Baseball Hides Its Playoffs on TV

What happened to Major League Baseball? We are in October and the playoffs are already in the second round, with the winners of the current series to play each other in the World Series. But none of the major networks or sports channels are broadcasting the games [Correction: see below]. Only Atlanta's WTBS seems interested in letting viewers in on the action.

I have to suspect that MLB itself may be responsible for the playoffs dropping out of sight on television. They have made their regular season games harder for the average viewer to follow by making them part of their own premium channels. They seem to be interesting in soaking the American public for as much moolah as they can muster by making their product more difficult to access over the regular channels.

Which brings me to the two industries not covered by the Federal Antitrust Act: the health insurance industry and ...Major League Baseball. The fact that baseball has special legislated protection should, I would think, make it more of a publicly accessible sport. The regular broadcasting networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox) should be carrying all of the playoff games, but they're not. It seems that health insurance and baseball, both beneficiaries of legalized monopoly status, can't do enough to antagonize the public with their voracious greed, well beyond reasonable notions of making a respectable profit.

But now that I'm writing about baseball, I might as well comment on the playoffs. I would like to see a World Series match-up between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers. It would pit ex-Yankee and now-Dodger manager Joe Torre against his old team. I would get to see my favorite player, Derek Jeter. And it would revive the ancient rivalry between the two franchises which goes back to the years when the Dodgers were in Brooklyn. But should the Los Angeles Angels and/or Philadelphia Phillies come back in their series and win (actually, the Phillies are leading their series with the Dodgers), that would be all right with me, too. Just let me watch the World Series on "ordinary television", O.K.?

Correction: Well, I just checked my TV listings for today and Fox IS carrying one of the games (Yankees vs. Angels). Just one of them. The other game today, between the Phillies and the Dodgers, is on TBS. But Fox should be showing both of them. Apparently, during the weekend football reigns supreme over everything else (except for those horrid reality shows). In spite of some coverage, I think that baseball is shooting itself in the foot by not insisting on contracts with general broadcasting networks for the widest viewership possible.