Baseball belongs in the sunshine

(Wiggly Field – Chicago  —  Sports Excess  —  Oct 21, 2016)

OBITUARY: Major League Baseball. Died Oct. 21. Graveside services. Wake of American tradition, at Cooperstown, N.Y. Survivors include pro football, pro basketball, pro hockey and tour bingo. All are getting old. 

Ice hockey isn’t played out in the sun. Basketball courts are abandoned in the rain. Nobody plays tennis in the wind. Why do they play the World Series in the dark, out in the cold, when all good little boys and girls should be fast asleep?

Perhaps it was the repetitious beer commercials aimed at 14 year olds that upset my sense of authenticity. Maybe it was the announcers who, sentenced to childhood in right field because they couldn’t catch a fly, wanted their big-shot day in the limelight.

Nope. It’s the dollar-bill mentality that dictates that games would be played at night instead of out in the luxurious October sunshine.

In B-grade Saturday morning Westerns, even the lowest cowpuncher knew that Indians never fought at night. Neither did the gladiators in Rome. Even Eisenhower waited until daylight to launch the Normandy Invasion. And they call baseball traditional.

Baseball should be a game for kids and the World Series, of all sporting events, should be played in the middle of the afternoon. (Theme music: Gillette Blue Blades, I mean).

Why must young baseball fans be faced with staying up past midnight to watch their teams wander into the extra innings? What about some of the rookies? Should they have to ride the bench, yawning, (sans pillow and blanket), while the contests often drag on past a decent hour.

Things would certainly have been different if the World Series was played at night in the 50s. Two of the principals, Mickey Mantle and Billy Martin, might have missed most the games due to their much-maligned social agenda.

In addition, what would radio broadcasters like Wait Hoyt and Rosey Rosewell have done with all their idle day time? What about Pirate great Bill Mazeroski? Would he have stayed up late enough to take his famous series-ending poke back in 1960?

I remember back then, when the Yankees and Dodgers dominated the post-season play. Of course, in those days, if a team won its division it went to the World Series and was not forced to test its mettle against also-rans in continuous five-or-seven-game money-making fiascoes. In those days, kids would skip school to watch the games and their parents, who generally turned their heads, would skip work sometime during the magic week.

In the workplace, especially in the competing cities, there would be lucrative office pools and little or no work going on. New York and Los Angeles, the largest cities in the country, were at a virtual standstill in 1962. That’s the real country talking. Ain’t it grand!

Worker morale was at its highest, as it was considered patriotic to blow off work and gather around the radio or the color television to catch the action. Dammit, baseball belongs out in the sunshine, not lurking around in the evening shadows of someone’s prime time.

In 1934, Joe “Ducky” Medwick was pelted with garbage as he attempted to play left field during the autumn classic. Rude as it may have been, it was probably great fun for the Detroit fans, who, sadly enough, watched their team go down to defeat.

Ask yourself: If the game would have been played at night, would the Detroit faithful actually have bounced their trash off Medwick? How could they be sure it was him in the shadows. Baseball would have been deprived another joyous outing, even though Medick, a documented prick, might have felt quite differently.

In that same series, Dizzy and Paul Dean, pitching in the sunlight, were all but untouchable. Do you think the Tigers would have done better in the dark? It’s doubtful whether any of the American Leaguers would have even detected the cowhide passing over the plate. At least the Deans, pitching in the afternoon gave the hitters a shot at hitting the ball.

In 1961, Cincinnati third baseman Gene Freese lost a foul ball in the sun. It would have been the third out, but instead the powerful Yankees capitalized on his misadventure and scored seven runs, which turned the Series around.

The Yankees went on to win in five games. In 1995, would Braves fans be so quick to engage in their mindless chop chants right out in the light where everyone could see them? We think not.

Back before TV ratings dominated baseball tradition we can imagine the American family gathering around the dinner table talking about that afternoon’s game. Today the broadcast often interrupts dinner entirely. In addition, the World Series gave the unemployed something to do during those difficult hours of reflection, and was found to provide a positive distraction from the morbid soaps, the noisy, carrot-and-stick game shows and the few idiot talk shows that had begun to surface.
What about crime? Even a fool can see that a fan is more likely to get mugged outside Jacob’s Field or Fulton County Stadium at 11 than at 6.

Is this crisis covered by the designated hitter clause? And if this reality isn’t frightening enough, consider that the rosin bag gets soggy at night and the UV rays from the stadium lights are harmful to one’s health.

Let’s blame Ted Turner. He’s the guy who brought the national sport to its knees by providing the massive Brave money dosages on the tube. There is no doubt he wanted the games on at night due to the ad revenues and due to the likelihood that his former wife, Jane, wanted to free up her days to hit the malls in Cleveland or Baltimore, shopping meccas to be sure.

Maybe we need government intervention, but the GOP says there are too many lefties on the mound and the Democrats seem frightened to go out into right field after dark. What about presenting the World Series in the daytime, interspersed with the McNeil-Lerner Report?

In closing, Astroturf, domes and batting gloves suck too.

-Kevin Haley