he 1950 All-Star Game is remembered as the one in which Ted Williams broke his elbow running into the wall at Comiskey Park while catching a Ralph Kiner smash. It also is remembered as the first to go into extra innings.
The '50 midsummer classic, however, was historic for an entirely different reason: NBC made it the first All-Star Game to reach a national audience. The country had only about 400,000 televison sets, half of them in New York. But the telecast, with Hall of Fame broadcaster Jack Brickhouse on play-by-play, was seen by an estimated 10 million viewers - a rating of 16.5. Of all the television sets turned on, 65 percent were tuned to the game, with numerous viewers sitting in front of many of those sets.
These remarkable numbers made believers out of baseball's team owners. They had fought against televising games, arguing that the money in baseball was at the gate, not in TV, and that the new technology would cause fans to stay home. When a television executive proposed using a center field camera at Yankee Stadium to give viewers a better view of the pitch, owners balked because they believed it would cut into attendance at the ballpark.
For its first All-Star Game telecast, NBC used all of three black-and-white cameras.
How, then, did NBC draw such huge numbers? The presence of eight members of the dominant New York Yankees - including future Hall of Famers Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, and Phil Rizzuto - in the American League lineup helped attract a national audience.
The 1951 All-Star Game did even better: NBC earned a 27.3 rating and a whopping 89 percent share.
Those days are long gone. The television landscape has grown exponentially, while expansion has had the unintended effect of regionalizing what was once the national pastime. More than anything else, the dip in All-Star Game ratings has symbolized the decline in the game's mass appeal.
By all accounts, television helped build the popularity of baseball in the '50s and '60s. Ratings hovered in the mid-teens before skyrocketing in 1967. The average rating for the 10 All-Star Games in the '70s was 24.9, the highest occuring in 1970 when Curt Gowdy, Tony Kubek, and Mickey Mantle called the 12-inning game from Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. That game was made memorable by Pete Rose running over catcher Ray Fosse to score the winning run.
Since the '70s, however, television audiences for All-Star Games have steadily declined. The '80s saw an average rating of 21.3, while in the '90s ratings have nose-dived to a 14.1 average. Last year's game, for instance, pulled a 13.3 rating. The 1997 game was slightly worse, at 13.2.
Baseball officials blame cable for the erosion of viewership. In the '80s, viewers had a choice of about eight cable stations. By the early '90s, that number had grown to about 30. And now the number is about 70 - and that is not counting Internet sites with video.
Baseball has tried to improve its strike-damaged image by introducing interleague games and wild-card playoffs. And last year's home run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa appeared to give the sport a jolt of excitement. But none of this has translated into increased viewership. Red Sox games are earning about the same ratings as they did last season, even with their surprising success.
The All-Star Game has its supporters, of course. One of them is Charley Steiner, who will call Tuesday's game for ESPN Radio and is unashamed to say he is excited. ''This is the one All-Star Game that matters,'' he said. ''The difference is that there's a pride between the National and American Leagues. There's legitimate interest among the fans to see the great matchups - the great pitchers against the great hitters; the great baserunners against the great catchers. No one asks who the matchups are in the hockey all-star game. And while basketball is a wonderful exhibition, no one plays defense.''
The big advantage baseball has is that its all-star game has no competition from another major sport. ''It's become the cliched midsummer night's classic,'' Steiner said. ''If you are any sort of sports fan, the All-Star Game is it for the night.''
Steiner is right. The All-Star Game, with its unique blend of new stars and legends, is a classic game, a once-in a-lifetime chance to see Pedro Martinez pitch against a lineup in which McGwire is a just another big bat.
Baseball's problem is that it has not been able to move beyond its core audience, and in today's television landscape it's all about the causal fan, not the hardcore junky. At the rate of the All-Star Game ratings decline, total viewership may be back to a 1950 level not too far into the new millennium.
And while Fox plans to use about 24 cameras to televise the extravaganza at Fenway - eight times the number NBC used in 1950 - nothing will reverse the slide.
