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Talking baseball with Hank Greenwald | page 1, 2
Well, the only downside is that expectations get so unrealistic on the part of fans that they start thinking that if McGwire only hits 64 this year, he's had a bad year. Right. And also, I like Dusty Baker baseball -- the hit-and-run, stealing, just being aggressive on the base paths and eking out runs. It seems like that's less valued than it used to be. Well, it's possible. The home run has always been the glamour hit, so to speak. But I think people come out to see teams win and play well ... I don't know that the superstar factor is that strong. But I think a winning ballclub certainly is. And that's what's more sustaining in terms of fan interest. The exception being if you have a star pitcher. Whether it be a Randy Johnson today, or somebody like [Sandy] Koufax or [Juan] Marichal or guys going back into the '60s. Certainly in the case of the Dodgers, you could have proved years back that on the nights that Koufax pitched, he had at least somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 more people. What do you think is the worst news for baseball in the last few years since you've left? Well, this umpire thing is probably not going to affect the fans a whole lot, because the game's still going to be played. But there'll probably be another player-owner war on the horizon. I'm sure of that, in 2001 or whenever this next contract comes up. And there are other problems that need to be addressed, namely the playoffs and the World Series being played at night in climates that are conducive to monsoons and building snowmen and things like that. All this talk about the kids, and we have to do things for the young fans and make new fans. And the games go on in the East at hours that the -- That they can't stay up for. Even adults can't! And that's utterly ridiculous. If TV said to play at 3 in the morning they'd play at 3 in the morning. You called the wild card playoff spot "the Viagra of baseball," but Viagra's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm wondering what you think of the wild card now. My analogy to Viagra was it didn't matter how you got there, as long as you made it. Right. I was against it until last year, when the Giants were fighting for a wild card spot, and now I think it's great. Well, I don't. You're rewarding something that diminishes finishing first. I think what needs to happen, and will eventually, is that baseball will expand again. And they will go to 32 teams, which is a workable number. And it certainly would be my hope that at that point they'd eliminate the wild card, because now, knowing baseball, they will have eight four-team divisions, four in each league. And if you have four teams finishing first, you've got two rounds of playoffs right there. So you won't have a need for a second-place team to get in. They'll probably create two wild card spots. Yeah, I know. And then play until December. I wanted to talk a little bit about the Giants' reaction to your book. I read that you wound up doing an event in Oakland, and that seemed kind of unfortunate. Has there been hostility? I mean, you're really only hard on Larry Baer. Yeah, I know. But I guess that's enough? Well, apparently it is. I don't know. Did you get the impression that I trashed the organization? No, no. You praise them for privately financing their great new stadium -- and even though you hate seat licenses, you defended the Giants in this case -- I defended that, absolutely. I said the city ought to build a statue to Magowan. Which I still believe. But [Baer] had it coming. And I was in a position to say it, and others who are there are not. And so I felt this was the appropriate forum. And there's certainly been no denial. I mean, as I said in the book, I felt he had no respect for what we did as broadcasters. Witness the way he treated us. But others can't talk, and that's understandable. A friend of mine has never gotten over your leaving broadcasting. He says you sound like somebody who grew up and became a broadcaster because you loved baseball, whereas certain other broadcasters, not mentioning any names, sound like they grew up and became broadcasters because they loved broadcasting. And I thought that was an interesting distinction. Well, I certainly would agree with my end of it, yeah. There's no question about that. Because as a kid in Detroit following the Tigers during the war years I became a big fan. And you'd become a fan in those days by listening to the radio and going to games, which I had the chance to do. And then later, when we moved to upstate New York, in Rochester, I'd go to the minor league games, of course. But I'd sit in my room at night and see how many major league games I could pick up on the air. And I knew at a very early age that this was something I really wanted to do. And I loved the game, and I read everything I could read about it. I wanted to learn the stories and the lore and the history of the game. And I tried to communicate that, and I felt that you have an obligation as a broadcaster to stimulate the imagination of would-be baseball fans in a way that mine was. You hope you can help to create a new generation of fans, just as the broadcasters before did. Well, you did it. Are we going to hear you again? I think it's doubtful. I mean, I'm not seeking any work at this point. But the biggest thrill I've had this year was sitting in with my son who's doing the games in Stockton. And being on the air with him for a few innings. And that satisfies me, in my career, and in my life.
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