We just finished watching a World Series in which very few people cared who won. The Anaheim Angels and their fans cared, naturally, and so did the San Francisco Giants with their fans. But the Angels have relatively few fans and the Giants lost, so the Angels hoisted the trophy with little hoopla.
Everyone knows television ratings for all sports have declined with the proliferation of cable stations, except in the NFL. Once upon a time, the World Series was a big deal in America. Old people watched it, young people watched it, anybody who felt like watching TV watched it because the choices were sparse.
On Oct. 27, during Game 7 of the World Series, you could have watched the Washington Redskins and Indianapolis Colts play in the NFL, a NHL game, sports highlights from the day, public policy discussions on C-SPAN, sniper coverage on the cable news channels, a half-dozen documentaries of young people acting foolish, detailed analysis of the weather, music videos, cartoons and the rest, all without making any special effort.
But Game 5 on Oct. 24 didn't even beat out CBS' prime time lineup. In a four-channel universe, the World Series still would have finished second that night.
The World Series also hit all-time ratings lows the previous two nights in weeknight prime time. Games 1, 2 and 6, on weekend nights, also set all-time lows. NBC and CBS beat the World Series with re-runs. Millions along the Eastern seaboard cocooned themselves away from a sniper, and the ratings still plunged. Baseball's image problem goes well beyond the proliferation of choices.
It can no longer be denied that baseball has defined itself downward as a niche product. It's going the way of Mickey Rooney and Bob Hope. And it's not just last month, last year or last decade. It's 20th century. It's yesterday.
Basically, baseball has alienated way too many old fans without attracting enough new fans in their place.
Baseball fans were excited about this World Series. It went seven games, each club appeared at some point to have it won, four of the games were decided by one run and it showcased one of the game's greatest players and two likeable clubs. Baseball fans watched.
But baseball fans are like boxers -- it isn't easy being a baseball fan. You really have to hang in there. Several have been hauled off the canvas in stretchers.
You also have to suspend disbelief -- not disbelief in the implausible, but disbelief that Major League Baseball really could have fouled itself up so badly. You don't know if they're going to strike or not strike, if they're going clown themselves before Congress, if they're going to play to a tie All-Star game, if they're going to eliminate clubs or if they're going to mock themselves seven different ways over a sponsor relationship. You have to roll with the punches.
Who has time for it? If we want serial buffoonery, we can find it elsewhere. How is baseball different from Survivor, The Real World or Behind the Music, for all the lost characters? A couple differences immediately come to mind: The documentaries and dramas introduce us to the characters so we'll care how they fare, and we always know the story will come to a resolution.
They aren't like Major League Baseball, where you're supposed to work up a concern about the All-Star Game or pennant race only to come out of it without an outcome or go past midnight for a season-saving labor agreement.
Then you get to the World Series and -- who's this? The Angels? Who are they? The Angels play in one of the world's most populous metro areas, they won 99 games, battled in a pennant race with a local rival and still drew only 2.3 million fans.
They picked up quite a lot at the gate in the past couple months, and no one can deny that the ballpark in Anaheim became a preferred destination between the rally monkey, the rallies, the wins and the championships. But it's a front-running crowd. You could see the deep, emotional investments of those fans from the camera views that showed them banging those inflatable sticks together and yelling, "Whoo!"
So the Angels electrified their ballpark as the attraction of the moment, but it didn't get out to the rest of the country. People didn't know the players or buy into the Cinderella story. They didn't know Cinderella or care about her problems. The FOX script writers didn't have time to develop a plot. By the postseason, it's too late.
The World Series didn't map to any of the dramatic molds that would facilitate an instant audience. It couldn't be Cinderella because no one knew her, and it couldn't be Good vs. Evil, Good Guy vs. Bad Guy or David vs. Goliath because the Giants weren't that kind of opponent. It couldn't be the story of the aging legend battling for the elusive championship, because Barry Bonds is so off-putting that few people would be any happier if he won.
So the World Series played out under unusually poor circumstances. The clubs didn't matter as much as the big media companies behind the games. Disney, which owns the Angels, won on the field. Off the field, FOX will have to decide if the World Series is worth the rights fees. On one hand, poor ratings forced FOX to run several make-good ads. On the other hand, FOX squeezed this lemon for everything it was worth, pitching its television shows, movies and recordings with every cutaway or center field shot it could find.
It really only matters to FOX how it goes with the movies, TV shows and recordings. Same with Disney. When the Angels were presented the World Series trophy on the field in Anaheim Sunday night, the Disney leaders and Angels front office people expressed themselves in the most lifeless and drearily rehearsed terms imaginable.
Ten years ago, Hollywood super-agent Michael Ovitz could tell Nike impresario Phil Knight that "sports is bigger than entertainment now." Sports lost that momentum with the baseball strike in 1994, along with the O.J. Simpson mess and an increasing frequency of stories that make the eyes roll. Now the sports media go into a lot of shadow boxing, working themselves up over characters like San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Terrell Owens while the audience just turns the channel to some other goofball.
For those who just can't resist the game, it's easier than ever to follow baseball. For about $250 per year, you can watch most of the major league games on television, go back and view condensed versions on the Internet, read every club's game notes and be quite well informed about all that occurs on the field. You can shut out all the obnoxious garble on the highlight shows and talk shows and just watch game after game. Baseball can be whatever the individual fan makes it.
And the fans who have kept the game between the lines were moved that the aging Giants, soon to lose manager Dusty Baker and a half-dozen older players, lost their last chance at a championship by blowing a 5-0 lead during the final innings of Game 6. They care that Bonds smashed the ball during the World Series or that Reggie Sanders struck out constantly or that the Angels played with remarkable resolve all season.
But the circle for that conversation keeps dwindling, year by year. Kids who used to skip school for the World Series now are skipping the World Series for some other reason.
It doesn't really matter what those reasons are. The public doesn't owe baseball an explanation. Baseball owes the public a game on which it can depend.
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