The Postwar Yankees: Baseball's Golden Age Revisited

5. Television and Baseball

Television was the newest, and possibly “baddest,” entertainment bully on the block during the postwar era. The medium perplexed baseball owners. Detroit Tigers owner John Fetzer had perhaps the most astute observation about television and baseball: “Baseball has been engaged in a constantly changing and developing relationship with the television industry.”1 Did television reduce attendance at Major League Baseball games? In a second plot line did television adversely affect Minor League Baseball? Television and Major League Baseball Television Comes to the Majors During the boom season of 1946 a new specter hung over Major League Baseball. The New York Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers televised games during the season, and while the telecasts did not turn profits, owners were sensing a new profit-making venture. Indeed, the owners attempted to insert a clause into the standard player contract that would exclude players from television profits.2 The issue would not die, and as late as 1958, players were demanding 25 percent of each club’s radio and television revenue, much to the owners’ disgust. Chicago Cubs owner P. K. Wrigley argued, “That’s not even profitTelevision and Baseball The New Technology, Friend or Foe? 5 Television and Baseball t 127 sharing. They want a share of the revenue whether there’s any profit or not. . . . Radio and tv money keeps them [impecunious owners] alive. And some are even losing money with that additional revenue. Still the players want part of it.”3 Local broadcasts of Major League games that reached a fifty-mile radius around the stadiums became common in 1947 and 1948, particularly around New York City. Heading into the 1947 season, every Major League team except the Philadelphia teams and the Boston Braves televised home games. Indeed, the teams televising home games jumped in completely, showing their entire home schedule, with the exception of the Cincinnati Reds. The Reds did not show Sunday home games and six of their night games. There was no information about the Boston Red Sox’s television plans for 1947.4 These local broadcasts obviously did not greatly expand the Major Leagues’ reach into the southern and western parts of the country. The Columbia Broadcasting System (cbs) and DuMont networks televised the 1949 World Series, but some theaters in Boston, Chicago, Milwaukee, and New York also showed telecasts of the games. The theaters did not always sell out, but the receipts were double or triple the usual amounts. For theater patrons in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the World Series was the town’s first taste of television.5 Today’s television viewer would likely be disappointed at the quality of the telecast, as the cameras were slow in picking up shifting activity on the diamond and fought shadows. There was no instant replay, and, of course, the game was in black and white. Most television screens were tiny, so the theater rebroadcasts on 12 x 15 foot or 18 x 20 foot screens held an advantage . cbs, however, featured a split screen, showing batter and pitcher. DuMont employed a bullpen camera with telescopic lens that showed the ball from the pitcher’s perspective instead of the usual perspective from behind home plate. In one of his last acts as commissioner of baseball, Albert “Happy” Chandler negotiated a national television contract. While he boasted about the terms, the reality was that television needed baseball games to fill out its schedule. Some television officials acknowledged as much. 128 t Television and Baseball As Bill Veeck pointed out, for the television networks, “baseball happens to be a bargain”: “It supplies a daily 3-hour show, and provides its own location, its own actors, and its own pre-packaged audience. Television has to provide nothing except the cameras and cameramen.”6 In addition, baseball came with its own advertising, thanks to daily newspaper coverage. In any case Chandler sold rights to the 1950 World Series for $800,000. He later negotiated a six-year contract for $6 million. The wild card in the deal was the federal government’s freeze on television stations. At the time Chandler made the deal, the number of stations was fixed. If the freeze ended sooner than anticipated, his six-year deal looked inept.7 Cardinals owner Fred Saigh thought Chandler’s deal was inadequate: “Television rights worth $1,000,000 today may be worth several million two or three years from now.”8 Other owners...