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Baseball on the Radio, 100 Years Later
by galen

    Radio certainly fails as a baseball experience. The airwaves are crackly, staticky, breaking up when you pass through a subway tunnel or turn your microwave on. You can’t see what is happening, the exact spin or bend of the pitch, the expression on the players’ faces, the arc of a ball as it sails out of the stadium; you are entirely at the mercy of the broadcaster’s voice, which, while skilled, is fallible. There is so much about baseball that you miss by listening to a radio broadcast.

    But there is so much that you miss by watching a TV broadcast, too, with the limits of its focus, the way that its frame can only encompass so much, the camera determining what is seen and what goes unseen. And there is so much that you miss by going to a game, squinting down from the view level, distracted by the noise and the smells. Every medium is imperfect; every medium has something different to offer. Their imperfections, reflecting an imperfect and human game, are what makes them unique. And for many people, the unique imperfections of baseball on the radio are the perfect way to experience the game. The ways it fails are what makes it special.