MLBeat

As baseball's playoffs speed along, I want to stop and reflect on baseball's presence on TV and on the radio.

I am old-fashioned perhaps. I like to listen to baseball on the radio. I am also on a budget, so I don't have cable TV. This has made it very difficult for me to follow the Division Series phase of the baseball playoffs. Especially in St. Louis, where the ESPN radio affiliate, 1380 ESPN (KSLG) has shunned baseball and is not airing but a few of the games.

Owned by Simmons Media Group, a media conglomerate, 1380 ESPN fancies itself a football station. For this reason, the ESPN radio broadcasts of Division series games have been piped through 1380's sister network, 1490 WESL, a Fox affiliate, also under the ownership of the Simmons Media Group. So imagine that. You turn on the FOX affiliate and it's there that you find the ESPN radio crew doing the baseball game. OK, that's bizarre, but here's the problem: the signal of 1490 is extremely weak. This effectively means that I, a St. Louis denizen, cannot listen to the playoffs on the radio. And St. Louis is supposed to be "baseball heaven."

I realize that most people have cable nowadays. I used to have cable—before Charter came through and did an "audit" wherein they realized that my house was not supposed to get cable. So I don't have cable anymore. I could spend $60 more per month but the only time it really seems worth it is when ALL of the Division playoffs are on TBS. What I'm wondering is: why is FOX trying to alienate baseball fans? And, how on earth did Major League Baseball accept an arrangement under which zero of the first round of playoff games would be on broadcast TV. Am I the last person on earth who doesn't have cable, or are there others that are also missing the playoffs? I mean, are you telling me that FOX couldn't have at least bought the rights to the weekend Division series games? Picture me yesterday afternoon—Saturday—when the Cubs take to the field to stave off elimination. The game is not on TV and it is not on the radio. It might as well not even be happening.

1380 ESPN is run by hacks. Fine. Because of contractual obligations, they ran high school football instead of playoff baseball. Playoff baseball would also take second-chair to the weekly LeRoi Glover Show, should the two begin at the same time. I turn on 1380 this afternoon to see if the Red Sox game is on and I get Rams post-game. That's the 0-5 Rams, people.

My friend has this wild theory that FOX continues to buy the rights to baseball because it is trying to ruin baseball. FOX's master-plan is to prove that football is the national pastime, and baseball is just something you might find on TBS. Baseball is like an odd, contagious entity that FOX can't figure out. That's why the NLCS is not on FOX this year. Only the Yankees are good enough for FOX. If FOX really loved baseball, and wanted to promote it, why would it leave Tim McCarver in the booth? Why would it include animated, annoying Sliders explaining what a curve ball does? Why would it give away the NLCS?

I hear every year about how the ratings are way down for baseball. Duh. Of course they're down. The highly interesting matchup between the Rockies and D-Backs will not be on broadcast TV. In St. Louis, I have a better chance of hearing the game on 850 KOA coming out of Denver than I do of catching it on the local ESPN radio affiliate.

I think that the program directors in TV and radio offices have too quickly bought into this notion that baseball is dead and no one wants to listen to games anymore. From what I can tell just by talking to people, baseball is not dead. People still enjoy listening to baseball on the radio. People still want to turn on the TV and watch the NLCS. But no one is going to be watching a game that is practically hiding on TBS. And no one is going to listen to a baseball game that isn't on the radio.

// posted by J Rand @ 3:41 PM