T A B L E__T A L K

What news does the media deem unfit to print and why? Discuss the stories that aren't covered, in the Media area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

Say cheese!
By Catherine Seipp
Retro, smarmy, egomaniacal, incestuous -- the '98 oscars was one of the best ever
(03/25/98)

The Oscar for realism goes to...
By Mark Gauvreau Judge
Want to talk about race? See a 30-year-old movie
(03/24/98)

Why do movie subtitles stink?
By Cynthia Joyce
A master of the craft reveals the sad truth about those words at the bottom of the screen
(03/23/98)

Hollywoodland
By Catherine Seipp
Who is Rod Lurie, and why is he incessantly being thanked on Oscar night?
(03/20/98)

Let my people go -- to the movies
By Joyce Millman
A new cable documentary profiles the Jewish immigrants who founded Hollywood
(03/19/98)

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BROWSE THE
MEDIA CIRCUS
ARCHIVES

TOPLESS BALLGIRLS, UMPIRE-TOSSING AND $500 TV SUBSCRIPTIONS: THE SALE OF THE DODGERS COULD MEAN THE DEATH OF BASEBALL, MURDOCH-STYLE.

BY JUREK MARTIN | Americans, with a few exceptions, really are a charitable people, inclined to give even the devil the initial benefit of the doubt, unless he wears horns like Saddam Hussein or Kenneth Starr.

Exceptions to such charity ought to be made for baseball owners -- the biggest set of robber barons to have come down the pike since Rockefeller, Morgan and Carnegie -- but somehow even they benefit from our indulgent spirits. Perhaps it is because they once passed themselves off as proprietors of neighborhood family businesses and now include cozy household names like Disney (owners of the Anaheim Angels), vertically integrated purveyors of cinematic pablum and cute little toys that come with each Whopper and Big Mac.

So it is hardly surprising that Rupert Murdoch's acquisition of the Los Angeles Dodgers has passed with no more than a modicum of critical and resigned muttering. The 29 team owners who, ostrich-like, approved the sale with only two dissenters, Ted Turner of the Atlanta Braves and Jerry Reinsdorf of the Chicago White Sox, looked no further than the increased value of their own franchises. George Steinbrenner, predictably, was the first to cash in by putting a share of the Yankees on the market.

Sports pundits, sensing that the game is only a business after all, speculated about sky boxes, pricier seats and illuminated advertising in Dodger Stadium. They wondered if Murdoch's deep pockets would be devoted to driving player pay even higher in the hope of buying a World Series. Some even fondly hoped that the international media mogul might be just the man needed to turn baseball into a world sport, as if Norway were just waiting to be weaned off cross-country skiing.

But there were a few crusty carpers willing to think beyond the balance sheet. Tom Boswell of the Washington Post even summoned up the nerve to write that Murdoch "either takes something decent and turns it into trash, or, given a blank canvas, commissions trash from scratch."

Boswell is right, of course. There is nothing that Murdoch has touched in his brilliant career that he has not taken ruthlessly downmarket, apart from relatively insignificant playthings like the Village Voice. Those who think the Times of London is still a great newspaper ought to try reading it for a week: Earlier this month, for example, it initially ignored Murdoch's cancellation of the book contract HarperCollins had signed with Chris Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong and no friend of the Digger's mates in Beijing.

So what will he do with, and to, the Dodgers and baseball? Well, topless female ballgirls, easily recruited from Page 3 of the London Sun, would be a logical start. Bingo, standard fare in all his newspapers, might replace the seventh inning stretch (that is, if the game lasts that long; under Murdoch rules five innings would be the probable maximum -- makes more time for fans to consume other Murdoch products). Vin Scully, like so many of Murdoch's less craven editors, would probably find himself out of a job, only to be replaced by Bart Simpson or Ally McBeal. And umpires beware: Dwarf-tossing was once a popular pastime in Australia.

A very real possibility, with the arrival of Murdoch in America's ballparks, is the end of baseball on "free" TV. The thin end of this wedge is already upon us, with the cabling of America, but cable is cheap enough and the market so diversified that low cost, if not free, choice still persists for those into watching sports.

Not so in Britain, where Murdoch's Sky, the satellite service that costs almost $500 per year to subscribe, has outbid the BBC and the two commercial television channels for exclusive sporting broadcast rights. Live Premier League soccer is now a Sky preserve, as are international cricket matches unless the English national team is playing at home. He also has his teeth into rugby, as well as promoting the popularity of topless darts. Naturally, the latter, rather than the "quality" of its other programs, has done wonders for Sky's ratings in the sceptered isle.

This surely will lead, on both sides of the Atlantic, to the next step -- the advent of pay-per-view for most keenly anticipated sporting events, leaving the less affluent viewer with little except goldfish racing from El Paso on ESPN. As for America's favorite -- but increasingly troubled -- sport, it means death, just as promoter-sponsored pay-per-view has destroyed all credibility in boxing.

Can Murdoch be stopped? Probably not now that the barbarian is inside the gate. There is no commissioner of baseball to reign him in. Indeed, Bud Selig lavished praise on the "maturity" of the sorry transaction. But if Selig and the other baseball owning moguls think they can co-opt Murdoch in their comfortable club, they are mistaken. Murdoch is a man who invents the rules rather than plays by them. He is not likely to be satisfied with the club rules that call for a (very) modest reallocation of revenues among the franchises. The Digger is not into charity, and he is way beyond their league as a ruthless business strategist.

I write this fondling my baseball autographed by ex-Dodger Fernando Valenzuela, with the signed picture of Orel Hershiser in Dodger blue to my right and memories of the first baseball game I ever saw still in my head (Sandy Koufax pitching the Dodgers to the 1963 World Series championship). No wonder I weep. You should, too.
SALON | March 26, 1998

Jurek Martin is former Washington bureau chief and foreign editor of the Financial Times of London. He once turned down a job offer from Rupert Murdoch.

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PHOTO BY SUSAN STERNER/AP/WIDE WORLD