On Television

...OnTelevision BASEBALL IN BLUE BY MARVIN KITMAN THER TELEVISION public's light to know seemed in jeopardy last summer when the New York Me+s baseball team oidered the announcers on a local station (wor-tv) to restrict the use of instant replays Actually, as anybody who has followed the reporting of the great Amencan pastime knows, the truth about what happens on the field has never been very important to television It is an accepted tact, for example, that local announcers are employes of the clubs The salaries of the Met broadcasters (Lindsay Nelson, Ralph Kiner and Bob Murphy), however, are paid by the sponsors, the station and the team Thus they could be said to represent a true cross section of vested interests But the instant replay—the electronic medium's major contribution to the art of journalism—is our most reliable reporter It speaks for itselt The Mets' management was not against all instant replays, only those involving controversial calls by the umpires The viewers weie seeing too many blunders Of course, it has never been any secret that the umps are blind In the days when the instant replay was only a gleam in some electronic genius' eye, the appeal ance of the men in blue was greeted with a song called "Thiee Blind Mice Every decision that went against the home team was automatically assumed to be in euoi Still, it is a bit of a shock to see this popular assumption verified During a Pittsburgh Pirates-Cin-cinnati Reds game in August, cai-ned on nbc's Game of the Week, announcers Curt Gowdy and Tony Kubek had the unpleasant duty ot showing the tv audience playbacks ot foui wrong decisions in the first five innings Gowdy and Kubek called them the way the instant replay saw them, "an off day," they summed up the umpires' failings A Communist baseball announcer could have run the bad calls again and again Or editorialized further by taking decisions out of context and showing them back to back This would have undeimined the American way of life more than a TV festival of all the movies made by the Hollywood Ten Baseball personifies the principles ot law and order this country is built upon While there may be differences of opinion about the issues —a ball being fair or foul—the ar-biteis can be busted to arrive at an impartial verdict Justice the instant leplay shows, is blind As an American, I turned off Game of the Week that day in disgust Not only weie the Pnates (my favorite team) losing hopelessly to the Reds but I was losing my respect for law and order When the story about the Mets censorship attempt was printed m Variety, it was immediately denied by all members of the consortium financing the announceis This made it necessary for me, as a serious critic, to spend seveial weeks dunng the summer watching Met baseball In the process, I noticed a far moie serious censorship problem that the papers had been ignoring People don't seem to go to the ballpark to watch the games anymore They go to wave to the television cameras tv reporting contributes to this phenomenon by regularly focusing on the ciowd action in lieu of more substantial investigation of the baseball action Anyway, it's a lot more exciting watching the spectators in the stands than hearing all that statistical prattle Some fans come to the stadium and start fights every Friday night just to get on tv A few seasons back, I recommended that television cater to this normal instinct by putting the crowd scenes on a set schedule the third-base crowd after the second inning, the people behind first base alter the fourth inning, and so on Then they would know what was coming You wouldn't find them picking their noses or not showing the camei a their best side The parks would be filled every night A pietty blonde m the bleachers could become a movie starlet after being spotted on tv by an alert casting director Baseball telecasts would be the electronic equivalent of Schwab's drugstoie in Hollywood The first instance ot the censorship I discovered while watching the Mets took place dunng the third or fourth inning of a Friday night game with the Pirates Met pitcher Charley Williams was at bat, the count was 3-2, and the cameras weie loaming the stands, looking for a big story A voung fellow on the third-base side, noticing the cameras weie on him, placed his hand on the breast of the girl in the next seat I couldn't tell whether it was his date or an innocent bystander The cameras immediately zoomed out to center field missing Charley Williams' dramatic strike-out in their excitement The same thing happened later that night whenever fans crossed their arms irritation at some turn of the game or gave the tv men the finger Several nights afterward the cameras were covering a pep rally in the stands during the Mets-Cubs game Vieweis at home could heai the chant fiom the youngsters fuck you, new york mets, fuck you But not for long The sound equipment broke down or something Technical difficulties also cropped up when the fans were yelling, Ferguson jenkins eats shit I knew that Chicago's ace hurler stood 6'3", weighed 210 pounds, was batting 178, had stiuck out 139, walked 27, and had won 20 games or more three years in a row, but the Met announcers had never reported that aspect ot his private life As the weeks went by, I began to notice a pattern Anytime the spectators said something the station considered in questionable taste, the tv screen immediately stopped registering what was happening in the stands Baseball had become a dnec-tor's game' I suppose the station could justify its policy Yet how do we know that Atlanta sucks, another phrase heard for a fleeting moment isn't some kind of baseball term which, under the Supreme Court ruling, is not obscene' The classic baseball expression, "We want a hit"?allowed on the air without thought of censor-ship—could be interpreted in differ-ent ways, too The fans could be ordering the assassination of a rival pitcher or addressing a general appeal for drugs I WENT TO the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) for guidance on this confusing matter of free speech Ira Glasser, the executive director and ex-Brooklyn Dodger fan, explained "Apparently it was okay in the old days of radio for Red Barber to use mysterious expressions like tearing up the pea patch ' Today that sounds suspicious, with the media's overcautious attitude to words God knows what Preacher Roe was doing when Barber said he had 'one foot in the pickle fat' Glasser and Alan Levme, the NYCLU counsel, believe a good case could be made for fans who feel their civil liberties are being encroached upon by the Mets' editing out their remarks Kids know the media By expressing themselves in this way they may not only be stating their disenchantment with the Mets but trying to change the system They may want to force tv to stop covering baseball and start televising congressional hearings every afternoon Freedom of speech, my legal advisers asserted, signifies more than the right to talk in a dark corner It implies the right of being audible In the 18th century leafleting was the way to be heard Today it is through tv "Without the medium," Levine said, "there is no message The kids have to do something out of the ordinary to be heard by the medium The burning of drafts cards is a way to get tv to cover their opposition to the war Protesters are learning to make their protest more visual " For all we know, Glasser declared, "tearing up the pea patch" may have been Red Barber's way of telling us that Preacher Roe had dropped his pants and was exposing himself on the mound "There are people exposing themselves at ballparks every inning," Levine said "One of the psychological changes possibly wrought by the electronic age is that a lot of people may now need to be seen by 10 million viewers to get their kicks It's no longer enough to be seen by a handful of spectators " The nyclu is not saying the fans are right or wrong for what they did at Shea Stadium this past summer "They can still be busted for demonstrating on television if they are violating the law," Levine noted "They should be allowed to take that risk The First Amendment is the same at the ballpark as when they speak out on the sidewalk " The situation is bound to get worse this fall, during the college football games on tv, or next spring, when baseball activists return One solution for television journalism would be to seal off the ballfields with glass, in the style of the isolation booths of the '50s quiz shows "It might be cheaper to have the games played in a tv studio," recommended the nyclu counsel "All the crowd noises could be artificially produced, like the laugh tracks on situation comedies...