tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/world-series-22030/articlesWorld Series – The Conversation2022-10-27T12:27:53Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1930062022-10-27T12:27:53Z2022-10-27T12:27:53ZThe first televised World Series spurred America’s television boom, 75 years ago<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491965/original/file-20221026-21-k03uax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=47%2C59%2C3898%2C2780&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An estimated 3.5 million Americans viewed the first televised World Series at bars, restaurants and storefronts.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/crowd-watching-world-series-game-on-tv-set-in-window-of-news-photo/515248870?phrase=crowd gazing in window at television new york&adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Boston Red Sox catcher Carlton Fisk <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WRi6iZAl-I">desperately waving at his home run to stay in play</a>. Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Kirk Gibson <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZzGkoXlaTM">pumping his arms</a> as he hobbles around second base after muscling a home run off Dennis Eckersley, the Oakland A’s dominant closer. The ground ball hit by New York Mets outfielder Mookie Wilson <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpyJjecJnuI">skipping through the legs</a> of Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner. </p>
<p>Some of the most dramatic images in World Series history are ingrained in the minds of baseball fans thanks to television coverage. This year’s World Series between the Philadelphia Phillies and Houston Astros will surely bring another timeless highlight to the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/03/2021-world-series-ratings-braves-astros-game-6-draws-14point3-million.html">12 million or so viewers</a> expected to watch. </p>
<p>Yet the first 43 World Series weren’t televised at all. It wasn’t until the 1947 series between the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers – 75 years ago – that fans could watch their favorite players duke it out on screen. </p>
<p>As I detail in my book “<a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/bison-original/9780803248250/">Center Field Shot: A History of Baseball on Television</a>,” which I co-authored with Robert Bellamy, the telecasts became a sensation. They drew millions of Americans to a new medium at a time when there were no national networks, only a handful of stations and somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000 TVs in the entire country.</p>
<h2>Negotiations go down to the wire</h2>
<p>In August 1947, the television industry anticipated a possible all-New York World Series: The Yankees had a huge lead in the American League, while the Dodgers also held a substantial one in the National League. </p>
<p>If the two teams met in October, New York’s three television stations – run by NBC ABC, and the now-extinct <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/DuMont-Television-Network">DuMont</a> – decided they wanted to cover the games.</p>
<p>But the rights to televise the games were held by the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mutual-Broadcasting-System">Mutual Broadcasting System</a>, a radio network that had no television division. Thus, Mutual would need to farm out the coverage to one or more New York stations. </p>
<p>Although no national television network existed at the time, NBC, DuMont and CBS did have the means to link stations on the Eastern Seaboard through a combination of coaxial cable, microwave and over-the-air broadcast transmissions, expanding the potential audience for the World Series. The Series would air on eight stations in four markets: New York City, Philadelphia, Washington and Schenectady, New York.</p>
<p>While the Yankees-Dodgers series materialized, the televising of the Series almost didn’t. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Boy hawking souvenir programs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491966/original/file-20221026-21-dnupqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491966/original/file-20221026-21-dnupqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491966/original/file-20221026-21-dnupqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491966/original/file-20221026-21-dnupqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491966/original/file-20221026-21-dnupqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491966/original/file-20221026-21-dnupqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491966/original/file-20221026-21-dnupqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Broadcasters got their wish when the New York Yankees faced the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1947 World Series.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/new-york-ny-yankee-and-dodger-fans-are-jamming-the-yankee-news-photo/515585048?phrase=boy%20selling%20souvenir%20programs&adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The predictable stumbling block was money. Baseball commissioner <a href="https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/chandler-happy">Albert B. “Happy” Chandler</a> wanted $100,000 for the television rights to the Series. Gillette, the sponsor of the radio coverage on the Mutual Broadcasting System, balked at the steep price given television’s limited penetration – only 50,000 to 60,000 U.S. households owned TVs at the time. The radio rights to reach the nation’s 29 million homes with radios had cost Mutual only $175,000. </p>
<p>Initial negotiations produced an offer of $60,000 from two sponsors: Gillette and the Ford Motor Company. New York’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Liebmann">Liebmann Breweries</a> offered to meet Chandler’s $100,000 demand, but the commissioner refused because he did not want beer ads when youngsters would be prominent members of the audience.</p>
<p>Even before a coverage deal had been finalized, bars, restaurants, television dealers, department stores, automobile dealerships and movie theaters started advertising the event, urging customers to come by to watch the World Series on television. And in the days and weeks leading up to the Fall Classic, the demand for television sets spiked. </p>
<p>The excitement pressured Chandler and the sponsors to reach a compromise. </p>
<p>Finally, on Sept. 26, just four days before Game 1 at Yankee Stadium, Chandler, Gillette and Ford <a href="https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-BC/BC-1947/1947-10-06-BC.pdf">agreed to $65,000 for the rights to televise the World Series</a>. Production costs added another $35,000 to the sponsors’ bill. Mutual, Gillette and Ford also agreed to allow all three New York TV stations and those connected to them to broadcast the game, providing the widest possible exposure.</p>
<h2>An unexpectedly strong response</h2>
<p>Initial industry estimates had the Series reaching between 600,000 and 700,000 viewers, many of them located in the bars and restaurants where a substantial number of the nation’s first television receivers were located. </p>
<p>But that forecast ended up being conservative. Although home viewing for the seven games was substantial – 450,000 in a <a href="https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Billboard/40s/1947/BB-1947-10-18.pdf">Hooper rating survey commissioned by Billboard</a> – the out-of-home viewing numbers were extraordinary: Another 3.5 million were estimated to have viewed the World Series in public locales. </p>
<p>Hooper’s survey found that an average of 82 customers showed up at each of these public locations to watch at least some of the World Series. Variety reported that bar owners saw a 500% increase in patrons during the Series, with some offering reservations to their regulars for a choice location near the TV set.</p>
<p>What viewers from those choice seats saw was primitive by today’s standards. The screen was usually small – 12 diagonal inches or less. The low-definition images were black and white and came from just a few cameras. No extreme close-ups were possible. There was no instant replay, so fans had to pay attention or the moment was lost. </p>
<p>But for the first time, they were seeing the World Series live, and for free.</p>
<h2>The TV industry’s World Series bump</h2>
<p>The audience liked what they saw. <a href="https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Billboard/40s/1947/BB-1947-10-11.pdf">Billboard</a>, quoting The Newark Evening News, reported that TV “audiences hung on every turn of the video cameras and the ‘oohs and aahs’ at a slide or strikeout were something radio broadcasters would give their eye teeth to hear.” </p>
<p>It didn’t hurt that <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/postseason/1947_WS.shtml">the 1947 World Series</a> ended up being so dramatic. The Yankees prevailed in seven games, but Brooklyn owned the two greatest moments.</p>
<p>In the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 4, Dodgers pitch hitter <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWjpOAy5zCM">Cookie Lavagetto ended Yankee starter Bill Biven’s no-hit bid</a> with a two-out hit, driving in two runs and sending the Dodgers to a 3-2 win. Then, in Game 6, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SrtxVs8uMI">Al Gionfriddo’s stunning catch of Joe DiMaggio’s deep drive to left field</a> helped preserve an 8-6 Dodgers victory, leading legendary Dodgers broadcaster <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Red_Barber.html?id=lWhgEAAAQBAJ">Red Barber</a> to exclaim, “Oh, Doctor!”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oWjpOAy5zCM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Cookie Lavagetto’s double won the game for the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 4.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Washington broadcasts even reached the White House, where President Harry S. Truman, his staff and the D.C. press corps watched some of the contests. The <a href="https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Televiser/Televiser-1947-09-10.pdf">industry magazine Televiser</a> reported an enthusiastic response from the White House viewers: “If TV can do as good a job as that on perhaps the most difficult of all subjects to televise, then it really has arrived.” </p>
<p>The public’s embrace of the World Series on television, along with the generous coverage of the telecasts by the press, provided an important boost to the nascent television industry. The Sporting News reported that the first televised World Series increased sales for new receivers in New York to levels not seen since the early days of radio. Similar reports came from dealers in Washington and Philadelphia.</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sarnoff">David Sarnoff</a>, chairman of RCA – which owed NBC and was a leading manufacturer of receivers – regarded television’s coverage of baseball and its crowning event, the World Series, as one of the most important factors in triggering the growth of the new medium. </p>
<p>Television makers, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Center_Field_Shot.html?id=6kPQhpS-X8YC">he concluded</a>, “had to have baseball games and if [baseball owners] had demanded millions for the rights, we would have had to give it to them.” </p>
<p>The television industry eventually did pay millions and then billions for those rights. <a href="https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2018/11/15/Media/MLB-Fox.aspx">Fox’s latest seven-year contract</a>, including rights to the World Series, pays Major League Baseball $5.1 billion. </p>
<p>Happy Chandler’s 1947 demand for a $100,000 seems like quite a bargain today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193006/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Just five days before the first pitch of the 1947 World Series, a deal was struck to air the Series on television.James Walker, Emeritus Professor of Communication, Saint Xavier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1572032021-04-25T14:09:07Z2021-04-25T14:09:07ZPandemic Moneyball: How COVID-19 has affected baseball odds<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395141/original/file-20210414-15-clxu08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=56%2C7%2C4644%2C3122&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The 2020 World Series featured two teams at opposite ends of the salary spectrum: the Los Angeles Dodgers and Tampa Bay Rays. The richer Dodgers were the winners.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 250px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/ad-auris/pandemic-moneyball--how-covid-19-has-affected-baseball-odds" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The ground-breaking 2004 book <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/403233/moneyball-by-michael-lewis/9780393324815"><em>Moneyball</em> by Michael Lewis</a> exposed the use of advanced baseball statistics by the Oakland A’s and the team’s general manager, Billy Beane, to excel in the competitive Major League Baseball marketplace. The book resulted in the resurgence of the use of data analytics tools in MLB and then other sports.</p>
<p>I’m a baseball fan, but in my day job I research game theory as it’s applied to financial situations and data analytics. So I was curious to understand the lasting impact of the “Moneyball effect” on baseball. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.omega.2018.11.010">My research examined the “arms race” among MLB teams</a> and how they tried to gain a strategic advantage by using proprietary data tools.</p>
<p>The successful implementation of data analytics by the Oakland Athletics to find undervalued players explained why the team made it to the playoffs each year between 2000 and 2003, despite having one of the lowest payrolls in MLB.</p>
<p>Ironically, the loss of this strategic advantage by the A’s is related to the publication of <em>Moneyball</em> — which became a larger cultural phenomenon when <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1210166/">a movie by the same name</a> (starring Brad Pitt as Billy Beane) was released in 2011.</p>
<h2>A tool used by all teams now</h2>
<p>Before the book was published in 2004, only five MLB teams had established an analytics department within their organizations. By 2017, all 30 teams were using advanced analytics to assess player performance.</p>
<p><a href="https://bleacherreport.com/articles/961412-mlb-power-rankings-all-30-mlb-teams-by-market-size">Small-market teams</a> like Oakland lost their competitive advantage as richer teams like the Los Angeles Dodgers, Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs added advanced analytics to their toolkits. </p>
<p>It’s one thing to be a Moneyball team; it’s another to be a Moneyball team with money. Not only can the richer large-market teams <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/12/trevor-bauers-102-million-deal-with-the-dodgers-is-unique-heres-why.html">go after the best players</a>, but they can also <a href="https://grantland.com/the-triangle/andrew-friedman-leaves-tampa-bay-rays-for-los-angeles-dodgers-impact/">poach key front office people</a> from the poorer teams.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Billy Beane talks to one of the Oakland Athletics baseball players" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395382/original/file-20210415-17-xu3wbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395382/original/file-20210415-17-xu3wbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395382/original/file-20210415-17-xu3wbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395382/original/file-20210415-17-xu3wbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395382/original/file-20210415-17-xu3wbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395382/original/file-20210415-17-xu3wbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395382/original/file-20210415-17-xu3wbd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Oakland Athletics minority owner and executive vice-president Billy Beane, right, talks with players before a playoff baseball game in 2018. When Beane was general manager of the A’s in the late 1990s, he was the first baseball executive to embrace the use of advanced analytics to assess the value of baseball players.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Bill Kostroun)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Consequently, it’s not an accident the Dodgers have appeared in three of the last five World Series — including their win in 2020. The fact that their opponents last year, the small-market Tampa Bay Rays, even made it to the World Series is nothing short of a miracle.</p>
<h2>The ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’</h2>
<p>One of the problems with baseball’s asymmetric payrolls means teams can be divided into “haves” and “have nots” (with a few franchises falling into a middle group). And those “have nots” now have another issue to deal with: the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on baseball revenue.</p>
<p>No spectators were allowed at MLB regular-season games last year and each team has taken <a href="https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/baseball-fans-return-for-2021-mlb-season-every-teams-opening-day-plan-for-in-person-attendance/">a different approach to fans in the stands</a> this season. But in most cases, teams will limit attendance to allow social distancing among the fans.</p>
<p>While all teams will see a loss of gate revenue because of the pandemic, poorer teams will suffer more. Richer MLB teams have <a href="https://blogs.fangraphs.com/lets-update-the-estimated-local-tv-revenue-for-mlb-teams/">other sources of income</a> and substantially larger financial resources, enabling them to weather the storm better than the “have nots.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Pitcher Trevor Bauer is shown pitching in a game" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395886/original/file-20210419-23-2d4v04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395886/original/file-20210419-23-2d4v04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395886/original/file-20210419-23-2d4v04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395886/original/file-20210419-23-2d4v04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395886/original/file-20210419-23-2d4v04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395886/original/file-20210419-23-2d4v04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395886/original/file-20210419-23-2d4v04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 2020 World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers improved their pitching this year by signing one of the top free agents: Trevor Bauer’s three-year, $102-million deal makes him one of the the highest-paid players per-year in sports.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>MLB teams <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2020/12/22/mlb-teams-lost-1-billion-in-2020/?sh=4e038bf017d7">lost US$1 billion in 2020</a>, compared to a profit of $1.5 billion in 2019. <em>Forbes</em> magazine has estimated MLB’s total revenues dropped to $4 billion last year from $10.5 billion in 2019.</p>
<p>And the pandemic has also had an impact on a revenue-sharing program that was first established by MLB in 1996 to lessen the economic inequalities between “have” and “have not” teams. The program was suspended last year and is <a href="https://theathletic.com/2430585/2021/03/08/mlb-is-loaning-teams-money-to-fund-2021-revenue-sharing-but-repayment-is-debated/">only happening in a limited capacity this year</a>. </p>
<h2>Dodgers top total payroll</h2>
<p>To better understand the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots,” let’s look at the <a href="https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/">2021 MLB payrolls</a>. The Dodgers are at the top with a total payroll of almost US$250 million while Cleveland is at the bottom with at $49.7 million.</p>
<p>The teams that won the World Series in the past five years (the Cubs, Astros, Red Sox, Nationals and Dodgers) are all in the top third of total payroll in 2021. And eight out of the 10 teams that participated in the past five World Series are from the top third of total payroll in 2021 — the only two exceptions are Cleveland in 2016 and the Rays in 2020.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395140/original/file-20210414-15-to1prh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graph that shows the salary levels of all 30 Major League Baseball teams" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395140/original/file-20210414-15-to1prh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395140/original/file-20210414-15-to1prh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395140/original/file-20210414-15-to1prh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395140/original/file-20210414-15-to1prh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395140/original/file-20210414-15-to1prh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395140/original/file-20210414-15-to1prh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395140/original/file-20210414-15-to1prh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This chart shows the World Series champion L.A. Dodgers have a payroll almost twice the league average of US$130 million.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We already know small-market teams like Oakland no longer have a competitive advantage when it comes to using Moneyball analytics. So do they have any hope of winning it all during another season of pandemic baseball?</p>
<h2>What is the key to winning?</h2>
<p>To under the relationship between team salaries and the odds of winning the World Series, I did an analysis with <a href="https://www.infoworld.com/article/3394399/machine-learning-algorithms-explained.html">machine learning algorithms</a>. These type of algorithms create models that train themselves and learn from their mistakes in an iterative manner and can predict outcomes based on available data.</p>
<p>The analysis showed that a key metric is the payroll of a team’s <a href="https://www.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/26-man-roster">26-man active roster</a> — which is different than total payroll because it excludes salaries of injured, suspended or those no longer playing for the team but still being paid.</p>
<p>My model suggests that teams with an active-roster payroll of less than $50 million — specifically Cleveland ($49 million), Pittsburgh ($40.7 million), Baltimore ($24 million), Tampa Bay ($40 million), Texas ($47 million) and Detroit ($48 million) — have almost no statistical chance of winning the World Series.</p>
<p>Those with a payroll between $50 million and $150 million (teams like Miami, Arizona, Seattle, Oakland, Milwaukee, Colorado, Toronto, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Minnesota, Boston, White Sox, St. Louis, and Atlanta) have about a five per cent probability of winning it all.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395545/original/file-20210417-13-1dp2w6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graphic that shows the plot of an algorithm that predicts the impact of team salaries and the odds of winning the World Series" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395545/original/file-20210417-13-1dp2w6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395545/original/file-20210417-13-1dp2w6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395545/original/file-20210417-13-1dp2w6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395545/original/file-20210417-13-1dp2w6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395545/original/file-20210417-13-1dp2w6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395545/original/file-20210417-13-1dp2w6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395545/original/file-20210417-13-1dp2w6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author used machine learning algorithms to analyze how team salaries impact a team’s odds of winning the World Series. The conclusion: Richer teams have better probability of winning, but there’s not much difference between teams with a roster salary of US$150 million and those that are over $200 million.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Teams that are around the $150-million level are still at the same probability of five per cent. This includes San Francisco ($145 million), the Cubs ($145 million), Washington ($146 million) and Houston ($149 million).</p>
<h2>Money only goes so far</h2>
<p>But the model also suggests that once a team hits $150 million, the probability goes to 10 per cent and doesn’t go up even if salaries increase beyond that point.</p>
<p>This means the Dodgers, with a 26-man payroll of $211 million, are statistically no more likely to win the Series again this year than a team like the Mets with $152 million, San Diego with $155 million, Philadelphia with $160 million, the Yankees with $164 million and the Angels with $177 million.</p>
<p>It’s a tough time to be a small-market team in baseball. The Moneyball advantage is gone. COVID-19 has reduced revenue. And without a big payroll, it’s almost impossible to succeed. </p>
<p>What’s happening in baseball, it seems, is no different than what other business sectors are experiencing during the pandemic — the rich get richer and those less fortunate struggle to compete.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157203/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ramy Elitzur does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Twenty years ago, a few small-market Major League Baseball teams used advanced analytics as a secret weapon to compete with large-market teams. But the Moneyball effect is gone now.Ramy Elitzur, Associate Professor, Financial Analysis, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1232542019-10-16T11:27:14Z2019-10-16T11:27:14ZHow gambling built baseball – and then almost destroyed it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296947/original/file-20191014-135509-y6fct2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A team photograph of the 1919 Chicago White Sox squad, many of whom would be implicated in throwing that year's World Series.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/1919_Chicago_White_Sox.jpg">Heritage Auctions</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine if, after watching the thrilling victory of the Chicago Cubs in <a href="https://www.espn.com/mlb/recap?gameId=361102105">Game 7 of the 2016 World Series</a> over the Cleveland Indians – a game in which the Cubs won their first championship in over a century – you learned that the Indians had collaborated with gamblers to intentionally throw the series.</p>
<p>Would you trust the game, its umpires and its players, ever again?</p>
<p>That was the scope of the crisis that enveloped baseball a century ago, when key members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox, including pitchers Eddie Cicotte and Claude “Lefty” Williams, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Betrayal.html?id=O511CgAAQBAJ">conspired to throw the series to their opponents</a>, the Cincinnati Reds.</p>
<p>What became known as the “Black Sox Scandal” rocked professional baseball. But it wasn’t an aberration in a sport that was otherwise clean.</p>
<p>Baseball became America’s national pastime because of – and not in spite of – gambling.</p>
<h2>Gambling fuels baseball’s rise</h2>
<p>In his book “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Baseball_in_the_Garden_of_Eden.html?id=hh_ZK-b24C0C">Baseball in the Garden of Eden</a>,” historian John Thorn explains how gambling was far from an “impediment to the game’s flowering”; instead, it was “the vital fertilizer.”</p>
<p>In baseball’s infancy, the sport was thought of as a boy’s game. But over the course of the 19th century, gambling deepened adult interest and investment in the sport, attracting cohorts of older fans.</p>
<p>Gambling’s popularity was helped along by the spread of statistics, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=mTvDDAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=history+of+baseball+and+statistics&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwidhvuDjZzlAhUImeAKHa7jC5gQ6AEwBHoECAYQAg#v=onepage&q&f=false">that particular lifeblood of baseball that still keeps fans hooked today</a>. Developed initially to allow the results of a game to be printed onto the page <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312322236">in the form of box scores</a>, statistics also created a pool of data that gamblers could use to inform their bets – many of which were made from the stands, in the middle of games.</p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ZCo95RGsyo0C&pg=PA122&dq=fenway+1912+rabid+contingent&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiMkKftjZzlAhXnYN8KHUjCCkIQ6AEwAHoECAAQAg#v=onepage&q=fenway%201912%20rabid%20contingent&f=false">In his history of Fenway Park</a>, Glenn Stout describes how, in the ballpark’s early years, “the best seats were quickly taken over by a rabid contingent of gamblers who bet on absolute everything imaginable, ranging from the eventual winner … to ball and strike calls” and “even such arcane issues as whether the wind would change direction.” Fans waving dollar bills and barking out bets resembled “brokers on the floor of the stock exchange.”</p>
<p>This kind of gambling was so common in the stands that Ernest Lawrence Thayer’s iconic 1888 poem, “<a href="https://poets.org/poem/casey-bat">Casey at the Bat</a>,” captured such a moment in one of its stanzas: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“A straggling few got up to go in deep despair.</p>
<p>The rest clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;</p>
<p>They thought, "If only Casey could but get a whack at that –</p>
<p>We’d put up even money now with Casey at the bat.” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Playing to lose</h2>
<p>Some players also sought to get in on the action.</p>
<p>In 1919, <a href="https://sabr.org/research/mlbs-annual-salary-leaders-1874-2012">the highest-paid player</a> was Detroit Tigers outfielder Ty Cobb, who earned US$20,000 – which equates to roughly $300,000 today, or less than <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/256187/minimum-salary-of-players-in-major-league-baseball/">Major League Baseball’s current minimum salary</a>.</p>
<p>Most of Cobb’s peers earned far less than the future Hall of Famer. Working with gamblers was an attractive way to supplement their incomes – and many of them did.</p>
<p>One of the most notorious was first baseman Hal Chase. Dubbed the “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=xjp8DAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=black+prince+of+baseball&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiEv8KskZzlAhXjRt8KHUHGAx4Q6AEwAHoECAEQAg#v=onepage&q=black%20prince%20of%20baseball&f=false">Black Prince of Baseball</a>” by baseball historians Donald Dewey and Nicholas Acocella, Chase made a veritable career out of throwing games. Playing mostly with the New York Highlanders, Chase, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Betrayal.html?id=O511CgAAQBAJ">as Charles Fountain noted</a>, “threw games for money, he threw games for spite, he threw games as a favor for friends, he threw games apparently for no reason at all other than to stay in practice.” </p>
<p>But this wasn’t the kind of gambling that brought baseball to the brink of disaster in 1919. That scandal saw the players themselves – working in tandem with professional gamblers and gangsters – fix the World Series. </p>
<p>The 1919 World Series <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Betrayal.html?id=O511CgAAQBAJ">was the best-attended Series</a> at that point in the game’s history, but the play of the White Sox turned the games into elaborate theatrical performances.</p>
<p>Those in on it had to play to lose, <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/postseason/1919_WS.shtml">and the statistics are telling</a>. </p>
<p>Shortstop Swede Risberg hit .080 – not a typo – while committing four fielding errors. Outfielder Happy Felsch didn’t do much better, hitting .192, with just five hits in 26 at-bats. He also committed two errors. Pitcher Claude “Lefty” Williams surrendered 12 runs in 16.1 innings of work.</p>
<p>While the players tried to pull off authentic performances for fans, they weren’t always successful. Felsch <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Betrayal.html?id=O511CgAAQBAJ">was chided by his fellow cheaters</a> for his blunders in center, which they deemed too obvious. </p>
<p>Fundamentally, however, the games lacked the core drama and appeal of sports: the uncertainty of the outcome. </p>
<p>Sportswriters took notice. Rumors were already flying in the press box before the World Series’ conclusion that something was wrong. Sports journalist Hugh Fullerton had heard these rumors when he arrived to cover the series, though he tried to convince himself – and his readers – that the story couldn’t be true. Still, once the series ended, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vqbROoIZmJsC&pg=PA66&lpg=PA66&dq=%22Yesterday%27s,+in+all+probability,+is+the+last+game+that+will+be+played+in+any+World+Series.%22&source=bl&ots=uFbmG3GEqH&sig=ACfU3U0AN9Ms1uO0eUiq7eFhvtYtA5HWZw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjFlo_3lZzlAhXMm-AKHeBAA4UQ6AEwAHoECAUQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Yesterday's%2C%20in%20all%20probability%2C%20is%20the%20last%20game%20that%20will%20be%20played%20in%20any%20World%20Series.%22&f=false">Fullerton wrote worriedly</a> in the Chicago Herald and Examiner that “Yesterday’s, in all probability, is the last game that will be played in any World Series.”</p>
<p>Fullerton kept pursuing the story and became the first sportswriter to break the details to the public in December 1919, with an article in the New York World entitled, “<a href="https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Uncovering+the+Fix+of+the+1919+World+Series%3A+the+role+of+Hugh...-a0127279569">Is Big League Baseball Being Run for Gamblers, with Players In on the Deal?</a>” </p>
<p>As more details emerged, the scandal overwhelmed the sport and threatened to destroy it. If the World Series itself, baseball’s premier event, could not be trusted, how would the sport survive? </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296967/original/file-20191014-135495-1uy58cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296967/original/file-20191014-135495-1uy58cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296967/original/file-20191014-135495-1uy58cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296967/original/file-20191014-135495-1uy58cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296967/original/file-20191014-135495-1uy58cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296967/original/file-20191014-135495-1uy58cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296967/original/file-20191014-135495-1uy58cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kenesaw_Mountain_Landis_Portrait.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The new baseball commissioner, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kenesaw-Mountain-Landis">Kenesaw Mountain Landis</a>, acted decisively and independently of the courts. Even after the players were acquitted in a trial that ended on Aug. 2, 1921, Landis – a former federal judge – had already made his decision.</p>
<p>“Regardless of the verdict of juries,” <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/white-sox/ct-flashback-buck-weaver-black-sox-spt-0705-20150703-story.html">he announced, on the morning of Aug. 3, 1921</a>, “no player that throws a ball game; no player that undertakes or promises to throw a ball game; no player that sits in a conference … where the ways and means of throwing games are discussed and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball.” </p>
<p>The stunned White Sox players – including stars like “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, who had hit .375 in the series but was nonetheless aware of what his teammates were up to – were banned from baseball for life. </p>
<h2>The specter of 1919</h2>
<p>Seventy years later, commissioner Bart Giamatti acted in a similarly swift and punitive manner when he banned all-time hits leader Pete Rose from baseball in 1989.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/41spT5xklx4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Bart Giamatti calls the banishment of Pete Rose ‘the sad end to a sorry episode’ in a 1989 news conference.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rose had admitted to gambling on his own games, even as a manager. <a href="https://www.vvdailypress.com/article/20140827/sports/140829828">Some thought Giamatti overreacted</a>, given that Rose never bet against his own team.</p>
<p>That argument, as historian Bruce Kuklick wrote <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vl_fP1CoYBoC&pg=PA176&lpg=PA176&dq=%22Writing+the+History+of+Practice:+The+Humanities+and+Baseball,+with+a+Nod+to+Wrestling%22&source=bl&ots=LTrMM1MzjG&sig=ACfU3U29aCUv984TqdSA959MrqPgw-VKUg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiv_euimpzlAhVJn-AKHSA8CrwQ6AEwAHoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Writing%20the%20History%20of%20Practice%3A%20The%20Humanities%20and%20Baseball%2C%20with%20a%20Nod%20to%20Wrestling%22&f=false">in a 1999 essay</a>, doesn’t hold up. Rose, he points out, didn’t bet on every game. It’s not inconceivable, then, that he would make decisions during games in which he didn’t place bets – say, not bringing in his best relief pitcher – to make sure that reliever would be available for the games he did bet on. </p>
<p>Giamatti surely had 1919 on his mind when he meted out Rose’s punishment. With the game having barely escaped death once, Giamatti knew that organized baseball couldn’t risk skating too close to that edge again. </p>
<p>And yet in August of this year, Major League Baseball made FanDuel – a daily fantasy sports gambling service – <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/15/major-league-baseball-and-fanduel-strike-sports-betting-deal.html">its official gambling partner</a>.</p>
<p>It may be that baseball hopes that gambling will bring more adults back to the sport, just as it did in its early days. After all, <a href="https://www.ticketnews.com/2019/10/mlb-attendance-drops-to-16-year-attendance-low-this-season/">attendance at games is down</a>. Football, meanwhile, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nfl-ratings-most-watched-sports-events-2018-2019-1">has become the most watched sport on television</a> in the U.S. <a href="http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000001028939/article/record-nashville-crowd-hosts-mostwatched-draft">Six million viewers</a> even tuned in for the 2019 NFL Draft.</p>
<p>Gambling may fuel more interest in the sport. But throwing on more fuel can result in a fire that burns out of control. In 1919, baseball came close to burning its own house down. One hundred years later, journalist Hugh Fullerton would surely be stunned to know that big league baseball has once again made a contract with gamblers, in full view of both players and fans.</p>
<p>Let’s hope the story doesn’t end in scandal this time around.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123254/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Edwards does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Up until the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, gambling and baseball had a marriage of convenience. A century later, gambling is again being seen as a solution to the sport’s woes.Rebecca Edwards, Professor of History, Rochester Institute of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/859562017-10-24T00:13:40Z2017-10-24T00:13:40ZThe psychology of the clutch athlete<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191427/original/file-20171023-1748-1wtcmdw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who will emerge as this year's David Freese?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/World-Series-Rangers-Cardinals-Baseball/13d5aed4c5cc4b6da70ca0aed797e47c/52/0">Eric Gay/AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“I don’t know. It’s unbelievable. It’s amazing,” <a href="http://m.mlb.com/news/article/259108988/dodgers-rout-cubs-win-nlcs-make-world-series/?game_pk=526508">said</a> Dodgers outfielder Enrique “Kiké” Hernandez after game 5 of the National League Championship Series, when he became the first Dodger in the team’s 134-year history to hit three home runs in a postseason game.</p>
<p>This should automatically vault Hernandez to a status as one of the greatest Dodgers of all time, right? Up there with Roy Campanella, Duke Snider and Jackie Robinson? </p>
<p>Well, actually, <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hernaen02.shtml">Hernandez has a lifetime .236 batting average</a>. In the 2017 regular season he hit just .217, and in 297 at-bats managed just 11 home runs. On Oct. 19, he hit three in four at-bats.</p>
<p>It seems like during every playoffs, an unsung hero emerges. For every <a href="https://www.si.com/mlb/2014/10/30/madison-bumgarner-giants-world-series-mathewson-burdette-gibson">Madison Bumgarner</a>, there’s an actual bum – a player whose name will never come up in a Hall of Fame debate – who rises to the moment, and delivers on the game’s biggest stage.</p>
<p>What state of mind does an athlete need to be in to pull off a clutch performance? Are some players more likely than others to be clutch, or could anyone do it? In my <a href="https://csunsportpsychlab.wordpress.com">sport psychology lab</a> at California State University, Northridge, my students and I have tested these questions in an experimental setting.</p>
<h2>It’s all in the head</h2>
<p>We define a clutch performance as any better-than-usual performance that occurs under pressure, and <a href="http://www.humankinetics.com/acucustom/sitename/Documents/DocumentItem/17427.pdf">our research suggests</a> that anyone can be clutch – provided they’re in the right mental state. </p>
<p>For example, feeling like you’re in control of the situation – in sports or anything else – can help a lot. In our lab, we tested hundreds of basketball free-throw shooters, both novices and experts. After they warmed up, we asked them to take 15 shots while we videotaped them (to simulate pressure). Afterward, we gave them a questionnaire; those who indicated that they had felt in control were the most likely to succeed under pressure.</p>
<p>In Hernandez’s case, perhaps he expected Cubs pitcher Jose Quintana to throw a low fastball before he hit his first home run. He had read the scouting report, and he knew what to look for. If so, he would have felt like he had a better handle on the situation. He was more in control. </p>
<p>Confidence also helps. In our study, before it began, we asked the basketball players about their free-throw shooting abilities. Those who expressed the most confidence – whether they were a novice or an expert – also tended to be more clutch.</p>
<p>Once that first home run flew over the fence, Hernandez probably realized that he could hit a home run off the Cubs, and not only that, he could do it under the pressure of a postseason game. That .217 regular season average? Irrelevant. By the time his second home run soared into the stands, he was probably brimming with the confidence of <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/postseason/1952_WS.shtml">Duke Snider in the 1952 World Series</a>.</p>
<p>So while experience and expertise are helpful, feelings of confidence and control – which come and go – also play a big role. The pressure of the playoffs can change everything, with some players, regardless of ability, responding differently than others.</p>
<h2>David Ortiz and… David Freese?</h2>
<p>Let’s take a look at some of baseball’s recent postseason hitting stars. Most fans probably remember Red Sox slugger David Ortiz’s <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/o/ortizda01.shtml#all_batting_postseason">post-season heroics</a>. </p>
<p>But then there are lesser-known post-season stars like Cody Ross and Edgar Renteria (2010 Giants). In 2011 for the Cardinals, it was David Freese; in 2016, the Cubs’ Ben Zobrist nabbed the World Series MVP award. For fans of these teams, these guys will always be remembered. For anyone else, their names might not ring a bell.</p>
<p>Why does it seem like our offensive heroes sometimes seem to come out of nowhere?</p>
<p>A few years ago, grad student <a href="http://prdlab.gatech.edu/personnel/barrett/">Matthew Barrett</a> and I <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1469029213000265">scanned 109 years of baseball statistics</a> to try to answer this question. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191441/original/file-20171023-32494-1bbz8wl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191441/original/file-20171023-32494-1bbz8wl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191441/original/file-20171023-32494-1bbz8wl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191441/original/file-20171023-32494-1bbz8wl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191441/original/file-20171023-32494-1bbz8wl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191441/original/file-20171023-32494-1bbz8wl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191441/original/file-20171023-32494-1bbz8wl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">San Francisco Giants outfielder Cody Ross celebrates after hitting a home run during the 2010 National League Championship Series against the Philadelphia Phillies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-NLCS-Giants-Phillies-Baseball/e65da4b04fa247d8b375f433d99e3779/41/0">Rob Carr/AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To eliminate small samples from biasing our results too much, we set a minimum of 20 postseason at-bats for a player to qualify. For pitchers, we set the minimum at 10 playoff innings pitched in a single postseason. This left us with 1,731 hitters and 835 pitchers to study from across history.</p>
<p>What did we find? If someone had a good regular season at the plate, he was more likely to perform well in the post-season (measured by batting average; correlation: .17). If a pitcher threw well during the season, it was also more likely that he would have a solid postseason performance. The relationship for pitchers, however, was slightly stronger (measured by <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Earned_run_average">ERA</a>; correlation: .28). </p>
<p>The difference between these correlations didn’t blow us away. But the take-home message was clear: it’s likely that a good pitcher will be the same player during the postseason. For hitters, it’s less predictable.</p>
<p>There’s a <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/019188699390113H">sport psychology theory</a> to back this up. Hitting a baseball, <a href="https://sites.psu.edu/siowfa16/2016/10/18/is-hitting-a-baseball-the-hardest-thing-to-do-in-sports/">it’s been argued</a>, is one of the hardest things to do in all of sports. Pitching – while by no means easy – is a bit less reliant on finely timed hand-eye coordination. <a href="http://www.humankinetics.com/acucustom/sitename/Documents/DocumentItem/17427.pdf">In our research</a> on pressure-induced athletic performance, motor skills like hitting were found to be more susceptible to fluctuations, good or bad.</p>
<p>During the 2017 Fall Classic, who will be the next Enrique Hernandez? It probably depends on who’s feeling the most confident and in control. It’s also more likely to be a hitter.</p>
<p>A star like Astros second baseman José Altuve might continue to build off of his successful postseason run. But a lesser-known player – say, <a href="http://m.mlb.com/player/523253/logan-forsythe">Logan Forsythe</a> or <a href="http://m.mlb.com/player/594828/evan-gattis">Evan Gattis</a> – could be just as likely to break out, and cement himself in post-season lore.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85956/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Otten does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What makes someone more likely to succeed when the lights shine brightest?Mark Otten, Associate Professor of Psychology, California State University, NorthridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/684252016-12-01T18:47:06Z2016-12-01T18:47:06ZWhy people love to delude themselves with sports rituals and superstitions<p>What do <a href="http://www.nba.com/video/channels/playoffs/finals/2016/06/22/lebron-james-big-block-on-iggy-game7.nba">Lebron James</a>, a <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/bloody-lucky-halfpenny-does-the-trick-for-western-bulldogs-in-grand-final-win-20161002-grt3p1.html">lucky coin</a> and a <a href="http://billygoattavern.com/legend/curse/">smelly goat</a> have in common? They are all part of a rich tradition of sports superstitions.</p>
<p>Both athletes and fans alike have looked towards these superstitions, rituals and curses for explanations about failures and successes. What is the science behind the belief that external forces can affect the outcome of a game? </p>
<p>As a psychologist who conducts research into <a href="http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=222832684890834;res=IELHSS">superstition</a> and gambling-related cultural beliefs, I have studied many theories, rituals, and quirks inherent in our ideas about <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/BF03342117">winning and losing</a>.</p>
<p>I’ve interviewed gamblers about <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2195-3007-3-9">their worldviews</a> and found their personal beliefs about luck and winning can be explained by the illusion of control, the gambler’s fallacy, and beliefs in luck and supernatural force.</p>
<h2>The end of a curse</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/">Chicago Cubs</a> won baseball’s <a href="http://m.mlb.com/news/article/207938228/chicago-cubs-win-2016-world-series/?topicid=148481184">World Series</a> this year for the first time since 1908. The 108-year-old drought was the longest in American professional sports.</p>
<p>When it comes to sports superstitions, the Cubs had arguably the richest and most colourful collection of <a href="http://www.livescience.com/32802-are-the-chicago-cubs-really-cursed.html">curses</a>. The best known of these is the <a href="http://billygoattavern.com/legend/curse/">Curse of the Billy Goat</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147105/original/image-20161123-19717-1kp45zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147105/original/image-20161123-19717-1kp45zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147105/original/image-20161123-19717-1kp45zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147105/original/image-20161123-19717-1kp45zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147105/original/image-20161123-19717-1kp45zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147105/original/image-20161123-19717-1kp45zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147105/original/image-20161123-19717-1kp45zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147105/original/image-20161123-19717-1kp45zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/guano/3445082392">Flickr/John</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The curse was allegedly cast during the 1945 World Series by fan Billy Sianis after he was ejected from the Cub’s Wrigley Field homeground in Chicago because others complained about the smell of his pet goat. The Cubs would not reach the World Series again for more than <a href="http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/chc/history/postseason_results.jsp">70 years</a>.</p>
<p>Our attempts to control the most uncontrollable of events are reflected in the work of cultural anthropologist, <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Magic_Science_and_Religion_and_Other_Ess.html?id=wlF-CgAAQBAJ&source=kp_cover&redir_esc=y&hl=en">Bronislaw Malinowski</a>.</p>
<h2>Rituals and superstitions</h2>
<p>Malinowski found that Melanesia’s Trobriand Islanders used rituals and superstitions to gain imaginary control over events that had uncertain outcomes, but did not use rituals at other times.</p>
<p>Trobriand Islanders practised rituals to soothe the gods of the ocean and pray for a bountiful catch before venturing out to rough waters beyond the safety of the coral reefs, for example, but performed no rituals or prayers for when fishing in bountiful tide pools where their results were guaranteed. </p>
<p>In baseball, players have direct control over the game, to some extent, by choosing certain plays or strategies. Yet player rituals and superstitions are common, including tugging uniform sleeves in a certain way, tapping the home plate three times, kissing a religious necklace, or touching the brim of a helmet. </p>
<p>American anthropologist <a href="http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/ptaber/VC%20Fall%202016web/Gmelch%20Baseball%20Magic.pdf">George Gmelch</a>, a minor league baseball player in his younger days, was intrigued by these <a href="http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Inside-Pitch,673113.aspx">superstitions</a>. </p>
<p>He found most relate to the unpredictable and difficult skill of batting and pitching compared with the relatively easier skill of accurately catching and throwing a ball. Like the Trobriand Islanders and their fishing, players’ were using rituals to try and control uncertain outcomes. </p>
<h2>The fans</h2>
<p>Sports fans also participate in superstitions and rituals in an attempt to control the outcome of a game. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://cogprints.org/725/">evolutionary terms</a>, humans have perfected the skills of gathering and processing information in order to find regular patterns that help them predict the future outcome of events. </p>
<p>This thinking process has become so natural that sometimes sports fans watching a game at home forget that their superstitious actions in front of the TV – what beer they drink, or where they are seated – cannot possibly affect a game’s result. </p>
<p>We know that the outcome is unpredictable, if not entirely random, but we cannot help trying to influence the results by adopting some superstitious behaviour or rituals with our actions. This is a cognitive mechanism that reduces our anxiety and focuses us on the game.</p>
<p>Superstitions and rituals help create a sense of imaginary control over a game’s unpredictable outcome. </p>
<p>Fans of a winning team won’t change their behaviour or rituals for fear of disturbing the winning momentum, while those supporting a struggling team may change those viewing habits in hopes of influencing their team’s results. Sports fans, just like gamblers, believe in illusion of control.</p>
<p>This illusion of control – or an inflated confidence in our ability to win – increases without us realising it. For example, many fans learn as much as they can about the team they support, such as batting statistics of players, a coach’s history, and so on.</p>
<p>This extra knowledge leads us to overestimate our ability to predict an <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/10826089909039417">outcome</a>. The extra effort we invest in the activity of being a sports fan is a primary form of illusion of control. </p>
<p>A secondary illusion of control enlists supernatural sources of power or intervention such as gods, spirits, or luck to supplement our own perceived power. </p>
<h2>Fall for the fallacy</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gambler's_fallacy">gambler’s fallacy</a>, or mistakenly seeing causal connections between the past and the future performance of largely random events, can also be common among sports fans. It is the same belief gamblers have when they presume after five heads on a coin toss, the next flip is more likely to be tails. </p>
<p>We tend to think the future chance of our favourite team winning a game is greatly affected by their previous history of winning or losing when, in reality, the results of the game could be determined by many different and unrelated factors. Even when our favourite team has a losing streak, we cannot easily abandon it. </p>
<p>Cognitive dissonance – a mismatch between the emotional investment and disappointment – is resolved by changing the way we think. While we acknowledge our team did not win, we rationalise all was not completely lost. </p>
<p>We say the results would have been much worse if we had not cheered for them, for example. Or that a losing game was not that boring after all. Then we look for hopeful signs for next season, and seek social support of our fellow fans to reaffirm our resolve. </p>
<p>As for the Chicago Cubs and their curse, many wonder what finally became of Billy “Goat” Sianis? He apparently tried to remove his curse before he died in 1970 but the Cubs’ fortune did not reverse until this year. </p>
<p>And now the Cubs’ unlucky streak may have passed on to the team they defeated. <a href="http://cleveland.indians.mlb.com/">The Cleveland Indians</a>, who last won a World Series in 1948, now hold the inglorious honour of having baseball’s longest title drought.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68425/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keis Ohtsuka does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many sports enthusiasts are notoriously superstitious. Why is that so?Keis Ohtsuka, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/676842016-10-28T01:01:08Z2016-10-28T01:01:08ZThe World Series of the Apocalypse?<p>W.P. Kinsella is probably best known for his 1982 novel “Shoeless Joe,” the inspiration for the film “Field of Dreams.” But the following year, Kinsella wrote a lesser-known short story titled “The Last Pennant Before Armageddon.” </p>
<p>In it, Al Tiller, the manager of the Chicago Cubs, is haunted by a prophetic dream that the world will end if the Cubs defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the National League pennant. This puts Tiller in a bind: He must choose between momentary glory or the end of the world.</p>
<p>Those familiar with the short story may have braced themselves on Oct. 22, when <a href="http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2016-10-22-BBN-NLCS-Dodgers-Cubs/id-85d97e7afdd94402a4ce56a6323bb6a2">the Cubs vanquished the Los Angeles Dodgers</a> to win their first pennant since 1945.</p>
<p>The world didn’t end. Not yet anyway.</p>
<p>But if the Cubs defeat the Cleveland Indians to win their first World Series since 1908, it will end the longest period of futility in American sports – and forever put to rest the <a href="http://www.billygoattavern.com/legend/curse/">Curse of the Billy Goat</a>. </p>
<p>Something else, however, could be lost. Failure, melancholy and heartache – not joy and triumph – inspire drama and comedy, and no team in sports has inspired better literature than the hapless Cubs. Over the course of their long, storied history of losing, their failures have played out on the page. </p>
<h2>The best that never was</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/01/the-forgotten-genius-of-ring-lardner.html">Ring Lardner</a> was one of the greatest sportswriters of the early 20th century. He also wrote short stories that captured the distinctive voice of baseball players, and he inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, J.D. Salinger and Virginia Woolf. In “Alibi Ike,” Lardner’s protagonist is a Cubs player, Francis X. Farrell, who has an excuse for every error and every blunder. </p>
<p>In Bernard Malamud’s <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/malamudville/#!">1952 novel “The Natural,”</a> 19-year-old baseball player Roy Hobbs vows that he will be the “best that ever was.” On his way to a tryout with the Cubs he meets the beautiful Harriet Bird. She invites him to her hotel room and then shoots him, leaving him critically injured, his dreams of greatness dashed.</p>
<p>The novel is based on <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-03-14/news/ct-spt-0315-steinhagen-eddie-waitkus-20130315_1_chicago-woman-ruth-ann-steinhagen-eddie-waitkus">the true story</a> of Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Eddie Waitkus. In 1949, Waitkus, who once played for the Cubs, returned to Chicago for a game. An obsessed fan, Ruth Ann Steinhagan, invited Waitkus to her hotel room. Once Waitkus entered, she shot him in the stomach, nearly killing him.</p>
<h2>A team of goats</h2>
<p>For Cubs fans, legendary futility is the recurring punchline.</p>
<p>Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko has been dubbed the “<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/wrigley/ct-spt-0330-wrigley-royko-20140330-story.html">poet laureate of Wrigley Field</a>.” He helped perpetuate the story of the “Curse of the Billy Goat,” a spell cast on the team by the owner of the Billy Goat Tavern after being kicked out of Wrigley Field, along with his actual pet goat, during the 1945 World Series. (Fans had complained about the animal’s stench.)</p>
<p>Royko regularly pointed out in his columns that the Cubs failed to win not because a goat wasn’t allowed in Wrigley Field but because <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1997-03-21/news/9703210060_1_sam-sianis-goat-into-wrigley-field-jackie-robinson">goats were allowed to play for the Cubs</a>. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cubs-Reader-David-Fulk/dp/0395587794">The Cubs Reader</a>” is a 1991 collection of essays that includes contributions from writers like Roger Angell, Roy Blount Jr., George Will and Ira Berkow. In Will’s essay, he admits that his gloomy conservative politics come from his decision to be a Cubs fans at age seven in 1948. “I plighted my troth to a baseball team destined to dash the cup of life’s joy from my lips,” he wrote. </p>
<p>In fact, the first joke I ever heard came from my father, a lifelong Cubs fan who is now 92:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Will the mother who left her nine kids at Wrigley Field please come and get them,” the stadium’s public address announcer says one afternoon. “They’re beating the Cubs 7-2.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Armageddon averted?</h2>
<p>“The Last Pennant Before Armageddon” was included in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Thrill-Grass-Penguin-Short-Fiction/dp/B000GG4HRA">a collection of W.P. Kinsella’s essays</a> called “The Thrill of the Grass.” In the story, the backdrop for the Cubs’ season is the threat of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. In one of the manager’s dreams, <a href="http://boards.fool.com/cubs-and-armageddon-19714458.aspx?sort=whole">God says</a>, “I think you should know that when the Cubs next win the National League Championship, it will be the last pennant before Armageddon.”</p>
<p>Tiller <a href="http://www.presidentress.com/2016/10/the-cubs-trump-and-armageddon.html">finds himself in the decisive game</a> with a fatigued starter. He can leave in his starter, which could cost his team the game but save the world, or he can bring in his closer and probably win the game – and destroy civilization. </p>
<p>“The Thrill of the Grass” was published in 1984 – the year the Cubs were one win away from winning the National League pennant. They ended up <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/postseason/1984_NLCS.shtml">losing three straight</a> to the San Diego Padres.</p>
<p>Armageddon averted. </p>
<p>Almost 20 years later, before the 2003 National League Championship Series between the Cubs and the Florida Marlins, Kinsella was asked if he thought the world would end if the Cubs won the pennant.</p>
<p>“We’ll just have to wait and see,” <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-10-12/news/0310120437_1_cubs-tiller-kinsella">he said</a>.</p>
<p>The Cubs were five outs away from winning the pennant in 2003 when things fell spectacularly apart – not because of spectator <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/22/us/chicago-cubs-steve-bartman/">Steve Bartman reaching for a foul ball</a>, as too many Cubs fans want to believe – but because of poor fielding, poor pitching and poor managing.</p>
<p>If the Cubs do win the World Series, Kinsella won’t see it. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/books/william-p-kinsella-author-of-shoeless-joe-dies-at-81.html?_r=0">He died on Sept. 16</a>, a day after the <a href="http://www.si.com/mlb/2016/09/16/chicago-cubs-clinch-division-nl-central-playoffs">Cubs clinched the National League’s Central Division</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67684/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Lamb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>No team in sports has inspired better literature than the hapless Chicago Cubs. The oeuvre includes a little-known tale by W.P. Kinsella: ‘The Last Pennant Before Armageddon.’Chris Lamb, Professor of Journalism, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/459852015-10-27T10:09:50Z2015-10-27T10:09:50ZThe humble (ad-free!) origins of the first World Series broadcasts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99690/original/image-20151026-18458-kxfvrf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Failed singer Graham McNamee was baseball's first celebrity broadcaster.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&search_tracking_id=bRbvWq7uk5nnVhvIWWWZhA&searchterm=baseball%20radio&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=244389259">'Graham McNamee' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year, FOX Sports paid Major League Baseball <a href="http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8453054/major-league-baseball-completes-eight-year-deal-fox-turner-sports">about half a billion dollars</a> for the rights to broadcast the national pastime. </p>
<p>While the package includes some playoff games and regular season contests, the crown jewel is still the World Series; despite decades of declining ratings, baseball’s postseason is still a revenue machine. </p>
<p>But World Series radio broadcasts had humble beginnings, which I detail in my recent book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Crack-Bat-History-Baseball-Radio/dp/0803245009">Crack of the Bat: A History of Baseball on the Radio</a>. </p>
<p>In fact, for the first 13 World Series broadcasts, radio networks paid zilch to carry the national pastime’s showcase tournament. The broadcasts started as a promotion for a new radio station and coverage was amateurish. In fact, the first voice on the first live broadcast of a World Series didn’t even know the score at the end of one game. </p>
<p>In October 1921, WJZ, a new station based out of Newark, New Jersey, needed a big event to announce its arrival in the New York metro area. The all-Gotham series between the Giants and Yankees (eventually won by the Giants, five games to three) provided the perfect opportunity. </p>
<p>The voice for this first radio World Series belonged to a Westinghouse engineer named Tom Cowan, but its eyes belonged to another. Unlike Cowan, Newark Call newspaper reporter Sandy Hunt was actually at the Polo Grounds.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Footage from the 1921 World Series, which pitted the New York Yankees against the New York Giants.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Hunt relayed the plays by telephone to Cowan, who was lodged in a cramped 15-by-20-foot “contractor’s shack” atop Newark’s Edison plant, where the WJZ transmitter was located. In his calls of the games, Cowan simply parroted whatever Hunt told him – mind-numbing work that offered few breaks. </p>
<p>After one exhausting game, Cowan <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/reminiscences-of-thomas-h-cowan-oral-history-1951/oclc/122565183">reported</a> he “couldn’t even collect [his] thoughts enough to tell who had won.” When a WJZ colleague asked him who won, he could only say, “I don’t know, I just work here.”</p>
<p>In 1922, the two-person team was replaced by a single eyewitness at the games – and a famous one, at that. Grantland Rice, perhaps the best-known sportswriter of the day, traded in his typewriter for a microphone during the World Series rematch between the Yankees and Giants. </p>
<p>While offering solid description, Rice would occasionally take extended breaks to “rest his voice,” leaving listeners adrift for minutes at a time. Like Cowan, Rice found the new communication medium daunting; he would later tell legendary commentator Red Barber that one radio World Series “was enough for me for all of my life.” </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99681/original/image-20151026-18424-349eq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99681/original/image-20151026-18424-349eq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99681/original/image-20151026-18424-349eq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99681/original/image-20151026-18424-349eq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=702&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99681/original/image-20151026-18424-349eq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99681/original/image-20151026-18424-349eq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99681/original/image-20151026-18424-349eq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">For Grantland Rice, announcing one World Series was enough.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.irishlegends.com/pages/reflections/reflections57.html">irishlegends.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After these early experiments, National League owners, fearing that broadcasts would hurt World Series attendance, voted to end all World Series coverage. But the new commissioner, a former federal judge named Kenesaw Mountain Landis, overruled them. Landis viewed the nation’s newest mass medium as a potent promotional machine, and developed a policy promoting the widest possible coverage of the games: all stations and networks would be welcomed to cover the games for free. </p>
<p>The next year, 1923, Graham McNamee, a failed singer, became the nation’s first “superstar” sports announcer. For the next several years, he announced the World Series over RCA’s regional network and, later, NBC’s national network. In 1927, CBS joined NBC in providing national radio coverage for the World Series. A third radio network, the Mutual Broadcasting System, would join the fray in 1935. </p>
<p>Interestingly, the networks initially saw coverage of the World Series as a public service, with no sponsors and no commercials. The radio networks supplied the announcers, paid the AT&T line charges and essentially donated airtime to bring the World Series to the nation’s rapidly expanding radio audience. </p>
<p>In the process, Major League Baseball reached a national audience, while the networks became identified with the country’s most popular sport. </p>
<p>However, as attendance and revenues declined in the pit of the Great Depression, Commissioner Landis looked to radio for a new revenue stream. </p>
<p>Over the years, many companies approached the networks with offers to sponsor the World Series. But the networks feared a backlash if the games were broadcast with a commercial sponsor. </p>
<p>Back then, the advertising supported model of broadcasting was not fully entrenched; unlike today, listeners didn’t simply assume commercial interruptions would take place. </p>
<p>Even the pro-business, future Republican president Herbert Hoover <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Sponsor-Potentates-Classics-Communication/dp/0765805472">thought it</a> “inconceivable that we should allow so great a possibility for [radio] service…to be drowned in advertising chatter.” </p>
<p>As one NBC executive put it, “The minute we begin to commercialize this type of service we will soon have difficulties on our hands from various groups that are not friendly to broadcasting.” </p>
<p>Despite the chance of listener backlash for signing on sponsors, in 1934 Landis went on to sign a US$100,000 deal with the Ford Motor Company to sponsor the World Series. </p>
<p>The players got 42% of the take, and the clubs took the rest. Both parties were overjoyed with the commissioner’s radio windfall. The Ford deal made the World Series too valuable to remain unsponsored, ending the era of sports programming as a public service.</p>
<p>Landis still insisted that the maximum number of networks and stations carry the games, and throughout the 1930s, the World Series saturated the airways each October. Sponsors, however, balked at paying network charges for redundant coverage on multiple networks; by 1938 no sponsor could be found. </p>
<p>Landis quickly adjusted to the changing realities of radio advertising by granting exclusive rights to broadcast and sponsor the event, which would focus the attention of audiences on one network and one company.</p>
<p>In 1939, Landis granted Mutual exclusive rights to broadcast that year’s World Series, with an option for the 1940 contests. Meanwhile, Gillette signed on to sponsor the World Series at a cost of $100,000. But in paying only one network, they dramatically reduced the distribution costs. (Other stations could take the feed if they paid the line charges.) </p>
<p>Mutual would maintain exclusive radio rights until 1957 while Gillette was the exclusive sponsor on radio – and, later, television – until 1966. </p>
<p>Landis’ contract established the modern structure of World Series rights: sponsorship on a single network. Network exclusivity made the games more valuable for the carrying network, but also reduced the radio (and, eventfully, television) footprint of the World Series. </p>
<p>As the NFL exploded in popularity and the number of postseason baseball games and competing television networks rose in the 1980s and 1990s, the supremacy of the World Series in the national consciousness faded. While networks continued to pay higher rights fees to cover the World Series, <a href="http://www.baseball-almanac.com/ws/wstv.shtml">the television audience for the games declined</a> from a high of 44.3 million viewers in 1978 to a low of 12.7 million in 2012. </p>
<p>When it was unsponsored and on every network, the World Series became the “Fall Classic.” Meanwhile, sponsorship and exclusivity increased revenue beyond Judge Landis’ wildest dreams. </p>
<p>And, fortunately for fans, every announcer since 1921 has known the score at game’s end.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45985/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The first World Series radio broadcasts were a far cry from today’s pricey television productions.James Walker, Executive Director, International Association for Communication and Sport, Emeritus Professor of Communication, Saint Xavier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.