Taking the Game Away

When I was little, I loved the Oakland Athletics. Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Carney Lansford, Walt Weiss, Mike Gallego, Dave and Ricky Henderson, and Dave Stewart... Those were the days. The A's were tough back, when for me, baseball was more about card collecting and colossal trades with the neighbors. A new package of Donruss baseball cards was 45 cents at the checkout counter in the local grocery store where my mom shopped. I think I bought a new pack just about every time. If I concentrate, I can still smell the wax-paper packaging. Every kid I knew had baseball cards, and we would spend hours and hours counting and re-counting them. At first, you would trade cards based on the player, and if you didn't know a player by name, you would check out his stats. Eventually one of my friends bought the Beckett Baseball Card Guide and trades began to be based in the card's value.

These days, I don't know any kids who collect cards. Who could afford it? The price of your average pack of baseball cards has skyrocketed well past the modest allowance granted to your everyday pre-teen. In my view, this is detrimental to the game of baseball. Where it used to be accessible to all, it has become a past-time for the privileged.

Back when you could afford baseball cards and you knew a player's batting average because of it, my Oakland A's were in the playoffs. Occasionally, an ALCS (American League Championship Series) game would begin in the afternoon on a weekday. I remember running home from school and turning on the television just in time to see the post-game interview with the A's winning pitcher, Dave Stewart. I would have to settle for the National League game that evening, but I knew I would be able to see the next A's game live, on network television.

It's too bad that doesn't happen anymore for kids trying to watch their team. Or, for that matter, for adults who love baseball and just want to be a part of post-season magic. I just saw the TV schedule for this year's playoffs.

None of the American League or the National League Divisional Series will be on network television. There could be as few as 12 or as many as 20 playoff games played in the next 10 days, but unless you have cable or satellite TV, you won't be able to see any of them. Once the final two teams from each division are ready to battle in the ALCS and NLCS, only the American League games will be available to anyone with a TV set and a pair of antenna. I'm sure the executives at FOX Sports are on their knees praying for another Yankees-Red Sox series (Personally, an Angels-Indian series is what I'm hoping for). Then, finally, when the World Series is here, all games will be broadcast on network television.

I hear that viewership of the World Series has been trending downwards recently. I wonder why? Could it be that no one gets attached to the teams during their playoff runs because you can't watch a single National League playoff game without TBS? No one west of Las Vegas would have cared about a World Series between the Anaheim Angels and the San Francisco Giants had it not been for the ability to watch those two wildcard teams battle through the first two rounds. In the weeks of playoff games leading up to the World Series, you formed your alliances, and you knew that the people in the apartment above you were for the Giants and for one week they despised both you and your Rally Monkey.

That won't happen this year. By the time the playoffs come to the homes of the little people with rabbit ears, who cares? Little by little, it seems like they are taking the game away. Exclusive radio rights so you can't listen to a game unless you have an online subscription or satellite radio; $5 for a pack of baseball cards, but now you only get 8 cards instead of 12; the extinction of the playoffs on network television; it's all about making money. As the business of baseball takes over, the game suffers and so does America's love affair with it's former national past time.