Baseball on Television:

Baseball on television, in how it's shown by Fox Sports and other networks, is all wrong. Progress is regress. The main problem, as shall be explained, is all the closeups on the players' faces.

Sports on television are a diversion. For many of my waking hours, I strive to focus upon researching and writing (and even taking action) on various concerns that affect our daily lives. But most of we normal folks need diversions. Sports on television, baseball on television, provide diversions for many of us. Even President Obama finds a second or two for ESPN, maybe even for Fox Sports, as long as he doesn't bump into Bill O'Reilly or that new Glenn Beck dude.

What's Wrong with Baseball on Television?

My buddy, Rock, who is a half-generation younger than me, is a far bigger sports fan than myself orPresident Obama. He was also, as a kid, a far better athlete than myself. It's fun talking sports with Rock, or stopping by (while he's caring for diaper-clad twin grandkids) to watch some games while he flips the channels. Just now he asked me by email, "Whadduh ya think of how the Tigers are doing?" Not meaning tigers in the circus, but Tigers on the Detroit Tigers baseball team.

This is what I put in response: "Rock, I don't watch Tigers games very often anymore, except maybe a glimpse while I'm taking a break for a bowl of Cheerios or a peanut butter sandwich. Baseball is a cool game, cool in that there is not always a clock running, cool in that there is such great symettry with the 90 feet between the bases. But when we watch baseball on television, they do not show this symettry, this field of play. Instead, between pitches, all they show is closeups of the pitcher's face and the batter's face. Like, right up their nostrils. Why do they do this? Who decided this? I don't want to look up the noses of the pitcher and the batter. I want to see the field of play. So I'm really hating baseball on television."

That's what I told Rock. Am awaiting his response.

Baseball on Television: Show the Whole Field

Back when I was a kid in the 1960s, before Rock was even conceived, we couldn't see all of the season's 162 baseball games on Fox Cable. They showed 30-some premium games, like Tigers at Yankees (when we would always lose), on a local TV station. So, it was sort of a special event when the "Tiges" were on TV. Furthermore, as I remember, the main camera was behind home plate and they didn't have the technology to focus on the noses of the pitcher and the batter. Therefore we could actually see the field of play.

The games were at Tiger Stadium, with seats close to the field when my Uncle Jerry would take us, as opposed to Comerica Park, where the seats are so far away that there might actually be a seat way up here in Saginaw.

Plus, 40 years ago, the pitchers didn't walk around behind the pitching mound after each and every pitch, and the batters didn't walk around outside their batter's boxes after each and every pitch. Even though baseball doesn't have a time clock, the game is supposed to proceed at least slightly faster than a golf tournament.

Fox Sports Controls Baseball on Television

Fox Sports has the main contract with major league baseball. Let me say this to Fox TV: You guys can keep Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck and even Sean Hannity. But on Fox Sports, might you try showing a baseball game by showing the baseball field, rather than Joe Torre's stubble in the L.A. Dodgers' dugout? So that we can really see the game?

Then I could go over to Rock's house, as a diversion and for sake of friendship, and go back to enjoying baseball on television.

P.S.: I also hate in basketball when they always show a closeup of the guy who just scored a basket, and in football when they always show the face of the quarterback barking the signals. It's just worse in television with baseball.