Pete Van Wieren called Braves games on television and radio from 1976-2008. In 2004, Van Wieren, who was affectionately known as “The Professor” for the research he did before every game, was inducted into the Braves Hall of Fame. He recalls when baseball took a backseat to no sport.
Growing up in New York, the World Series was the biggest sporting event of the year. I was in school in the 1950s and ’60s, and there were teachers who brought radios for the World Series games because they were played during the day. They would allow the class to listen. It was a big deal. You would rush home to catch the last few innings.
I can’t think of anything bigger than that. Obviously there were the football bowl games, and the NFL hadn’t really taken off like it has now, so the NFL championship wasn’t really that big. The NCAA Final Four was just getting going. I think the biggest sporting events were the World Series, the Kentucky Derby and the Indianapolis 500.
I guess the beginning of the change came when the Orioles and the Pirates played in the World Series in 1971 because that was the year that they played the occasional World Series game at night. I also think the fact that baseball is available all season long has diluted the interest in the World Series. During the ’50s and ’60s, the only baseball on television was the game of the week on Saturday. That was it.
The mystique also is gone a little because of interleague play. The National League and the American League were two very separate camps back in the days before interleague started. Even the All-Star game was a big deal. If you look at the box scores of All-Star games, everybody didn’t play in the All-Star games back then. The starters went nine innings because the league’s wanted to win those games so bad.
They called it the “Golden Age” for a reason. That was a great time to be a fan of baseball. You had the three New York teams, and they were very, very competitive with each other. There was a mystique to it.
And when you’ve got a World Series game coming on at 8 o’clock at night and you have an NFL game coming on at 8 o’clock at night, you’re going to have a split audience. There was never any competition for the World Series games when they were on during the day. I mean that was the thing to watch.
When you look at the Tiger-Red Sox game that started the ALCS this year … it was a 1-0 game that lasted 3 hours and 56 minutes, and so it was midnight before it was over. The younger fan is pretty far gone from the mix of watching the World Series.
I would love to see the weekend games go back to day games. I think they’re a little afraid of competing with all the football there. But I would love to give the younger fan the opportunity to watch.
