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HDTV will revive MLB
Wed, Jun 10 2009 08:22 PM
| television, baseball
| Permalink
As a baseball fan, I contracted MLB attention deficit 25 years ago, when we moved to Indianapolis. I grew up a Washington Senators fan. After they moved away (twice), I moved to New York, where I learned the joy of following a winner in the Yankees.
When we came to Indy, I thought I would latch on to a regional team. One problem was that I'd always been an American Leaguer and the ChiSox made building loyalty tough. I thought the Cubs were for dilettantes. The Reds have been through a rough patch or two.
While I make a good many Indianapolis Indians games, the team's frequent changes in affiliation has made allegiance to the parent club impossible. That's especially true now that I'd have to struggle through the Pirates' box score every day.
Without a real stake in the pennant races, my TV game viewing dwindled to not much more than the playoffs. Those games were always tainted by broadcast network hype: tearjerker stories, blizzards of display technology and endless series of stats intended to be poignant but in general were pointless.
So I just didn't watch much baseball outside Victory Field.
Until HDTV.
With high definition, the rerun season leaves me free to see the constantly comforting beauty that is baseball. The grass looks like grass, not a carpet; the standard pitcher-to-batter frame allows much more detail than football can show and as much as golf – how the pitcher ball grips the ball, how the catcher flashes signals and changes position; how the batters' eyes follow the trajectory. Plays, especially in the infield, are clear and dramatic.
It's not too much distortion to say that the appeal of baseball on TV has been transformed by HD. And at this point, I don't care too much what teams are playing. I want to see the park and the players and fans, live and in person.
When we came to Indy, I thought I would latch on to a regional team. One problem was that I'd always been an American Leaguer and the ChiSox made building loyalty tough. I thought the Cubs were for dilettantes. The Reds have been through a rough patch or two.
While I make a good many Indianapolis Indians games, the team's frequent changes in affiliation has made allegiance to the parent club impossible. That's especially true now that I'd have to struggle through the Pirates' box score every day.
Without a real stake in the pennant races, my TV game viewing dwindled to not much more than the playoffs. Those games were always tainted by broadcast network hype: tearjerker stories, blizzards of display technology and endless series of stats intended to be poignant but in general were pointless.
So I just didn't watch much baseball outside Victory Field.
Until HDTV.
With high definition, the rerun season leaves me free to see the constantly comforting beauty that is baseball. The grass looks like grass, not a carpet; the standard pitcher-to-batter frame allows much more detail than football can show and as much as golf – how the pitcher ball grips the ball, how the catcher flashes signals and changes position; how the batters' eyes follow the trajectory. Plays, especially in the infield, are clear and dramatic.
It's not too much distortion to say that the appeal of baseball on TV has been transformed by HD. And at this point, I don't care too much what teams are playing. I want to see the park and the players and fans, live and in person.
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