I liked Toni Tennille from the "Love Will Keep Us Together" start, and I have absolutely loved her once we saw her in "The Rainmaker" at Westport Playhouse in St. Louis, and now I am thrilled to discover again that she was on the mic for the national anthem on last night 1978's Game 1 of the World Series from beautiful Los Angeles ...
The gravity of Jim Gilliam's passing was just burned into me as a 10-year-old. I might've heard of him as a Dodgers coach, but the mourning among the TV baseball people was so intense and demonstrable that it totally moved me. I'm not certain I had actually attended a funeral by this point, so it might've been this or Jack Benny's death that might've introduced me to public grieving.
ReplyDeleteElvis's death in 1977 was a big deal as well.
DeleteOh, sure, you are exactly right--that one was huge, and I forgot about it. Glad you mentioned it. But I guess it was so over the top that it didn't seem so relatable, as though you were attending a run-of-the-mill funeral through the TV depiction, as these two did.
DeleteAnother one that was huge in my family specifically (and with a lot of people) was Jim Croce, but I don't see where that one got so much TV treatment.
The inning-to-inning NBC booth is Joe Garagiola, Tony Kubek and Tom Seaver. It's interesting to hear Seaver talk about Tommy John as a (lesser) peer. Even though Garagiola and Kubek also played baseball, they talk about the current guys with some outsider distance. Seaver's tone sounds exactly as someone talking about someone they work with or around--there's certainly no awe in his voice; there's appreciation for the challenges of the contemporary industry (no snide references, for example, to how much money today's players make); there's definitely some competition.
ReplyDeleteGaragiola notes that he and Rick Monday are neighbors in Scottsdale, Arizona! That is fun to think about.
ReplyDeleteAh, yes: Paradise Valley, specifically.
ReplyDeleteParadise Valley is a desert and mountain town in Arizona east of state capital Phoenix. The town is known for its golf courses, resorts and restaurants, the workshop of Paolo Soleri, and close proximity to Scottsdale and Phoenix. According to the 2020 census, its population was 12,658. ...
Notable people
⚾️ Michael Bidwill, businessman, prosecutor, and football executive; he is the principal owner, chairman, and president of the Arizona Cardinals
⚾️ Charles Boyer, Franco-American actor
⚾️ Alice Cooper, shock rock singer and co-founder of Alice Cooper's Solid Rock Foundation
⚾️ Sheryl Cooper, dancer, dance instructor, and choreographer, and co-founder of ⚾️ Alice Cooper's Solid Rock Foundation. Wife of Alice Cooper.
⚾️ Doug Ducey, politician and businessman, governor of Arizona
⚾️ Barry Goldwater, U.S. senator and 1964 Republican presidential nominee
⚾️ Jay Grdina, businessman and former pornographic actor
⚾️ Bil Keane, cartoonist, creator of The Family Circus
⚾️ Kliff Kingsbury, Arizona Cardinals head coach
⚾️ Brooks Lennon, soccer player who represented the United States national team
⚾️ G. Gordon Liddy, Watergate scandal figure and Nixon appointee
⚾️ Leslie Nielsen, Canadian-American actor
⚾️ Sandra Day O'Connor, former Justice of the US Supreme Court
⚾️ Michael Phelps, former competitive swimmer and the most successful and most decorated Olympian of all time, with a total of 28 medals
⚾️ Dan Quayle, Vice President of the United States (1989–1993), U.S. senator from Indiana (1981–1989), and representative of Indiana's 4th congressional district (1977–1981)
⚾️ William Rehnquist, former Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court
That's from super Wikipedia, of course.
DeleteFuture A Davey Lopes hit two home runs, and the home team got out early on the Yankees and won Game 1, 11-5, on Oct. 10, and now on the afternoon of Wednesday, Oct. 11, 1978, we're getting "A Home Run for Love (Thank You, Jackie Robinson):" "In 1947, a young white boy and an elderly black man enjoy a warm and wonderful friendship based on their mutual love of the Brooklyn Dodgers and Jackie Robinson.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I labored through about a dozen of these ABC Afternoon Special dramas, and I don't remember any of them being about sports. How did I miss this one? It would be the only one I can even imagine being worth missing a Hazel or whatever sitcom Channel 3 would normally be broadcasting late in an afternoon.
Game 2: We've had another moment of silence for Jim Gilliam, and now here's Vikki Carr with the national anthem. This woman can really sing.
ReplyDeleteWow.
DeleteWalter Alston, the 66-year-old former Dodgers manager, throws out the ceremonial first pitch. He tells Curt Gowdy he has moved "back to Ohio" (Alston was born in Venice, Ohio, in 1911 and died in Oxford in 1984) where he concentrates on "mowing grass, playing golf and enjoying life." Garagiola refers to Alston as "Smoky," a nickname I don't remember ever hearing for him.
ReplyDeleteFormer A Gary Thomasson gets the first hit of Game 2, a one-out single in the top of the first for the Yankees.
ReplyDeleteAh, yes, the A's ... <a href="https://www.heathpost.com/2025/05/1978.html>you might remember how they were in first place and their manager retired</a>. Well, they actually stayed in contention for most of the summer but lost 37 of their last 45 games to finish 69-93 and sixth place in the A.L. West.
Bill North, the last A from the championship seasons, was traded to the Dodgers in May; Thomasson, who hit .201 in Oakland, went to the Yankees in June. So I'm happy to see them in the World Series.
Yankees take a 2-0 lead in the top of the third. The second run comes across as Thurman Munson eschews the slide and skirts past Steve Yeager up the baseline to receive a close throw from Reggie Smith in right field. Staying on his feet appeared crucial to Munson getting around Yeager, who was well-positioned in the base path. Garagiola suggests Munson's experience as a fellow catcher probably informed his decision to not slide.
ReplyDeleteKubek: "He’s making a believer of even Tom Seaver. He is absolutely fabulous!"
ReplyDeleteSeaver: "I don’t believe it! What he has done in the last two days is unbelievable!"
They're talking about Graig Nettles. The Dodgers won Game 2, 4-3, and now I'm catching up on yesterday 1978's Game 3. It's 2-1 going to the bottom of the sixth after nettles stabbed a bases-full, two-outs screamer by Davey Lopes down the third-base line and zipped the ball over to Glasgow’s Brian Doyle for a force at second.
ReplyDeleteGame 4 is this afternoon.
There were two or three sentences repeated year after year in my house, about clutch athletes in different sports. If you had been confined to a temperature-controlled room in my house with no windows, you could've told what time of year it was by listening for these sentences and whether they were said this time about John Havlicek, Tom Matte or Graig Nettles.
ReplyDeleteGame 3 final from the SelectaVision: Yankees 5, Dodgers 1.
ReplyDeleteGame 4 is underway from Yankee Stadium on the afternoon of Saturday, Oct. 14, 1978, and it's 0-0 in the bottom of the first. Bill Russell reached base on a bunt, but then the Yankees tamped down the Dodger threat with a 9-3-4 double play.
ReplyDeleteThis is developing as an all-time game for right-field defense. Dodger Reggie Smith just gunned down Yankee Paul Blair, trying to score from second on a liner into right. Los Angeles catcher Steve Yeager's stellar base-path blocking has gotten a lot of love from former catcher Joe Garagiola in this series (even when New York catcher Thurman Munson evaded it).
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm going to have to SelectaVision the rest of this game tomorrow morning. The Dodgers have taken a 3-0 lead in Game 3, with Smith clobbering an Ed Figueroa pitch into the right-field seats. Los Angeles leads the series, 2 games to 1, and now it leads, 3-0, through five innings of Game 4. If not for run-saving stop after run-saving stop by Nettles in Game 3, it feels like we'd be headed toward a Dodgers sweep.
ReplyDeleteProgramming note: Dolphins at Chargers after NFL '78 pregame on Channel 6 tomorrow afternoon. "NBSeeSports!"