I was wondering if the phones you see team mangers using in baseball diamonds to call players out are able to recive incoming calls? And do telemarkerters ever call?
I would doubt they are anything but a direct line to the bullpen. You never see them dial it or anything.
They are more like an intercom or just a private telephone network. It is possible that the phones are actually extensions off the main phone system installed in the facility, in which case they might be able to call in a relief pizza or something – Not likely though.
The ‘phone as intercom’ setup is most noticable in the NFL, which literally has tables of phones to call up the offensive coordinator, the defensive coordinator, the league rep, the owners booth, etc.
Generally, they are all just a private network, not enabled to call out. Capable? Maybe…depends on the phone. Enabled? Not likely at all.
I agree that they are probably just closed intercom systems, but aren’t there some anecdotes out there which tell of players getting or making calls from the dugout/bullpen?
I’ve seen the phones at Dodger Stadium and they have buttons marked “home bullpen”, “visitors bullpen”, as well as the clubhouses and dugouts for each team. I imagine that they just remove buttons as need be.
I have taken the tour of Safeco Field, and have been in the Mariners dugout. The phones there were labeled with a big sticker across the handset: Dugout and Press Box were two, as I recall. The third might have been Clubhouse, or Owners, or something.
Can’t remember seeing buttons on the phones, but the stickers suggest an auto-dial hookup to automatically connect without dialing.
In “Ball Four”, Jim Bouton tells of a particularly whacky pitcher who used the bullpen phone to call Hong Kong and order a Chinese meal to go.
This was written in 1969, so it was previous to that. I can’t find a cite for this, but I re-read the book just recently. Apparently only people are in the index, not cities, so I can’t find the exact quote.