Items related to broadcast media with pictures and sound.
A complete kinescope of the NBC telecast of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series has been found in Bing Crosby’s private vault. (“Along with several of his classic child beatings.” — J. Elvis Weinstein)
MLB Network will apparently be showing it later this year, giving it the same treatment they gave Don Larsen’s perfect game: digging up everyone who’s still alive so they can be interviewed by Bob Costas for wraparound segments.
While I was suffering through the Cubs’ 12-0 drubbing at the hands of the Angels today, I coined a new term: in telling my seatmate, Michelle, how much I appreciate the MLB Network’s Saturday night games, I realized that it really should be called “The Lame of the Week.”
Because it’s true: for years, Stacey and I, boring old married people, sitting at home on Saturday nights, have wished for more baseball to watch. And the MLB Network, in only one of its many gifts to dedicated fans, has come through: now those of us lame enough to prefer watching baseball on Saturday night to, say, going to Excalibur, have that option.
And tonight we used it to watch Adam Wainwright dominate the A’s. ‘Twas a good night. Thanks, Lame of the Week.
Watch this now before
MLB realizes it exists online: the last 10 minutes or so of Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.
Expanding on a few tweets I’ve made while watching some games this week…
1. Nice to see Albert Pujols quickly rewarding our faith in calling him a Player to Watch by hitting two home runs on Opening Day. Obviously, he knows a Cardinals-friendly blog when he sees one.
2. When I got home from work Monday, the only game on TV was Giants-Astros. Things were going along unremarkably until an Astros pitcher named Sammy Gervacio came in for the top of the 9th. He had, it turned out, a bizarre pre-pitch ritual, wherein he would briefly stare down the third-base dugout while holding the ball up. I’m not really doing it justice here; suffice to say that Mrs. Levi thought he was a robot. The only videos I can find of it are only halfway decent; here’s someone’s shaky-cam from the stands on Opening Day, and a brief video from spring training.
He was effective on Opening Day, striking out 2 of the 3 batters he faced; however, he ended up taking the loss in the second game, giving up two hits and an earned run in a third of an inning. And then he went on the disabled list with a shoulder injury. But I hereby proclaim him a Player to Watch once he gets back.
3. The Rays should know better than to set off fireworks inside Tropicana Field, as they did before their Opening Day game, which was not on Opening Day, for unexplained reasons. The haze never dissipated during the game, and for me watching on TV, it made Tropicana Field look even darker and dingier inside than it normally is. At one point, Rays announcer DeWayne Staats had to read an ad proclaiming that game was broadcast in “beautiful HD, brought to you by H.H. Gregg.” That HD was not beautiful. If H.H. Gregg had that game on any of the TVs in the store, it would have caused potential buyers to run away screaming, going home to embrace their old standard-definition TVs.
4. Wednesday evening, I discovered that DirecTV was carrying the Rogers SportsNet coverage of the Blue Jays-Rangers game, including the Canadian commercials. Which, it turned out, weren’t all that exciting. In fact, Lowe’s is running the same commercials in Canada that they are in the U.S., just with a different announcer at the end saying “Canada’s new home improvement warehouse.” Also, movie ads in Canada don’t end with the rating, which make them seem incomplete — they just kind of stop.
Don’t expect many more posts like this from me during the season, since I’ll be watching a lot less baseball once DirecTV’s free trial of the MLB Extra Innings package is over. This really should be Levi’s type of post, but he has unfortunately turned his attention to his “I’ve Been Reading Lately” blog, and to other literary activities, in the past couple of years. Just in case you’re wondering where he is…
For years, at two different employers, I had a Tuesday-through-Saturday work week. One of the few times I miss that schedule is on Opening Day Monday, when the MLB Extra Innings package is free on DirecTV, and it is thus possible to watch local baseball coverage all day. At least I get home from work around 4:15 (Pacific time), so I’ll be able to watch much of the “prime time” games. Tomorrow night, I’ll definitely be watching the Rays’ home opener — I think this may be the first time they’ve ever opened the season at home, albeit shoved to Tuesday, probably so their proximity wouldn’t taint last night’s Red Sox-Yankees game. (Incidentally, the L.A. Times baseball writer actually picked the Rays to finish first in the AL East.)
And as seen on The Consumerist: since hot dogs and baseball go together like, um, hot dogs and buns, here’s a press release from the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council with more details than you’d ever thought possible about ballpark hot dog and sausage menu options and consumption. I can definitely vouch for the Fenway Frank and, especially, the Dodger Dog. I cannot vouch for the hot dogs served at Wrigley Field, which aren’t very good — I suspect the reason they sell so many is that there aren’t a lot of other food options at Wrigley Field, particularly
at the upper-deck concession stands.
Many of the “specialty” dogs mentioned in the press release sound good to me — but not necessarily while I’m at a baseball stadium, where I don’t particularly want to get hot dog toppings all over myself. I’m happy with just mustard (and I prefer “spicy brown” to yellow), and maybe onions.
At 7:00 P.M. Eastern on January 1, the brand-new MLB Network will present a rebroadcast of Don Larsen’s perfect game from the 1956 World Series. As I understand it, the source is a kinescope that was discovered fairly recently.
Channel 213 on DirecTV. For other services, check
your listings.
If the World Series had been Dodgers-Red Sox instead of Phillies-Rays, Fox’s TV coverage would have gone something like this…
Joe Buck: Manny Manny Manny. Manny Manny Manny Manny?
Tim McCarver: Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny. Manny Manny Manny Manny, Manny Manny Manny Manny.
Joe: Manny Manny Manny Manny. Manny Manny Manny — Chris Myers?
Chris Myers: Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny. Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny. Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny. Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny. Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny. Manny Manny Manny, Joe.
Joe: Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny — there’s a grand slam by Rafael Furcal — Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny.
Tim: Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny (continues until end of inning)
By the way, don’t let anyone claim that the Rays are a “small-market” team — Tampa-St. Petersburg is the 13th-largest media market in the U.S. (link is to a Nielsen PDF). Larger than Seattle-Tacoma (#14), larger than Minneapolis-St. Paul (#15), larger than Miami-Ft. Lauderdale (#16).
Locations scrolling across the globe
on the “Daily Show with Jon Stewart” set this week: New York (as usual), Cooperstown, Williamsport, Tampa Bay.
Appearing on “The Colbert Report” tonight, malady baseball statistician Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com compared Obama to the Rays — and McCain to the Seattle Pilots.
“HD” stands for “Highly Delicious” (or, shop perhaps, “Holycow, Dodgers!”).
In retrospect, Levi and I saw this coming at Wrigley Field on September 2nd, when we saw the Astros beat the Cubs 9-7 in 11 innings — a game which obviously impressed neither of us enough to write about it on this blog. (Also, that game lasted long enough that we had to get to bed, one of us to go to work, and the other of us to catch a flight back to L.A.)
