1977

Thank you, GoHeath, for the tip to the YouTube link for what is purported to be the first-ever episode of This Week In Baseball.

I’ve been excited about the debut of this show since there was a report on it in the March 13, 1977, edition of the Paducah Sun-Democrat “Channel Selector” pullout. Here’s Dan Lewis writing for the United Feature Syndicate:

At the recent National Association of Television Program Executives convention in Miami Beach, Ernie Banks, the Chicago Cubs great immortalized this year as the newest elected member to Baseball’s Hall of Fame, was on prominent display, letting people know about “This Week in Baseball.”

At the hotel pool, in major league baseball’s suite and at banquets, Banks moved around easily, letting the local program executives know that the commissioner’s office, the owners, an assortment of production companies, a distributor and an ad agency were partners in the TV venture …

Banks, who has remained wit the Chicago Cubs—the only team he ever played for during his major league career—in sales promotion, did his job well. The programmers were anxious to meet him and, in return, listened to his pitch on behalf of baseball.

Mel Allen, the one-time New York Yankees’ play-by-play announcer (for 23 years), will host the series, which will run for 26 weeks, starting April 16—the second of the season.

Pro football highlights are aired weekly by both NBC and CBS during the season on their respective Sunday sports specials that precede games on these networks. But although NBC carries a Saturday game and ABC the Monday night game in baseball, neither offers these highlights.

So the league is packaging its own show. These highlights, culled from the 100 to 150 games each week, will be edited by high-speed equipment and will be ready for airing by Friday. In many areas, it is expected they will be shown on the weekend, probably preceding local major league telecasts. In major league cities, channels that air the local teams will have first option.

It appears there were production delays, because Howard Smith of the Associated Press reports in a syndicated column turning up in papers June 23 and around then that the series is in its fourth week:

... and the reception has been great. In Boston, baseball writers can’t see it Saturday afternoons as a rule because they’re at the Red Sox game so they have requested a special showing. Club officials also are planning to show it on the scoreboard at Fenway Park prior to Saturday games.

The idea of a highlight show is not new. The National Football League has been doing it for years with success. But the NFL only has 14 games every weekend to deal with. There approximately are 70 baseball games every week and, until this year, it has not been economically feasible to produce a highlights show.

This year baseball has purchased a video cassette recorder for each ballpark. Of the 70 games played in a week, generally about 52 of them are televised somewhere. Baseball records the telecasts on the cassettes, ships the film to New York and the highlights are put together for the show. It sounds much easier than it is.

I think it sounds hard. And I'm excited to watch—right before I listen to tonight's A's game, at Detroit.

31 May 1977, Tue The San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco, California) Newspapers.com

#GreenCollar!

OK, the A's lost Saturday, and I said I wasn't going to get excited and start posting about them unless they won that game. But now the A's have won today, and it's fun to be excited about your team. Oakland is now 7-9 and just one game out of the American League West lead! Go, A's!!! Now the Cardinals are coming to town, and that means I'll get to hear them on local radio here in Madisonville. Sports is the best!

Programming Note

If the A's beat the Nationals this afternoon to move to 7-8 on the season, I plan to start paying attention to baseball again.

MLB Update (2021)

Feels crucial ...

 

 

MLB Update

I think my new favorite A is going to be Buddy Reed, who is a 6-foot-4, 25-year-old outfielder. He has two hits in five spring-training at-bats so far, and both are home runs—including a solo in the top of the seventh today as Oakland beat the Brewers, 2-1. Also, he can really throw.

MLB20 Update

Here's my current projection for pairings in the best-of-three Wild Card Series in the 2020 Major League Baseball playoffs:

-- Houston Astros (1) vs. Toronto Blue Jays (8)
-- Oakland A's (4) vs. Cleveland Baseball Team (5)
-- Minnesota Twins (3) vs. Boston Red Sox (6)
-- New York Yankees (2) vs. Texas Rangers (7)
-- Los Angeles Dodgers (1) vs. Atlanta Braves (8)
-- Chicago Cubs (4) vs. San Diego Padres (5)
-- New York Mets (3) vs. Miami Marlins (6)
-- St. Louis Cardinals (2) vs. Cincinnati Reds (7)

I'm basing this on current standings, with last season's regular-season performance breaking ties. My initial two thoughts about the pairings are, one, that Cardinals-Reds series would be huge around here, and, two, if I were a Dodgers fan, I would be a little wary of the Braves after they charged out of nowhere to take the National League's eighth berth.

The A's are 1-0, and I stayed awake until right before they actually won it. I have an anonymous source who emailed the following (italicized) observations as the glorious, 7-3 victory over the Los Angeles Angels played out. He might choose to GOaHEAd and reveal himself, but I am not going to divulge.

Subject: I'm watching the A's and the Angels
Date: July 24, 2020 at 10:51:16 PM CDT
I would guess that approximately 80 percent of the A's games I've watched over the last 10 years involved the Angels.

This was the first of Oakland's 60 regular-season games, probably 45 of which will be against the Angels.

Baseball Reference is amazing. So, as previously noted, is the internet. I'm sitting here in my living room in Madisonville, Kentucky, watching the MLB74 All-Star Game on YouTube while also browsing  Mike Trout's career splits against different opponents (and checking out some gorgeous custom-made, 1970s-style football cards).

Richard Justice is ga-ga for Mike Trout, and Richard Justice is great.

Mike Trout has finished 2nd, 2nd, 1st, 2nd and 1st in AL MVP voting in his first five full seasons. No one ever ever ever has done that.

— Richard Justice (@richardjustice) November 17, 2016

Mike Trout is on pace for 51 homers, 132 runs and 14.3 WAR.

— Richard Justice (@richardjustice) June 4, 2018

Mike Trout's 64.2 career WAR is currently ahead of Ty Cobb (63.4) for tops all time by a position player through age-27 season.--@Angels

— Richard Justice (@richardjustice) April 1, 2019

I believe Richard Justice, but I do not have my own authentic sense of the greatness of Mike Trout's career. Because the only games I watch on TV are A's games or playoff games, and because the A's play the Angels two out of every three games and the Angels do not participate in the playoffs, my sense of Mike Trout is based only on his thousands of games against the A's, and Mike Trout has been better against the rest of the league than he has against the A's.

For example, Mike Trout's on-base percentage ((hits plus bases on balls plus + times hit by pitch) divided by (AB plus BB plus HBP plus sacrifice flies)) is .396 in 613 career plate appearances against the A's. That's really good. Carl Yastrzemski led the entire American League with an OBP of .395 in MLB65. However, Mike Trout has led the American League in OBP for each of the last four seasons with nothing lower than last year's .438. His career OBP is .500 against teams with less than a .500 record and .406 against above-.500 teams. He's played eight career games against the Milwaukee Brewers, and his OBP against them is .594!

(Oh, my gosh, Barry Bonds's OBPs were .515 in MLB01, .582 in MLB02, .529 in MLB03 and .609 in MLB04. No one has had an OBP above .500 since, and no one had one in the 1900s had one other than Ted Williams, Babe Ruth and Rogers Hornsby—and none of those guys got close to .609. Cheating is the worst.)

So, back to Mike Trout, Mike Trout to me is a very good player but not nearly as great as Richard Justice knows him to be. (And, again, I do know that Richard Justice, who watches all of the baseball games, is correct.)

Mike Trout has played most of his games against the A's, Mariners and Rangers, who have always been in his division. The A's have intentionally walked Trout a lot less than those other two teams have, but they did so last night.

Subject: The A's no longer have a flagship radio station
Date: July 24, 2020 at 10:53:43 PM CDT
They've gone to a streaming model, although there are still 11 stations in Northern California (mostly in rural areas) that still carry the games.  I can still get the radio broadcasts online, so I'm fine.
On my scoreboard at home, I've decided to go with all logos from the 1970's as much as possible.  I also have the Angels listed on the scoreboard as "Cal."

I had to look up what the Angels are calling themselves now. I seriously thought they were currently going by "Anaheim."

Subject: The A's have designated their field
Date: July 24, 2020 at 10:57:54 PM CDT
As "Rickey Henderson Field."
I would have gone with "Reggie Jackson Field."

One thing they said on ESPN last night that surprised me is that Marcus Semien has more opening-day starts at shortstop than any other A ever. That is great! I absolutely would've guessed Bert Campaneris, who was my favorite of the '70s A's. But I'm very happy for Marcus Semien, who was born Sept. 17, 1990, in San Francisco, just a few weeks before the A's were swept by the Reds in the World Series. I watched those games with a bunch of Reds fans in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and those guys still remind me of it two or three times a season.

Subject: The A's have crowd noise on their radio broadcast
Date: July 25, 2020 at 12:06:50 AM CDT
It's quite good -- they have organ music, and a PA announcer, and you can hear the crowd reacting to the events in the game.  If you were only listening to the radio, you would think it was a normal game.

I particularly enjoyed the pictures of people in the seats. Tony La Russa and Sal Bando were among those. It's so great to have baseball back.

Subject: 3-3 after 9

Date: July 25, 2020 at 12:33:04 AM CDT

The A's and Angels become the first teams in Major League history to start the 10th inning with a runner on second base.

This is when I turned it off to go to sleep. I was really tired, and, besides, my wife wanted to show me a video of Lin-Manuel Miranda playing one of those arcade games where the claw drops down and grasps at a stuffed animal or whatever. He's really good at it!

Subject: A's walk off the Angels with a GRAND SLAM

Date: July 25, 2020 at 1:02:58 AM CDT

A's win 7-3 in 10, move to 1-0 on the year.

#GREENCOLLAR!

What's On TV This Afternoon (1973)?

I wish this was the complete NBC broadcast with the commercials, but how ungrateful could a nostalgic A's fan get? The Internet Is Amazing™, and here's Game 7 of the 1973 World Series, telecast starting at 3 Central Sunday afternoon, Oct. 21, 1973:

Here's your boy, YouTube user "Classic Baseball on the Radio," if you want to sync up the Mets' radio to the video:

Here are some baseball-y ads from Sports Illustrated this year on which I might comment:

And here are the World Series rosters for Oakland and New York--as pictured with the Mike Andrews Sporting News in our kitchen--and I definitely plan to comment on all of this stuff:

Go, A's!

MLB Update

It's 5:50 a.m. Central in Madisonville, and Mariner Ichiro Suzuki, age 45, just drew a walk with a one on in the top of the fourth against the A's in Japan. And now he and the lead runner advanced on a sacrifice bunt, and Seattle, up 5-4, is threatening again ...

Aw, man ...

Comments flow.

Thirty Sixth Podcast

The thirty sixth podcast is up. Thanks to freemidi.org for the audio files. Eric and Matthew talk about their 10 favorite movies.

RSS Feed

MLB Update

A's!

Baseball Update

The Internet Is Amazing™.

Sixth Podcast

The sixth podcast is up. Thanks to freemidi.org for the audio files. This week Eric and Matthew talk baseball.

RSS Feed

Baseball Update

I love the Baseball-Reference.com similarity scores. I just compared some guys that the A’s and Padres traded today, and I enjoy thinking about it in that we basically traded Paul Lindblad for Frank Torre. I don’t even really care how accurate this is; I just enjoy thinking about it in that way, and I might try looking at the whole 2016 baseball season in this way here at the HP.

I'm so tired of the Dolphins being bad.

#GreenCollar!

For this moment, the A's are no longer the worst team in the American League. With its third-straight victory completed just moments ago, 6-5 over the San Diego Padres, Oakland improved its record to 28-39 (.417). That moved our A's just past the Boston Red Sox (27-38, .415) in the overall A.L. standings. #GreenCollar!

#GREENCOLLAR!

I've spent about the last six months thinking to myself how I'm never going to allow myself to get excited about an Oakland A's season again, until they are through at least the wild-card round of the playoffs. Honestly, what more could a team do through the first 80 percent of a season to justify a fan's optimism, only to fizzle so meekly, than did the 2014 A's? So, forget it. Won't get fooled again, baby. That's what I decided over the last six months.

And then this happened in the first inning of the first spring-training game.

New #Athletics SS Marcus Semien hits an 0-2 Madison Bumgarner pitch for a two-run homer. A's up 2-0 on #SFGiants
— John Hickey (@JHickey3) March 3, 2015

BOOM! Take that, MadBum! And, suddenly, Marcus Semien is my main man from SanFran. #GREENCOLLAR!

#GREENCOLLAR!

Phew.

A's

A's had two outs, two strikes and none on against the White Sox in the bottom of the ninth last night in Chicago. They allowed a solo homer there and again in the bottom of the 12th and lost their ninth in 11 games, 5-4.

Nineteen more days of summer:

-- at White Sox today,

-- at White Sox tomorrow,

-- at White Sox Thursday,

-- at Mariners Friday,

-- at Mariners Saturday,

-- at Mariners Sunday,

-- vs. Rangers Sept. 16,

-- vs. Rangers Sept. 17,

-- vs. Rangers Sept. 18,

-- vs. Phillies Sept. 19,

-- vs. Phillies Sept. 20,

-- vs. Phillies Sept. 21,

vs. Angels Sept. 22,

vs. Angels Sept. 23,

vs. Angels Sept. 24,

at Rangers Sept. 25,

at Rangers Sept. 26,

at Rangers Sept. 27 and

at Rangers Sept. 28.

Now behind eight games in the American League West to the Angels, the A's are now fighting to retain grasp on a wild-card spot. They remain one game up on the Mariners, and the Tigers are a half game behind Seattle. The Royals lead the Tigers by a game in the A.L. Central, but they would be a half-game behind the A's if you figure them in the wild-card standings.

That's the sitch. It's not great. It's not what any of us wanted. But if Oakland can simply start winning more often than it loses, it will have a shot at holding its place in the standings. The Mariners have won seven of their last 10; the Tigers, six, and the Royals, five. The A's are 2-8 over their last 10.

A's!

The Oakland A's have beaten the Houston Astros in a game of baseball this afternoon! The A's scored a run in the third of nine innings, and then the Astros scored two runs in the sixth inning. This made the score two runs for the Astros and one for the A's. And then Houston scored another run in the seventh inning. At this point, the score was 3-1, in favor of the Astros. Oakland failed to score any runs during its at-bat in the seventh or eighth innings, but, fortunately, Houston didn't score any more runs, either. So the game went to the bottom half of the ninth and final inning with the score still 3-1 in favor of the Astros, and then here's what happened:

-- Josh Donaldson hit the ball into right field, and he made it to first base before being thrown out. 

-- Adam Dunn hit the ball sharply into center field, but the Houston player in that position was able to catch the ball before it hit the ground. Donaldson remained at first base, and now there was one out. The A's would need to score two or more runs before they made two more outs, or they would lose their fourth-consecutive baseball game!

-- Derek Norris was next up for Oakland, and he, too, hit the ball into center field. But, unlike his teammate Dunn, Norris hit the ball in such a way that it scooted along the ground out to center field. This allowed Norris time to run to first base before the Houston outfielder could throw him out, and Donaldson ran all the way around to third base. 

-- At this point, the managers of the two clubs got into the action. Oakland's manager replaced Norris with a faster runner named Billy Burns, and the Houston manager replaced his pitcher.

-- Alas, the strategy of Bob Melvin, the Oakland manager, worked out better than did that of Houston's, in that the next A's batter, Josh Reddick, slugged a ball so far into left field that he was able to run right on by first base and advance to second for a double. Furthermore, not only did Donaldson run home from third (making the score 3-2, still in favor of Houston), but also fleet-footed Burns raced all the way around second and third base and came home himself! Suddenly, the score was tied at three runs apiece!

-- Oakland fans like me could afford to breathe a sigh of relief now, because, even if Oakland quickly made two more outs, the game would still continue for at least one more inning. BUT NO! Jed Lowrie, though he would've been out had he made just one more strike, swung and hit the ball into left field. Reddick ran around third base and to home plate, and that gave the A's four runs to the Astros' three!

And there you have it! It's a Saturday afternoon; the Oakland A's and Houston Astros played a game of baseball; the A's won; I got to keep up with how things were going in Oakland, Calif., from my home in Madisonville, Ky.,  and I am very thankful for all of it!

This Was The Fear

So, stud-pickup Jon Lester gave up two runs today--back-to-back solo home runs in the seventh inning--and the Oakland A's lost at home, 2-1, to the Seattle Mariners as mighty Adam Dunn struck out on three pitches to end the game. Dunn's solo home run was one of three Oakland hits today.

The A's are now further out of first place in the American League West (5.0 games behind Los Angeles, which plays at Houston tonight) than they are ahead of third-place Seattle (3.5). Furthermore, Detroit (which plays at Cleveland tonight) is now just 2.5 games behind Oakland for top position in the A.L. wild-card race. Seattle is third place in that, too.

This Is The New Plan

Adam Dunn just homered on the third pitch of his first at-bat as the new designated hitter of the A's. It's 2-0, Oakland, in the bottom of the first against the Mariners.