Television and Baseball. Baseball has been drastically changed by the introduction of television. A few major ways it has been changed by television are the reaction to blown calls by umpires, the competitive balance between teams, and the way that players play the game. These are just a few of the major changes to the game of baseball as a result of the introduction of television. Before the introduction of television in baseball, if an umpire blew a call, the only people who knew were the players on the field and the umpire himself. More often than not even the players and the umpire didn’t know for sure. A perfect example of a famous blown call is the Armando Galaaraga and Jim Joyce’s not so perfect game. On June 2, 2010 Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Armando Galaaraga had a perfect game going into the last out of the ninth inning against the Cleveland Indians until umpire Jim Joyce called what should have been the last Cleveland out safe at first.(Johnson) After networks showed the slow motion replay to the fans at home, we could clearly see that the batter was out by at least two steps. The blown call had fans up at some went so far as to call for Jim Joyce’s resignation among other things. Some even went so far as to vandalize his wiki page and start up a web site called firjimjoyce.com. All the while, the only person to be nonchalant about the whole thing was the one person who should be upset- Armando Galaaraga. In fact Armando and Joyce teamed up and co-wrote a book about the game and the infamous blown call. The controversy brought about by the call has led many to argue for expanded use of instant replay in baseball which many feel would take away from the human element. With the introduction of television, broadcast deals brought the introduction of big money for big market teams. This big money has lead to a major shift in competitive balance. Teams like the Yankees and Red Sox make millions of dollars from these lucrative deals, unlike the small market teams such as the Pirates. One such new deal is the new Los Angeles Angels television deal with Fox; the deal is worth a staggering $3 billion dollars over the next twenty years; that’s a $150 million a year.(Stephen) The new television deal has allowed the Angels to go out and make a major splash in the free agents market by signing two of the off seasons biggest free agents Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson to a jaw dropping tune of $333.5 million dollars over the next 10 years. (espn) The big money involved in these network deals means that small market teams like the Pittsburg Pirates who make around $18 million a year in television deals cannot afford to go out and sign the big name free agents.(Cohn) This means that teams like the Pirates have to rely solely on their farm system. So unless Pittsburg can go out and draft big time prospects and trade for prospects at the minor league level, they cannot compete with the big name teams. A prime example of a big time prospect who panned out for a small market time was Andrew McCutchen who was a first round draft pick of the Pirates and is now the face of the Pirates franchise. But big time prospects in baseball mostly lead to big time busts which is not a big deal for teams like the Angels who can go out and sign free agents to replace these prospects but it is quite detrimental to small teams like the Pirates. One of the biggest changes in baseball since television is the change in the way players play the game itself. Before the big money of television, baseball players would play for a team their whole careers unless they were traded. Nowadays players are more willing to move to the team that throws the most money at them. Given the choice between the team that Albert Pujols played with for 11 seasons and won 2 World Series championships with and a measly $40 million dollars more, he choose the money. Choosing money over the team you came up with has become a common place practice in baseball, players will come up with a team, get recognized, play until their contract’s up, then go to the highest bidder. Although this is not always the case, Take Cliff Lee for example, he took a pay cut in order to play for his hometown team the Phillies. He took the Phillies deal of five years $120 million versus the Yankees seven year $148 million deal. (Lackey) Baseball has been around since before the Civil War, and it has always been fluid in its changes. From barring soaking the batter (instead of throwing out a runner they would hit them with the ball) to the introduction of television, it has always managed to evolve. And it may not be the same game it was a hundred and fifty years ago, but it is still Americas past time.