In Baseball Weekly’s list of things that most affected baseball in the twentieth century, television ranked second—behind only the signing of Jackie Robinson. The new medium of television exposed baseball to a genuinely national audience; altered the financial picture for teams, owners, and players; and changed the way Americans followed the game. Center Field Shot explores these changes—all even more prominent in the first few years of the twenty-first century—and makes sense of their meaning for America’s pastime.
Center Field Shot traces a sometimes contentious but mutually beneficial relationship from the first televised game in 1939 to the new era of Internet broadcasts, satellite radio, and high-definition TV, considered from the perspective of businessmen collecting merchandising fees and advertising rights, franchise owners with ever more money to spend on talent, and broadcasters trying to present a game long considered “unfriendly” to television. Ultimately the association of baseball with television emerges as a reflection of—perhaps even a central feature of—American culture at large.
“At last an intensive analysis of this complicated and fascinating phenomenon has been produced. . . . Center Field Shot is at once a fun, engaging read that can be enjoyed in random five-minute snippets, and a serious full-length work of scholarship. Like the very best of television, it informs as it entertains.”—Steve Treder, The Hardball Times
"Center Field Shot: A History of Baseball on Television successfully tells the story of how the sport made a huge breakthrough arriving in people's homes. . . . Walker and Bellamy provide perhaps the definitive history of the evolution of baseball on television without ever getting too scholarly or slipping into fanciful nostalgia."—Josh Marks, Variety
"A well-told story of owners and networks, businessmen and merchandizing. The best part of this history of baseball on television is its revelation of how broadcasters learned a new craft, a new art form." S. Gittleman, Choice
“Center Field Shot is a winner. It’s smart, crisply written, and packed with eye-opening research and analysis. I learned something new on every page. Turn off the TV and start reading. I guarantee you’ll be glad you did.”—Jonathan Eig, best-selling author of Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig and Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Season
“Walker and Bellamy have provided a lucid, comprehensive, and penetrating analysis of the historical evolution of the relationship between professional baseball and television. There is no better way to anticipate how the relationship will morph in the future than by understanding its past.”—Andrew Zimbalist, author of In the Best Interests of Baseball? The Revolutionary Reign of Bud Selig
“Students of mass communication, baseball history, and cultural studies will find this case study invaluable for understanding the growth of nationally televised sport, the technological and commercial developments in the television industry, and the impact of sport and television on American culture.”—Larry R. Gerlach, past president of the Society for American Baseball Research and author of The Men in Blue: Conversations with Umpires