HudsonHawk
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 4,382
Interesting to see the front page of today's Brooklyn Eagle in 1939 (see the Era Day by Day thread) with an enormous eight-column screamer headline giving the outcome of the day's World Series game, above even the war news from Europe. And the Dodgers weren't even playing.
You don't see that kind of coverage in today's media -- baseball was the unquestioned king of spectator sports then, and everybody cared, even if it wasn't your team playing. I don't think you get that kind of coverage now -- sure, the playoffs aren't the World Series, but how often do you get that kind of coverage for a Series game now? The Boston papers and the New York papers will go full-screamer if there's a local team playing, but would they give the same coverage to, say, a Nationals-Rays series?
But how much of that is due to the fact that 1) newspapers are no longer the source of information for most people, and 2) people watched the game on television and didn't need to read the paper to know what happened? Sure, a Rays/Nationals World Series would not hold the interest that a Yankees/Dodgers would, and baseball doesn't hold the edge it used to, but I think it's decline is often exaggerated, due more to the rise of other spectator sports than a lack of interest in baseball itself. I think football has become the king of spectator sports because it's easier to gamble on, not because people like football better.