Mantle (Mantle, Mantle)."
As the game plays on the shadows spread slowly across the field. The batter stands in the darkness of the huge grandstand but the pitcher is still throwing from the bright sunlight. Hot dog wrappers and paper cups whirl across the diamond. The leftfielder squints and shields his eyes as the slanting light shines in his face.
But that is nothing but a dream now. They don't play the World Series in the daytime anymore. In the old days it was over by mid-October at the latest now it's pushing dangerously close to November. The World Series used to be played by the best teams in their respective leagues; teams that had proven themselves worthy by finishing first over a grueling 154 (later 162) game schedule. There were no playoffs and no wildcard teams that allowed inferior contestants to sneak in.
I'm in my fifties. I was born in the fifties. I’m a fifties kind of guy. I long for the days when the World Series was a special event, not just another late night TV show. Television, of course, controls all sports now. I have no doubt that if the Fox Network paid baseball an extra million to schedule the games at three in the morning the major leagues would do it without hesitation.
Ratings are what it's all about. What the decision makers fail to realize is that there is more to having an impact than just ratings. Think back to televised events that happened during your lifetime. It's the daytime events that you remember. Things like the Kennedy assassination and its aftermath, the 1972 Canada-Russia hockey series, the Watergate hearings, or the 9-11 attacks.
These are the events that stay with us over the years. Because we didn't watch while nodding off in our easy chair they were special and required some effort. They were going on as we lived our daily lives so they became topics of conversation between acquaintances. Rather than talk about the weather you could ask, "Did you see the guy who's testifying now? He's a real piece of work."
The World Series used to be like that. Students would come up with elaborate ruses to follow the game either feigning illness or smuggling a small radio into class with an earplug running up the arm of the shirt. I loved going to woodworking class with Mr. Allen at Gorsebrook School during the World Series because he would let us listen to the game as we worked. In 1967 we worked along in silence while listening to Jim Lonborg of Boston try to pitch a no-hitter against the St. Louis Cardinals. When school let out I rushed home to see if he could keep the Redbirds hitless (he couldn't).
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| Moe Drabowsky pitches in the bright sunshine of the 1966 World Series. |
Sadly, in 1971, the first World Series night game was played and soon not even the weekend games were played in the afternoon. Baseball's commissioner at the time Bowie Kuhn would sit in the crowd without a topcoat trying to convince everyone that it wasn't really cold but it was clear to most of us that the "Summer Game" was in danger of catching frostbite in the brisk climes of a mid-October evening.
While I have remained constant in my appreciation of baseball, the game has moved itself away from me over the years with a series of small decisions that have resulted in an unbridgeable gap. First it was Astroturf, then it was playoffs, then it was the designated hitter, then it was night World Series games, then it was wildcard playoff teams, and, finally, steroid-fueled home run exploits.
Combine those changes with the gaudy posturing of pampered prima donnas on the playing field and the baseball's desertion of the old-fashioned fan is complete. I long for the days before arm-pumping, finger-pointing, slow-motion home run celebrations. I long for the days when you didn’t have to pay a ballplayer to get his autograph. I long for the days of baseball in the days.
I can long all I want but I'm not going to get it. So, as you latter day fans fall asleep in front of the TV set I'll retreat to my collection of old radio broadcasts and slide in a tape of a classic World Series game with Vin Scully or Mel Allen. I think I'll listen to it in the afternoon.