Random TV Title: Monday Night Baseball

Yep, ABC used to rule the Monday evening airwaves in the summertime too with its weekly MONDAY NIGHT BASEBALL telecast. And as you can see from this opening, the damn Boston Red Sox were dominating the prime-time schedule even then!

This open is from the July 23, 1979 telecast at Fenway Park between the Red Sox and the California Angels. Keith Jackson does the opening narration. I'm guessing Howard Cosell and Don Drysdale joined him for the broadcast.

Of interest is the clip of Yankee Lou Pinella getting thrown out at home plate in a game against the Kansas City Royals and tossing a tantrum over it!

Books I've Read This Year

So far in 2012, I have read 27 books. Here are a few of them.

Goodbye, Bird

The very fine baseball writers Rob Neyer and Joe Posnanski write about Detroit Tigers phenom Mark Fidrych, who died Monday in an accident on his Massachusetts farm. Fidrych was 54.

I don't think I can explain to anyone who wasn't a baseball fan in 1976 just how popular "The Bird" was. If I said more popular than Manny, Junior, CC, and Jeter put together, you wouldn't believe me, but it's true.

The MLB Network recently ran Fidrych's amazing MONDAY NIGHT BASEBALL start against the Yankees as a segment of its ALL-TIME GAMES series. I suspect it will be running again, so catch it if you can. It will explain better than any blog post what was so magical about The Bird.

Kubek HOF-Bound

Congratulations to Tony Kubek, 2009's recipient of the annual Ford C. Frick Award, which is given to honor broadcasters for major contributions to the sport of baseball.

When I was a kid, the former New York Yankees shortstop was teamed with another former major leaguer, Joe Garagiola, to broadcast NBC's Saturday GAME OF THE WEEK. I admired Kubek then for his enthusiasm, candor, and baseball smarts. Later, Vin Scully joined the NBC team and was paired with Garagiola, while Kubek and new partner Bob Costas handled the week's backup game. One of those Kubek/Costas games was the legendary "Sandberg Game," in which Ryne Sandberg of the Chicago Cubs hit a home run to tie the game in the ninth inning and another home run to tie it again in the tenth inning in a remarkable 12-11 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.

To this day, Kubek remains my favorite baseball color man, even though he hasn't worked a network game since 1989. At a time when network baseball telecasts have never been lousier (although we did get some good news today), it's worth remembering Kubek even more. Past winners of the Frick award include Scully, Garagiola, Mel Allen, Jack Buck, Harry Caray and Marty Brennaman.

A Sad Day For Baseball Fans

Or at least those with a good sense of humor. One of my daily online stops, Fire Joe Morgan, is closing up shop forever. The blog dedicated to exposing the ignorance and idiocy of professional sportswriters and broadcasters who know a lot less about their chosen profession than you would think has been great fun for the two years or so I've been reading it. I wish Ken Tremendous and the rest of the FJM gang well.

Frank

In 1974, baseball superstar Frank Robinson became the sport's first black manager when he was hired to helm the Cleveland Indians's 1975 season. Robinson was already on his way to the Hall of Fame, having compiled more than 550 home runs and 2900 hits for the Cincinnati Reds and the Baltimore Orioles, with quick stops with the Los Angeles Dodgers and the California Angels. "Robby" had been traded to Cleveland during the '74 season, where manager Ken Aspromonte had guided the Indians to a typically poor season. One day after the Tribe wrapped up its 77-84 season, owner Ted Bonda and general manager Phil Seghi announced Robinson would be the Indians' player-manager the following year.

FRANK: THE FIRST YEAR is a surprisingly candid account of Robinson's experiences that season. Although Jim Bouton's groundbreaking BALL FOUR was just six years earlier, books by baseball players still tended to focus on generalities and rarely entered the locker room, heeding to the old proverb that states, "What you see here stays here." Since Holt, Rinehart & Winston published FRANK in 1976, many similar books have followed, the best being Sparky Lyle's THE BRONX ZOO, which rivals BALL FOUR for honesty and humor. FRANK may be the first of its type to be written, however, by a manager (Dave Anderson is Robinson's co-writer), and as such, it comes from a different viewpoint, one authoritarian in nature.

While Robinson is often brutally honest in his assessment of players and umpires he dislikes, a failing of FRANK is that he's still too soft on the book's other "characters." It's understandable that he would be, considering that he still had to manage the same players next season. FRANK is also lacking in "Xs and Os." Considered one of the game's smartest tacticians, Robinson is reticent to reveal too much about his theories or strategy about the game, maybe in fear of giving his opponents a heads-up.

I don't wish too sound hard on the book, because it is fair entertainment. Pitcher Gaylord Perry and catcher Johnny Ellis earn Robinson's wrath for what Robinson deems attitude problems, and a fair number of umpires fall under Robby's disdainful eye. It's a book about a man who was better at baseball than almost everyone else who ever played, yet was now re-learning the game from a manager's viewpoint.

Like Bouton's 1969 Seattle Pilots, the 1975 Indians were a bad team, sometimes a brutal one, yet it also lacked the zany characters that made BALL FOUR so successful. Robinson can't be blamed for that, of course, but it does keep FRANK: THE FIRST YEAR from being as good as it could have been.

Robinson, who was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1982, has remained in the game as a manager ever since helming the Indians to a 79-80 finish his first season. He later managed the San Francisco Giants, the Orioles and the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals, yet despite never finishing higher than second place, is still considered a fine manager (and probably justly so). He last managed the 2006 Nationals at the age of 70.

Rose Vs. Jeter

Who's the better baseball player: Pete Rose or Derek Jeter? Sounds clear-cut (only one of those guys has more than 4000 base hits). But according to the great sportswriter Joe Posnanski (and I believe him), it's a closer race than you might expect.

Skip Caray Will Be Missed

One of my all-time favorite baseball announcers, Skip Caray, passed away today at age 68. The son of Baseball Hall of Fame announcer Harry Caray and the son of current Atlanta Braves play-by-play man Chip Caray, Skip began working Braves games in 1976. When our house first received cable in 1983, I became a fan of watching Braves telecasts on Superstation WTBS, the Ted Turner-owned network that carried all Braves home and away games. Despite the presence of perennial All-Star Dale Murphy, the Braves were an awful team during most of the '80s (do names like Bruce Benedict, Rafael Ramirez, Rick Camp and Brad Komminsk ring a bell?), but they were always fun to watch because of the experts in the announcing booth: Ernie Johnson, Pete Van Wieren and, of course, Skip, who was likely the funniest sports announcer in television outside of Gary McCord. His style was the opposite of his father's. He didn't often say a lot in the TV booth, understanding the way few announcers do that television is a visual medium, and his job was just to fill in the blanks.

Caray had been suffering from ill health for quite awhile now, including kidney and heart ailments, and had only been broadcasting Braves home games. He died peacefully in bed. He will be missed.

#500

This is my 500th post, since creating the new version of Johnny LaRue's Crane Shot here on Blogger. And to mark the occasion, enjoy a photo of Brent Musburger standing between Hank Aaron and Sadaharu Oh.

Tim McCarver Is An Idiot

Goddamn it, why does Fox continue to employ Tim McCarver as a commentator on its postseason baseball telecasts? McCarver is far and away one of the worst baseball announcers in broadcast history, and you can count on him to say something stupid every time he's on the air.

Tonight, during Game 2 of the Boston/Cleveland American League Championship Series, McCarver said Mike Lowell, who had 120 RBIs during the regular season, "drove in more runs batted in...more runs...than any other Boston third baseman." Considering Lowell played 154 games and 1324 innings at third, and the runner-up with Kevin Youkilis at 13 games and 108 innings, I'd say that's about the most useless analysis McCarver could have come up with. Lowell tossed the ball around the horn between innings more than any other Boston third baseman too. You know why? Because he's the only Boston third baseman!

What's Up With Pete Rose's Balls?

"I'm just happy having three stories of balls. That's a lot of balls," Pete Rose said yesterday.

Meanwhile, I saw a FRIDAY THE 13TH comic book today. I flipped it open to see what it was like, and was greeted by terrible drawings of a blond chick shouting, "Die, fucker!" and bashing Jason in the head with a toilet tank. Setting aside how creatively bankrupt you would have to be to use "Die, fucker" in your dialogue (because you know the writer spent weeks on just this one issue, and "Die, fucker" is the best he could come up with), I've seen all the FRIDAY THE 13TH movies, including the one where Jason was flying through outer space, and I guarantee that a toilet tank is not going to bring him down.

P.S. I just discovered that FRIDAY THE 13TH needs not one, but two writers to create awesome scenes like a girl yelling "Die, fucker" and hitting Jason with a toilet. Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, you suck, dudes.

There's Something About

Holy crap, I was just telling somebody about this old commercial last week. I'm not certain they believed it really existed, but I just happened to stumble upon it while Web-surfing this morning. If this doesn't make you feel manly, I don't know what will.

There's another Aqua Velva spot with Rose that co-starred his then-wife Karolyn in which he sings the Aqua Velva jingle. Now that's comedy.

P.S. HOLY FUCKING SHIT!

As a bonus, you may recognize character actor Vic Tayback, who played Mel of Mel's Diner on the long-running sitcom ALICE.

The spot with Pete and his wife have to be around someplace.

Bud Throws Barry Under A Bus

Bud Selig said "fuck you" to Barry Bonds yesterday.

Bonds is 22 home runs away from Hank Aaron's all-time record of 755, a record that was widely assumed would never be broken. If Bonds manages to sort out his contract troubles with the San Francisco Giants (and his legal problems), odds are quite good that he'll break Aaron's mark this season. And when/if he does, Selig, the (shitty) Commissioner of Major League Baseball, may or may not place a congratulatory telephone call to Bonds.

Selig insisted that Major League Baseball would celebrate Bonds' potential feat exactly as it does any other major milestone, such as a pitcher's 300th win. Last year, Selig telephoned San Diego closer Trevor Hoffman when he became the career saves leader.

This is a lie of major league proportions. In fact, MLB does not celebrate every "major milestone" in an identical manner. I'm sure you remember when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa passed Roger Maris' single-season mark of 61 home runs. Recall how they stopped the game and everyone ran on to the field and hugged everybody? McGwire rode around the stadium during a game in a little car so the crowd could kiss his ring.

Let's go larger. Remember the hoopla when Cal Ripken Jr. set the record for consecutive games played? That celebration was larger than the trophy ceremony following the World Series. Ripken also took a victory lap. Did he get a phone call from Bud Selig? Hell no...Selig was there.

We all know Barry Bonds is an asshole. We also know Bud Selig is an asshole. I don't have to make any cases; you know the score. Bonds cheated. Selig looked the other way, and now he's in the position of having to acknowledge that baseball's most vaunted record is being broken under shady circumstances (even worse for Selig, Aaron is his good friend). Too bad. Selig wanted to be Commissioner. He's the worst Commissioner to serve during my lifetime, which is frightening when you consider I've also been a baseball fan during the reigns of "Buffoon" Bowie Kuhn and Bart "Fuck Pete Rose Over" Giamatti (I still believe Giamatti fed Rose some bullshit about "accept this so-called lifetime suspension and, after the heat's off, we'll reinstate you in a couple of years," and then reneged on the deal).

Hey, I wouldn't want to be the guy either who has to stand on the field and say glowing things about Barry Bonds. But I would do my job, which is more than Selig has ever done.

The Man From Binger

Happy birthday to my all-time favorite baseball player, who was born December 7, 1947 in Oklahoma City and was reared in the tiny town of Binger. One of the most exciting nights of my young life was attending Johnny Bench Night at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati on September 17, 1983. It was one of the last games Bench would ever play before retiring at the end of the season. Even though he had mostly been playing third base (and not all that well), due to bad knees earned by squatting behind home plate 150 games a season, he caught that night and batted cleanup. And damned if he not only belted his 389th (and last) career home run, but also legged out an infield single!

The Reds lost to Houston that night 4-3, but no one in Cincy cared. I still carry the Cincinnati Post's box score of that game in my wallet.