The ''Major League Baseball Game of the Week'' (''GOTW'') is the
de facto
''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
title for nationally televised coverage of regular season
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
games. ''The Game of the Week'' has traditionally aired on Saturday afternoons. When the national networks began televising national games of the week, it opened the door for a national audience to see particular clubs. While most teams were broadcast, emphasis was always on the league leaders and the major market franchises that could draw the largest audience.
History
Origins
1950s
In ,
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
-TV executive
Edgar J. Scherick
Edgar J. Scherick (October 16, 1924 – December 2, 2002) was an Emmy-winning American television executive and producer of television miniseries, made-for-television films, and theatrical motion pictures.
Life and career
Scherick was born i ...
(who would later go on to create ''
Wide World of Sports'') broached a Saturday ''Game of the Week''- baseball's first regular-season network telecast. At the time, ABC was labeled a "nothing network" that had fewer outlets than
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
or
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
. ABC also needed paid programming or "anything for bills" as Scherick put it. At first, ABC hesitated at the idea of a nationally televised regular season baseball program.
In April 1953, Scherick set out to acquire broadcasting rights from various major league clubs, but only got the
Philadelphia Athletics
The Philadelphia Athletics were a Major League Baseball team that played in Philadelphia from 1901 to 1954, when they moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and became the Kansas City Athletics. Following another move in 1967, the team became the Oaklan ...
,
Cleveland Indians
The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. Since , they have played at Progressive F ...
, and
Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team is owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, and p ...
to sign on. To make matters worse, Major League Baseball blacked out the ''Game of the Week'' on any TV stations within 50 miles of a ballpark. Major League Baseball, according to Scherick, insisted on protecting local coverage and didn't care about national appeal. ABC though, did care about the national appeal and claimed that "most of America was still up for grabs."
In , ABC earned an 11.4
rating
A rating is an evaluation or assessment of something, in terms of quality, quantity, or some combination of both.
Rating or ratings may also refer to:
Business and economics
* Credit rating, estimating the credit worthiness of an individual, c ...
for their ''Game of the Week'' telecasts.
Blacked-out cities had 32
% of households. In the rest of the United States, 3 in 4 TV sets in use watched
Dizzy Dean
Jay Hanna "Dizzy" Dean (January 16, 1910 – July 17, 1974), also known as Jerome Herman Dean (both the 1910 and 1920 Censuses show his name as "Jay"), was an American professional baseball pitcher. During his Major League Baseball (MLB) career ...
and
Buddy Blattner
Robert Garnett "Buddy" Blattner (February 8, 1920 – September 4, 2009), was an American table tennis and professional baseball player. He played five seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), primarily for the New York Giants. After his reti ...
call the games for ABC.
In , CBS took over the ''Game'' package, adding Sunday telecasts in . NBC began its own Saturday and Sunday coverage in 1957 and
1959
Events January
* January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance.
* January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...
, respectively. In , ABC resumed Saturday telecasts; that year the "Big 3" networks aired a combined 123 games. As ABC's Edgar Scherick later observed, "In '53, no one wanted us. Now teams begged for Game's cash." That year, the
NFL began a US$14.1 million revenue-sharing pact. Dean and Blattner continued to call the games for CBS, with
Pee Wee Reese
Harold Peter Henry "Pee Wee" Reese (July 23, 1918 – August 14, 1999) was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a shortstop for the Brooklyn / Los Angeles Dodgers from 1940 to 1958. A ten-time All-Star ...
replacing Blattner in 1960.
Gene Kirby Eugene Kirby (died April 27, 2011, at St. Petersburg, Florida) was an American Major League Baseball announcer and front office executive. Kirby was one of the key play-by-play announcers for the Mutual Broadcasting System's Major League "Game of th ...
, who'd worked with Dean and Blattner for ABC and
Mutual radio, also contributed to the CBS telecasts as a producer and announcer.
1960s
By
1965
Events January–February
* January 14 – The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years.
* January 20
** Lyndon B. Johnson is Second inauguration of Lyndo ...
, Major League Baseball ended ''Game of the Week'' blackouts in cities with MLB clubs. Other cities within fifty miles of an MLB stadium got $6.5 million for exclusivity, and split the pot.
On March 17, 1965,
Jackie Robinson became the first
black
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ...
network broadcaster for Major League Baseball. According to
ABC Sports
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Televisi ...
producer
Chuck Howard
Charles (Chuck) Howard (1933 – November 21, 1996) was an American television executive, and a pioneer in television sports broadcasting.
Biography Early life and career
Howard was born in 1933. He graduated from Duke University in 1955, where ...
, despite Robinson having a high, stabbing voice, great presence, and sharp mind, all he lacked was time.
In
1965
Events January–February
* January 14 – The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years.
* January 20
** Lyndon B. Johnson is Second inauguration of Lyndo ...
, ABC provided the first-ever nationwide baseball coverage with weekly Saturday broadcasts on a regional basis. ABC paid $5.7 million for the rights to the 28 Saturday/holiday ''Games of the Week''. ABC's deal covered all of the teams except the
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Amer ...
and
Philadelphia Phillies
The Philadelphia Phillies are an American professional baseball team based in Philadelphia. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) National League East, East division. Since 2004, the team's home sta ...
(who had their own television deals) and called for three regionalized games on Saturdays,
Independence Day, and
Labor Day. ABC blacked out the games in the home cities of the clubs playing those games.
Chris Schenkel
Christopher Eugene Schenkel (August 21, 1923 – September 11, 2005) was an American sportscaster. Over the course of five decades he called play-by-play for numerous sports on television and radio, becoming known for his smooth delivery and bar ...
,
Keith Jackson, and
Merle Harmon
Merle Reid Harmon (June 21, 1926 – April 15, 2009) was an American sportscaster who was the play-by-play voice for five Major League Baseball teams, two teams in the American Football League and the World Football League's nationally syndicate ...
were the principal play-by-play announcers for ABC's coverage.
NBC's ''Game of the Week''
1960s
In
1966, the
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Amer ...
, who in the year before played 21 ''Games of the Week'' for CBS, joined NBC's package, as did the
Philadelphia Phillies
The Philadelphia Phillies are an American professional baseball team based in Philadelphia. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) National League East, East division. Since 2004, the team's home sta ...
. The new package under NBC called for 28 games compared to
1960's three-network combination of 123.
On October 19, 1966, NBC signed a three-year contract with Major League Baseball. The year before, NBC lost the rights to the Saturday-Sunday ''Game of the Week''. In addition, the previous deal limited CBS to covering only 12 weekends when its new subsidiary, the
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Amer ...
, played at home.
Under the new deal, NBC paid roughly US$6 million per year for 25 Saturday games and prime-time contests on
Memorial Day
Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is a federal holiday in the United States for mourning the U.S. military personnel who have fought and died while serving in the United States armed forces. It is observed on the last Monda ...
,
Independence Day, and
Labor Day; $6.1 million for the
1967 World Series and
1967 All-Star Game; and $6.5 million for the
1968 World Series and
1968 All-Star Game. This brought the total value of the contract (which included three Monday night telecasts) up to $30.6 million.
NBC, replacing CBS, traded a
circus
A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclist ...
for a seminar.
Pee Wee Reese
Harold Peter Henry "Pee Wee" Reese (July 23, 1918 – August 14, 1999) was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a shortstop for the Brooklyn / Los Angeles Dodgers from 1940 to 1958. A ten-time All-Star ...
said "
Curt Gowdy
Curtis Edward Gowdy (July 31, 1919 – February 20, 2006) was an American sportscaster. He called Boston Red Sox games on radio and TV for 15 years, and then covered many nationally televised sporting events, primarily for NBC Sports and ABC S ...
was its guy (
1966–
1975), and didn't want
izzy
Izzy is a common nickname for the given names Israel,Isaac, Isambard, Isidor, Isidore, Isidora, Isabel, Isobel, Isabelle, Isabella, Isaiah, Ishmael, Izzet, Isarn, Ismail, Isra, Izebel, Izmara, Isobelle, Isaura or Isam (عصام).
Izzy, Izzi ...
Dean
Dean may refer to:
People
* Dean (given name)
* Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin
* Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk
* Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean
Titles
* ...
– too overpowering. Curt was nice, but worried about mistakes. Diz and I just laughed."
Falstaff Brewery
The Falstaff Brewing Corporation was a major American brewery located in St. Louis, Missouri. With roots in the 1838 Lemp Brewery of St. Louis, the company was renamed after the Shakespearean character Sir John Falstaff in 1903. Production peake ...
hyped Dean as Gowdy in return said "I said, 'I can't do "
Wabash Cannonball
"The Great Rock Island Route", popularized as "Wabash Cannonball" and various other titles, is a 19th century American folk song that describes the scenic beauty and predicaments of a fictional train, the ''Wabash Cannonball Express'', as it tra ...
." Our styles clash'"-then came Pee Wee Reese. Gowdy added by saying about the pairing between him and Reese "They figured he was fine with me, and they'd still have their boy."
To many, baseball meant CBS' – ''Game of the Week'' thoroughbred. A year later, NBC bought ABC's variant of a mule so to speak. "We had the Series and All-Star Game.
1966–
1968's "Game" meant exclusivity," said
NBC Sports
NBC Sports is an American programming division of the broadcast network NBC, owned and operated by NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal and subsidiary of Comcast. The division is responsible for sports broadcasts on the network, and its d ...
head Carl Lindemann. Lindemann added by saying "
olleagueChet Simmons
Chester Robert "Chet" Simmons (July 11, 1928 – March 25, 2010) was a television executive. He worked at ABC Sports, NBC Sports and ESPN, and was the first Commissioner of the USFL. From 1957 to 1964, he helped build ABC Sports into a leader in ...
and liked him
owdywith the
Sox
Sox most often refers to:
* Boston Red Sox, an MLB team
* Chicago White Sox, an MLB team
* An alternate spelling of socks
Sox may also refer to:
Places
* SOX, Sogamoso Airport's IATA airport code, an airport in Colombia
Computing and technolo ...
and
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
"-also, getting two network sports for the price of one. As his analyst, Gowdy wanted his friend
Ted Williams
Theodore Samuel Williams (August 30, 1918 – July 5, 2002) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played his entire 19-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career, primarily as a left fielder, for the Boston Red Sox from 1939 ...
. NBC's lead sponsor,
Chrysler
Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automoti ...
said no when Williams, a
Sears
Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
spokesman, was pictured putting stuff in a
Ford
Ford commonly refers to:
* Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford
* Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river
Ford may also refer to:
Ford Motor Company
* Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company
* Ford F ...
truck.
A
black and white kinescope
Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program on motion picture film, directly through a lens focused on the screen of a video monitor. The process was pioneered during the 194 ...
(saved by
Armed Forces Television) of a July 12, between the
Philadelphia Philles and
Chicago Cubs
The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as part of the National League (NL) Central division. The club plays its home games at Wrigley Field, which is located ...
is believed to be the oldest surviving complete telecast of the Saturday afternoon ''Game of the Week''.
=1960s ratings
=
The
Nielsen ratings for the ''Game of the Week'' from – as well as the World Series fell by 10 and 19%, respectively. Only the All-Star Game nixed the seemingly growing view that baseball was too bland for a hip and inchoate age. Almost half (48%) in a
Harris Poll
The Harris Poll (legal name: Harris Insights and Analytics) is an American market research and analytics company that has been tracking the sentiment, behaviors and motivations of American adults since 1963. In addition to the traditional consulti ...
named baseball as their favorite sport. Just 19% did a decade later, as
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
became more popular than baseball on television and by attendance figures. Part of the problem was that exclusivity began.
Lindsey Nelson
Lindsey Nelson (May 25, 1919 – June 10, 1995) was an American sportscaster best known for his long career calling play-by-play of college football and New York Mets baseball.
Nelson spent 17 years with the Mets and three years with the San F ...
said "Think of the last decade.
Mel
Mel, Mels or MEL may refer to:
Biology
* Mouse erythroleukemia cell line (MEL)
* National Herbarium of Victoria, a herbarium with the Index Herbariorum code MEL
People
* Mel (given name), the abbreviated version of several given names (including ...
,
Buck
Buck may refer to:
Common meanings
* A colloquialism for a dollar or similar currency
* An adult male in some animal species - see List of animal names
* Derby shoes, nicknamed "bucks" for the common use of buckskin in their making
People
*Buck ...
,
Diz-and one guy replaces 'em." As viewers grew tired, the ''
Sporting News'' got so many unfavorable letters (mostly concerning their problems with Curt Gowdy)-"atrocity...a pallbearer...baseball is not dead, no thanks to Gowdy"-it routed them to NBC.
Harry Caray
Harry Christopher Caray (; March 1, 1914 – February 18, 1998) was an American radio and television sportscaster. During his career he called the play-by-play for five Major League Baseball teams, beginning with 25 years of calling the games ...
wrote "As spectacle, baseball suffers on
V" He added by saying "The fan at the park
alk, drink, take Junior to the johnrarely notices the time span between pitches. Not to the same fan at home." Although not necessarily responsible, Gowdy was held accountable, becoming, as he did, more visible than even Dizzy Dean.
One other problem was that although the "Game Of The Week" was available in cities with Major League clubs; network telecasts often went head-to-head with local broadcasts of hometown teams, since at the time, nearly all Saturday games in the league were afternoon contests. Given a choice of watching the hometown team or a network "Game Of The Week", most fans would pick the former.
1970s
In , NBC paid US$10.7 million per year to show 25 Saturday ''Games of the Week'' and the other half of the postseason (the League Championship Series in odd numbered years and World Series in even numbered years). NBC would continue this particular arrangement with ABC through .
Joe Garagiola
Joseph Henry Garagiola Sr. (February 12, 1926 – March 23, 2016) was an American professional baseball catcher, later an announcer and television host, popular for his colorful personality.
Garagiola played nine seasons in Major League Basebal ...
was pushed to succeed
Curt Gowdy
Curtis Edward Gowdy (July 31, 1919 – February 20, 2006) was an American sportscaster. He called Boston Red Sox games on radio and TV for 15 years, and then covered many nationally televised sporting events, primarily for NBC Sports and ABC S ...
, who by
1978 was reduced to being a roving
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World ...
reporter, as NBC's #1 play-by-play announcer (and team with
color commentator
A color commentator or expert commentator is a sports commentator who assists the main (play-by-play) commentator, typically by filling in when play is not in progress. The phrase "colour commentator" is primarily used in Canadian English and t ...
Tony Kubek) in . NBC hoped that Garagiola's charm and unorthodox dwelling on the personal would stop a decade-long
ratings dive for the ''Game of the Week''. Instead, the ratings bobbed from 6.7 () via 7.5 () to 6.3 (–). "Saturday had a constituency but it didn't swell" said NBC Sports executive producer Scotty Connal. Some believed that millions missed Dizzy Dean while local-team TV split the audience.
Scotty Connal believed that the team of Joe Garagiola and Tony Kubek were "A great example of black and white." Connal added by saying "A pitcher throws badly to third, Joe says, 'The third baseman's fault.' Tony: 'The pitcher's'" Media critic Gary Deeb termed theirs "the finest baseball commentary ever carried on network TV."
In late ,
Milwaukee Brewers announcer
Merle Harmon
Merle Reid Harmon (June 21, 1926 – April 15, 2009) was an American sportscaster who was the play-by-play voice for five Major League Baseball teams, two teams in the American Football League and the World Football League's nationally syndicate ...
left Milwaukee completely in favor of a multi-year pact with NBC. Harmon saw the NBC deal as a perfect opportunity since according to ''The Milwaukee Journal'' he would make more money, get more exposure, and do less traveling. At NBC, Harmon did ''
SportsWorld'', the backup ''Game of the Week'', and served as a field reporter for the
1980 World Series. Harmon most of all, had hoped to cover the American boycotted
1980 Summer Olympics
The 1980 Summer Olympics (russian: Летние Олимпийские игры 1980, Letniye Olimpiyskiye igry 1980), officially known as the Games of the XXII Olympiad (russian: Игры XXII Олимпиады, Igry XXII Olimpiady) and commo ...
from Moscow. After NBC pulled out of their scheduled coverage of the 1980 Summer Olympics, Harmon considered it "a great letdown." To add insult to injury, NBC fired Harmon in in favor of
Bob Costas
Robert Quinlan Costas (born March 22, 1952) is an American sportscaster who is known for his long tenure with NBC Sports, from 1980 through 2019. He has received 28 Emmy awards for his work and was the prime-time host of 12 Olympic Games from 19 ...
. Incidentally, long time NBC ''Game of the Week'' announcer Curt Gowdy replaced Harmon, who was working with ABC a year earlier.
1980s
On September 26, 1981, the scheduled Major League Baseball ''Game of the Week'' between the
Detroit Tigers
The Detroit Tigers are an American professional baseball team based in Detroit. The Tigers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the American League (AL) Central division. One of the AL's eight charter franchises, the club was f ...
and
Milwaukee Brewers had ended, and the NBC affiliate in
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...
,
WGR-TV (now WGRZ), picked up the network's backup game, a
Houston Astros
The Houston Astros are an American professional baseball team based in Houston, Texas. The Astros compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division, having moved to the division in 2013 after ...
–
Los Angeles Dodgers
The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Established in 1883 in the city of Brooklyn ...
contest in which
Nolan Ryan
Lynn Nolan Ryan Jr. (born January 31, 1947), nicknamed "the Ryan Express", is an American former professional baseball pitcher and sports executive. Over a record 27-year playing career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanning four decades, Ryan ...
was pitching his lone
National League
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...
no-hitter
In baseball, a no-hitter is a game in which a team was not able to record a hit. Major League Baseball (MLB) officially defines a no-hitter as a completed game in which a team that batted in at least nine innings recorded no hits. A pitcher wh ...
. However, the coverage suddenly ended just as the ninth inning started, when the local station cut away to regular programming. WGR-TV felt duty-bound to present a naval training film--''Life Aboard an Aircraft Carrier''. (''Baseball Hall of Shame 2'' (1986), by Nash and Zullo; pp. 108–09)
By
1983,
Joe Garagiola
Joseph Henry Garagiola Sr. (February 12, 1926 – March 23, 2016) was an American professional baseball catcher, later an announcer and television host, popular for his colorful personality.
Garagiola played nine seasons in Major League Basebal ...
had stepped aside from the play-by-play duties for
Vin Scully
Vincent Edward Scully (November 29, 1927 – August 2, 2022) was an American sportscaster. He was best known for his 67 seasons calling games for Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers, beginning in 1950 (when the franchise was located ...
while
Tony Kubek
Anthony Christopher Kubek (born October 12, 1935) is an American former professional baseball player and television broadcaster. During his nine-year playing career with the New York Yankees, Kubek played in six World Series in the late 1950s an ...
was paired with
Bob Costas
Robert Quinlan Costas (born March 22, 1952) is an American sportscaster who is known for his long tenure with NBC Sports, from 1980 through 2019. He has received 28 Emmy awards for his work and was the prime-time host of 12 Olympic Games from 19 ...
on NBC telecasts. ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' observed the performance of the team of Scully and Garagiola by saying "The duo of Scully and Garagiola is very good, and often even great, is no longer in dispute." A friend of Garagiola's said "He understood the cash" concerning NBC's
1984–
1989 407
% Major League Baseball hike. At this point the idea was basically summarized as Vin Scully "being the star" whereas, Joe Garagiola was
Pegasus
Pegasus ( grc-gre, Πήγασος, Pḗgasos; la, Pegasus, Pegasos) is one of the best known creatures in Greek mythology. He is a winged divine stallion usually depicted as pure white in color. He was sired by Poseidon, in his role as hor ...
or NBC's junior light.
When NBC inked a US$550 million contract for six years in the fall of 1982, a return on the investment so to speak demanded Vin Scully to be their star baseball announcer. Vin Scully reportedly made $2 million a year during his time with NBC in the 1980s.
NBC Sports
NBC Sports is an American programming division of the broadcast network NBC, owned and operated by NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal and subsidiary of Comcast. The division is responsible for sports broadcasts on the network, and its d ...
head Thomas Watson said about Scully "He is baseball's best announcer. Why shouldn't he be ours?"
Dick Enberg
Richard Alan Enberg (January 9, 1935 – December 21, 2017) was an American sportscaster. Over the course of an approximately 60-year career, he provided play-by-play of various sports for several radio and television networks, including N ...
, who did the ''Game of the Week'' the year prior to Vin Scully's hiring mused "No room for me. "Game" had enough for two teams a week."
Vin Scully had to wait over 15 years to get his shot at calling the ''Game of the Week''. Prior to
1983, Scully only announced the
1966 and
1974 World Series for NBC (during the time-frame of NBC having the ''Game of the Week'') since they both involved Scully's Dodgers. Henry Hecht once wrote "NBC's Curt Gowdy, Tony Kubek, and Monte Moore sounded like college radio rejects vs. Scully."
When Tony Kubek first teamed with Bob Costas in
1983, Kubek said "I'm not crazy about being assigned to the backup game, but it's no big ego deal." Costas said about working with Kubek "I think my humor loosened Tony, and his knowledge improved me." The team of Costas and Kubek proved to be a formidable pair. There were even some who preferred the team of Kubek and Costas over the musings of Vin Scully and the asides of Joe Garagiola.
One of Bob Costas and Tony Kubek's most memorable broadcasts came on June 23,
1984. The duo were at
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
's
Wrigley Field
Wrigley Field is a Major League Baseball (MLB) stadium on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is the home of the Chicago Cubs, one of the city's two MLB franchises. It first opened in 1914 as Weeghman Park for Charles Weeghman's Chicago Wh ...
to call an unbelievable 12–11 contest between the
Chicago Cubs
The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as part of the National League (NL) Central division. The club plays its home games at Wrigley Field, which is located ...
and
St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals ha ...
. Led by second baseman
Ryne Sandberg
Ryne Dee Sandberg (born September 18, 1959), nicknamed "Ryno", is an American former professional baseball player, coach, and manager. He played sixteen seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a second baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies (19 ...
, the Cubs rallied from a 9–3 deficit before winning it in extra innings. After Sandberg hit his second home run in the game (with two out in the bottom of the 9th to tie it 11–11), Costas cried "That's the real Roy Hobbs because this can't be happening! We're sitting here, and it doesn't make any difference if it's
1984 or
'54-just freeze this and don't change a thing!"
In 1985, NBC got a break when Major League Baseball dictated a policy that no local game could be televised at the same time that a network ''Game of the Week'' was being broadcast. Additionally, for the first time, NBC was able to feed the ''Game of the Week'' telecasts to the two cities whose local teams participated. In time, MLB teams whose Saturday games were not scheduled for the ''Game of the Week'' would move the start time of their Saturday games to avoid conflict with the NBC network game, and thus, make it available to local television in the team's home city (and the visiting team's home city as well).
=The end of an era
=
On December 14, 1988, CBS (under the guidance of
Commissioner
A commissioner (commonly abbreviated as Comm'r) is, in principle, a member of a commission or an individual who has been given a commission (official charge or authority to do something).
In practice, the title of commissioner has evolved to in ...
Peter Ueberroth
Peter Victor Ueberroth (; born September 2, 1937) is an American sports and business executive known for his involvement in the Olympics and in Major League Baseball. A Los Angeles-based businessman, he was the chairman of the Los Angeles Olymp ...
, Major League Baseball's broadcast director Bryan Burns,
[ CBS Inc. CEO ]Laurence Tisch
Laurence Alan Tisch (March 5, 1923 – November 15, 2003) was an American businessman, investor and billionaire. He was the CEO of CBS television network from 1986 to 1995. With his brother Bob Tisch, he was part owner of Loews Corporation. ...
as well as CBS Sports
CBS Sports is the sports division of the American television network CBS. Its headquarters are in the CBS Building on W 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, with programs produced out of Studio 43 at the CBS Broadcast Center on W ...
executives Neal Pilson and Eddie Einhorn Eddie Einhorn (January 3, 1936 – February 24, 2016) was minority owner and vice chairman of the Chicago White Sox.
Biography
Einhorn grew up in a Jewish family in Paterson, New Jersey, the son of Mae (née Lippman) and Harold B. Einhorn and resi ...
) paid approximately US$1.8 billion for exclusive over-the-air television rights for over four years (beginning in 1990
File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...
). CBS paid about $265 million each year for the World Series, League Championship Series, All-Star Game, and the Saturday ''Game of the Week''.
NBC's final ''Game of the Week'' was televised on October 9, 1989. It was Game 5 of the National League Championship Series
The National League Championship Series (NLCS) is a best-of-seven playoff and one of two League Championship Series comprising the penultimate round of Major League Baseball's (MLB) postseason. It is contested by the winners of the two Nation ...
between the San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco, California. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1883 as the New Yor ...
and Chicago Cubs
The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as part of the National League (NL) Central division. The club plays its home games at Wrigley Field, which is located ...
from Candlestick Park
Candlestick Park was an outdoor stadium on the West Coast of the United States, located in San Francisco's Bayview Heights area. The stadium was originally the home of Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants, who played there from 1960 un ...
. At the end of the telecast, game announcer Vin Scully said "It's a passing of a great American tradition. It is sad. I really and truly feel that. It will leave a vast window, to use a Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
word, where people will not get Major League Baseball and I think that's a tragedy. It's a staple that's gone. I feel for people who come to me and say how they miss it, and I hope me."
Bob Costas said "Who thought baseball'd kill its best way to reach the public? It coulda kept us and CBS-we'd have kept the "Game"-but it only cared about cash." Costas added that he would rather do a ''Game of the Week'' that got a 5 rating
A rating is an evaluation or assessment of something, in terms of quality, quantity, or some combination of both.
Rating or ratings may also refer to:
Business and economics
* Credit rating, estimating the credit worthiness of an individual, c ...
than host a Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game ...
. "Whatever else I did, I'd never have left "Game of the Week"" Costas claimed.
The final regular season edition of NBC's ''Game of the Week'' was televised on September 30, 1989. That game featured the Toronto Blue Jays
The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Since 1989, the team has played its home games ...
beating Baltimore Orioles
The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East division. As one of the American L ...
4–3 to clinch the AL East title from the SkyDome. It was the 981st edition of NBC's ''Game of the Week'' overall. Tony Kubek reacted by saying "I can't believe it" when the subject came about NBC losing baseball for the first time since 1947. Coincidentally, from 1977– 1989, Tony Kubek (in addition to his NBC duties) worked as a commentator for the Toronto Blue Jays.
NBC's ''Game of the Week'' facts
On April 7, 1984, the Detroit Tigers
The Detroit Tigers are an American professional baseball team based in Detroit. The Tigers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the American League (AL) Central division. One of the AL's eight charter franchises, the club was f ...
' Jack Morris
John Scott Morris (born May 16, 1955) is an American former professional baseball starting pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) between 1977 and 1994, mainly for the Detroit Tigers. Morris won 254 games throughout his career.
Armed ...
threw a no-hitter
In baseball, a no-hitter is a game in which a team was not able to record a hit. Major League Baseball (MLB) officially defines a no-hitter as a completed game in which a team that batted in at least nine innings recorded no hits. A pitcher wh ...
against the Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team is owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, and p ...
at Comiskey Park; the game was the 1984 season opener for NBC's baseball coverage, and it was the only no-hit game thrown in the series' history.
NBC's ''Game of the Week'' announcers
*Sal Bando
Salvatore Leonard Bando (born February 13, 1944) is an American former professional baseball player and general manager. He played in Major League Baseball as a third baseman from to , most prominently as the team captain for the Oakland Athletic ...
(1982)
*Buddy Blattner
Robert Garnett "Buddy" Blattner (February 8, 1920 – September 4, 2009), was an American table tennis and professional baseball player. He played five seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), primarily for the New York Giants. After his reti ...
(1969)
*Jack Buck
John Francis "Jack" Buck (August 21, 1924 – June 18, 2002) was an American sportscaster, best known for his work announcing Major League Baseball games of the St. Louis Cardinals. His play-by-play work earned him recognition from numerous hal ...
(1976)
*Bob Costas
Robert Quinlan Costas (born March 22, 1952) is an American sportscaster who is known for his long tenure with NBC Sports, from 1980 through 2019. He has received 28 Emmy awards for his work and was the prime-time host of 12 Olympic Games from 19 ...
(1982–1989)
*Dick Enberg
Richard Alan Enberg (January 9, 1935 – December 21, 2017) was an American sportscaster. Over the course of an approximately 60-year career, he provided play-by-play of various sports for several radio and television networks, including N ...
(1977–1982)
*Curt Gowdy
Curtis Edward Gowdy (July 31, 1919 – February 20, 2006) was an American sportscaster. He called Boston Red Sox games on radio and TV for 15 years, and then covered many nationally televised sporting events, primarily for NBC Sports and ABC S ...
(1965–1975)
*Joe Garagiola
Joseph Henry Garagiola Sr. (February 12, 1926 – March 23, 2016) was an American professional baseball catcher, later an announcer and television host, popular for his colorful personality.
Garagiola played nine seasons in Major League Basebal ...
(1974–1988)
*Merle Harmon
Merle Reid Harmon (June 21, 1926 – April 15, 2009) was an American sportscaster who was the play-by-play voice for five Major League Baseball teams, two teams in the American Football League and the World Football League's nationally syndicate ...
(1980–1981)
*Charlie Jones Charles, Charlie, Charley or Chuck Jones may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Chuck Jones (1912–2002), American animator, director, and producer
* Charles Jones (c. 1889–1942), American actor better known as Buck Jones
* Charles Jones (pho ...
(1977–1979)
*Sandy Koufax
Sanford Koufax (; born Sanford Braun; December 30, 1935) is an American former left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) who played his entire career for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers from 1955 to 1966. He has been hailed as one of t ...
(1967–1972)
*Tony Kubek
Anthony Christopher Kubek (born October 12, 1935) is an American former professional baseball player and television broadcaster. During his nine-year playing career with the New York Yankees, Kubek played in six World Series in the late 1950s an ...
(1966–1989)
*Ron Luciano
Ronald Michael Luciano (June 28, 1937 – January 18, 1995) was an American professional baseball umpire who worked in Major League Baseball's American League from 1969 to 1979. He was known for his flamboyant style, clever aphorisms, and a serie ...
(1980–1981)
*Tim McCarver
James Timothy McCarver (born October 16, 1941) is an American former professional baseball player and television sports commentator. He played in Major League Baseball as a catcher from to , most prominently as a member of the St. Louis Cardina ...
(1980)
*Jon Miller
Jon Miller (born October 11, 1951) is an American sportscaster, known primarily for his broadcasts of Major League Baseball. Since 1997 he has been employed as a play-by-play announcer for the San Francisco Giants. He was also a baseball annou ...
(1986–1989)
*Joe Morgan
Joe Leonard Morgan (September 19, 1943 – October 11, 2020) was an American professional baseball second baseman who played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Houston Colt .45s / Astros, Cincinnati Reds, San Francisco Giants, ...
(1986–1987)
*Monte Moore
Monte Moore (born 1930) is an American former radio and television broadcaster for the Kansas City Athletics and Oakland Athletics baseball teams.
Voice of the Athletics
An Oklahoma native, with a folksy, down-home style, Moore became the lea ...
(1978–1980, 1983)
* Bill O'Donnell (1969–1976)
*Wes Parker
Maurice Wesley Parker III (born November 13, 1939) is a former first baseman in Major League Baseball who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers from to . He also played one season in Japan for the Nankai Hawks in .
As of 2009, Parker has been a me ...
(1979)
*Jay Randolph
A jay is a member of a number of species of medium-sized, usually colorful and noisy, passerine birds in the Crow family, Corvidae. The evolutionary relationships between the jays and the magpies are rather complex. For example, the Eurasian m ...
(1982)
*Pee Wee Reese
Harold Peter Henry "Pee Wee" Reese (July 23, 1918 – August 14, 1999) was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a shortstop for the Brooklyn / Los Angeles Dodgers from 1940 to 1958. A ten-time All-Star ...
(1966–1968)
*Ted Robinson Ted Robinson may refer to:
*Ted Robinson (golf course architect) (1923–2008), American golf course architect
*Ted Robinson (sportscaster) (born 1957), American sportscaster
*Ted Robinson (TV director)
Ted Robinson (born 1944) is an Australian ...
(1986–1989)
*Vin Scully
Vincent Edward Scully (November 29, 1927 – August 2, 2022) was an American sportscaster. He was best known for his 67 seasons calling games for Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers, beginning in 1950 (when the franchise was located ...
(1983–1989)
*Tom Seaver
George Thomas Seaver (November 17, 1944 – August 31, 2020), nicknamed "Tom Terrific" and "the Franchise", was an American professional baseball pitcher who played 20 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). He played for the New York Mets, Cinc ...
(1989)
* Jim Simpson (1966–1977, 1979)
*Maury Wills
Maurice Morning Wills (October 2, 1932 – September 19, 2022) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) primarily for the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1959 through 1966 and the latter part of ...
(1973–1977)
CBS takes over (1990–1993)
CBS alienated and confused fans with their sporadic treatment of regular season telecasts. With a sense of true continuity destroyed, fans eventually figured that they couldn't count on CBS to satisfy their needs (thus poor ratings were a result). CBS televised 16 regular season Saturday afternoon games each season (not counting back-up telecasts), which was 14 fewer than what NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
televised during the previous contract. CBS employed the strategy of airing only a select number of games in part because the network had a number of other weekend summer sports commitments, most notably PGA Tour
The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also ...
golf; and partly to build up viewer demand in response to supposedly sagging ratings. In addition, CBS angered fans by largely ignoring the divisional pennant races; instead, their scheduled games focused on games featuring major-market teams, regardless of their record.
Marv Albert
Marv Albert (born Marvin Philip Aufrichtig; June 12, 1941) is an American retired sportscaster. Honored for his work as a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, he was commonly referred to as "the voice of basketball". From 1967 to 2004, he wa ...
, who'd hosted NBC's baseball pre-game show for many years, said of CBS' baseball coverage that "You wouldn't see a game for a month. Then you didn't know when CBS came back on." ''Sports Illustrated
''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...
'' joked that CBS stood for ''Covers Baseball Sporadically''. ''USA Today
''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...
'' added that Jack Buck
John Francis "Jack" Buck (August 21, 1924 – June 18, 2002) was an American sportscaster, best known for his work announcing Major League Baseball games of the St. Louis Cardinals. His play-by-play work earned him recognition from numerous hal ...
and Tim McCarver
James Timothy McCarver (born October 16, 1941) is an American former professional baseball player and television sports commentator. He played in Major League Baseball as a catcher from to , most prominently as a member of the St. Louis Cardina ...
"may have to have a reunion before heirtelecast." Mike Lupica of the ''New York Daily News
The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in ta ...
'' took the criticism a step further by calling CBS' baseball deal "The Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
of sports television."
NBC play-by-play man Bob Costas
Robert Quinlan Costas (born March 22, 1952) is an American sportscaster who is known for his long tenure with NBC Sports, from 1980 through 2019. He has received 28 Emmy awards for his work and was the prime-time host of 12 Olympic Games from 19 ...
believed that a large bulk of the regular season coverage beginning in the 1990s shifted to cable (namely, ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
) because CBS, the network that was taking over from NBC the television rights beginning in 1990
File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...
, didn't really want the Saturday ''Game of the Week''. Many fans who didn't appreciate CBS' approach to scheduling regular season baseball games believed that they were only truly after the marquee events (i.e. All-Star Game
An all-star game is an exhibition game that purports to showcase the best players (the "stars") of a sports league. The exhibition is between two teams organized solely for the event, usually representing the league's teams based on region or div ...
, League Championship Series
The League Championship Series (LCS) is the semifinal round of postseason play in Major League Baseball which has been conducted since 1969. In 1981, and since 1995, the two annual series have matched up the winners of the Division Series, an ...
, and the World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World ...
) in order to sell advertising
Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...
space (especially the fall entertainment television schedule).
Regular season (Saturday afternoons: April–September)
Hiatus period (1994–1995)
In and , there was no traditional Saturday ''Game of the Week'' coverage. In those two seasons, The Baseball Network (a joint venture by MLB, NBC and ABC) utilized a purely regional schedule of 12 games per week that could only be seen based on the viewer's local affiliate.
The Fox era (1996–present)
Major League Baseball made a deal with the Fox Broadcasting Company
The Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly known simply as Fox and stylized in all caps as FOX, is an American commercial broadcast television network owned by Fox Corporation and headquartered in New York City, with master control operations an ...
on November 7, 1995. Fox paid a fraction less of the amount of money that CBS paid for the Major League Baseball television rights for the 1990
File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...
– 1993 seasons. Unlike the previous television deal, "The Baseball Network
The Baseball Network was an American short-lived television broadcasting joint venture between ABC, NBC and Major League Baseball (MLB). Under the arrangement, beginning in the 1994 season, the league produced its own in-house which were the ...
", Fox reverted to the format of televising regular season games (approximately 16 weekly telecasts that normally began on Memorial Day
Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is a federal holiday in the United States for mourning the U.S. military personnel who have fought and died while serving in the United States armed forces. It is observed on the last Monda ...
weekend) on Saturday afternoons. Fox did however, continue a format that "The Baseball Network" started by offering games based purely on a viewer's region. Fox's approach has usually been to offer four regionalized telecasts, with exclusivity from 1:00 to 4:00 P.M. in each time zone. When Fox first got into baseball, it used the motto
A motto (derived from the Latin , 'mutter', by way of Italian , 'word' or 'sentence') is a sentence or phrase expressing a belief or purpose, or the general motivation or intention of an individual, family, social group, or organisation. Mot ...
"Same game, new attitude." It was also used when the network acquired the partial broadcast rights to the National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
two years earlier.
Like NBC and CBS before it, Fox determined its Saturday schedule by who was playing a team from one of the three largest television markets: New York City, Los Angeles, or Chicago. If there was a game which combined two of these three markets, it would be aired.
In Fox's first season of Major League Baseball coverage in , they averaged a 2.7 rating
A rating is an evaluation or assessment of something, in terms of quality, quantity, or some combination of both.
Rating or ratings may also refer to:
Business and economics
* Credit rating, estimating the credit worthiness of an individual, c ...
for its Saturday ''Game of the Week''. That was down 23% from CBS' 3.4 in 1993 despite the latter network's infamy for its rather haphazard ''Game of the Week'' schedule.
In , Fox's ''Game of the Week'' telecasts only appeared three times after August 28, due to ratings competition from college football
College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States.
Unlike most ...
(especially since Fox affiliates may have had syndicated college football broadcasts). One unidentified former Fox broadcaster complained by saying "Fox is MIA
Mia, MIA, or M.I.A. may refer to:
Music Artists
* M.I.A. (rapper) (born 1975), English rapper and singer
* M.I.A. (band), 1980s punk rock band from Orange County, California
* MIA., a German rock/pop band formed in 1997
* Mia (singer) (born 1983) ...
on the pennant race, and Joe uck UCK may refer to:
*Ubuntu Customization Kit, a tool to create a customized Live CD of Ubuntu
*UCK, the National Rail code for Uckfield railway station
Uckfield railway station is the southern terminus of a branch of the Oxted Line in England, ...
doesn't even do eptember 18's Red Sox-Yankees. What kind of sport would tolerate that?" By this point, Joe Buck
Joseph Francis Buck (born April 25, 1969) is an American sportscaster.
The son of sportscaster Jack Buck, he worked for Fox Sports from its 1994 inception through 2022, including roles as lead play-by-play announcer for the network's Nation ...
was unavailable to call baseball games, since he became Fox's #1 NFL announcer (a job he has held since ). The following two seasons saw similar interruptions in Fox's September coverage.
One of the terms of the deal was that, beginning with the 2007 season, the Saturday ''Game of the Week'' coverage was extended over the entire season rather than starting after Memorial Day, with most games being aired in the 3:30–7:00 p.m. (EDT) time slot, changed to 4:00 to 7:00 after Fox cancelled its in-studio pre-game program for the 2009 season. Exceptions were added in 2010 with 3:00 to 7:00 for Saturday afternoons where Fox would broadcast a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
The NASCAR Cup Series is the top racing series of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). The series began in 1949 as the Strictly Stock Division, and from 1950 to 1970 it was known as the Grand National Division. In 1971, ...
race in prime time (which starts at 7:30) and 7:00 to 10:00, when Fox broadcasts the UEFA Champions League
The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...
soccer final (which starts at 3:00).
For 2012
File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...
, Fox revised its schedule. While the 3:30 p.m. EDT starting time continues, weekly games on Saturday NASCAR race dates in Texas, Richmond, and Darlington, start at 12:30 p.m. EDT. And starting with the UEFA Champions League Final Match Day until the Saturday before the All-Star Break, all ''Game of the Week'' games would start at 7 p.m. EDT. The ''Baseball Night in America'' moniker was used for all ''MLB on Fox'' games in that span.
In 2014, the Fox Sports 1
Fox Sports 1 (FS1) is an American pay television channel owned by the Fox Sports Media Group, a unit of Fox Corporation. FS1 replaced the motorsports network Speed on August 17, 2013, at the same time that its companion channel Fox Sports ...
cable network began airing regular-season games over 26 Saturdays. As a result, MLB regular season coverage on the over the air Fox network was reduced to 12 weeks.
Fox's regular season ratings (Saturday afternoons: 1996–present)
Fox Sports 1 regular season ratings (2014–present)
Television broadcasters throughout the years
*ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
: 1953– 1954; 1960; 1965
Events January–February
* January 14 – The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years.
* January 20
** Lyndon B. Johnson is Second inauguration of Lyndo ...
*CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
: 1955–1965
Events January–February
* January 14 – The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years.
* January 20
** Lyndon B. Johnson is Second inauguration of Lyndo ...
; 1990
File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...
– 1993
*Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelve sp ...
: 1996–present
*NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
: 1957– 1964; 1966– 1989
The ''Game of the Week'' on radio
From 1985 to 1997, the CBS Radio
CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broadc ...
network aired its own incarnation of the ''Game of the Week'', broadcasting games at various times on Saturday afternoons and/or Sunday nights. In 1998, national radio rights went to ESPN Radio
ESPN Radio, which is alternately platform-agnostically branded as ESPN Audio, is an American sports radio network and extension of the ESPN television network. It was launched on January 1, 1992, under the original banner of "SportsRadio ESPN". ...
, which airs Saturday games during the season as well as '' Sunday Night Baseball'' and Opening Day and holiday broadcasts.
Earlier, the Mutual and Liberty
Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom.
In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...
networks had aired ''Game of the Day'' broadcasts to non-major-league cities in the late 1940s and 1950s.
Announcers
CBS
*Joe Buck
Joseph Francis Buck (born April 25, 1969) is an American sportscaster.
The son of sportscaster Jack Buck, he worked for Fox Sports from its 1994 inception through 2022, including roles as lead play-by-play announcer for the network's Nation ...
( 1993–1995
File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...
)
*Gary Cohen
Gary Cohen (born ) is an American sportscaster, best known as a radio and television play-by-play announcer for the New York Mets of Major League Baseball.
Cohen currently calls Mets broadcasts for SNY and WPIX and Seton Hall basketball gam ...
(1986
The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations.
Events January
* January 1
** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles.
**Spain and Portugal ente ...
; 1994
File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...
– 1997)
*Jerry Coleman
Gerald Francis Coleman (September 14, 1924 – January 5, 2014) was a Major League Baseball (MLB) second baseman for the New York Yankees and manager of the San Diego Padres for one year. Coleman was named the rookie of the year in 1949 by Ass ...
( 1985– 1997)
*Gene Elston
Robert Gene Elston (March 26, 1922 – September 5, 2015) was a Major League Baseball (MLB) broadcaster, primarily with the Houston Astros.
Early life and career
A native of Fort Dodge, Iowa, Elston was born on March 26, 1922. He started work i ...
( 1987–1995
File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...
)
*Curt Gowdy
Curtis Edward Gowdy (July 31, 1919 – February 20, 2006) was an American sportscaster. He called Boston Red Sox games on radio and TV for 15 years, and then covered many nationally televised sporting events, primarily for NBC Sports and ABC S ...
( 1985–1986
The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations.
Events January
* January 1
** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles.
**Spain and Portugal ente ...
)
* Hank Greenwald ( 1997)
*Ernie Harwell
William Earnest Harwell (January 25, 1918 – May 4, 2010) was an American sportscaster, known for his long career calling play-by-play of Major League Baseball games. For 55 seasons, 42 of them with the Detroit Tigers, Harwell called the actio ...
( 1992– 1997)
* Jim Hunter (1986
The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations.
Events January
* January 1
** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles.
**Spain and Portugal ente ...
– 1996)
*Bob Murphy Robert, Rob, Bob or Bobby Murphy may refer to:
Sports Ice hockey
*Robert Ronald Murphy or Ron Murphy (1933–2014), Canadian ice hockey player
* Bob Murphy (ice hockey) (born 1951), Canadian retired professional ice hockey player
* Rob Murphy (ice ...
( 1985–1986
The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations.
Events January
* January 1
** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles.
**Spain and Portugal ente ...
; 1988)
* John Rooney ( 1985– 1997)
*Lindsey Nelson
Lindsey Nelson (May 25, 1919 – June 10, 1995) was an American sportscaster best known for his long career calling play-by-play of college football and New York Mets baseball.
Nelson spent 17 years with the Mets and three years with the San F ...
( 1985–1986
The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations.
Events January
* January 1
** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles.
**Spain and Portugal ente ...
)
* Bill White ( 1985– 1989)
ESPN
* Dave Campbell ( 1999–2010
File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
)
* Kevin Kennedy ( 1998)
*Jon Sciambi
Jon "Boog" Sciambi (; born April 11, 1970) is an American sportscaster for ESPN and the Marquee Sports Network, currently the everyday play-by-play announcer for the Chicago Cubs TV broadcasts. He has worked extensively as a baseball play-by-pl ...
(2010
File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
–present)
*Dan Shulman
Daniel Shulman is a Canadian sportscaster with Sportsnet as well as the American network ESPN.
Shulman serves as a play-by-play announcer for select Toronto Blue Jays telecasts on Sportsnet and during 2018 and 2020 he hosted the baseball-the ...
( 2002– 2007)
* Chris Singleton (2011
File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...
–present)
*Charley Steiner
Charley Steiner (born ) is an American sportscaster and broadcast journalist. He is currently the radio play-by-play announcer for the Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers, paired with Rick Monday.
Early career
Steiner grew up a Bro ...
( 1998– 2001)
*Rick Sutcliffe
Richard Lee Sutcliffe (born June 21, 1956), nicknamed "The Red Baron", is an American former Major League Baseball pitcher with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Cleveland Indians, Chicago Cubs, Baltimore Orioles, and St. Louis Cardinals between 1976 and ...
( 1999)
*Gary Thorne
Gary F. Thorne (born June 9, 1948) is an American sportscaster. He was the lead play-by-play announcer for Baltimore Orioles games on MASN from 2007 to 2020. He has also worked for ESPN and ABC, including National Hockey League, Major League ...
( 2008– 2009)
Liberty
* Bud Blattner ( 1950– 1951)
*Jerry Doggett
Jerome Howard Doggett (September 14, 1916 – July 7, 1997) was an American sportscaster who called games for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball from 1956 to 1987.
Early days
Doggett was born in Moberly, Missouri and ...
( 1950– 1951)
*Gordon McLendon
Gordon Barton McLendon (June 8, 1921 – September 14, 1986Texas State Historical AssociationMcClendon, Gordon Barton/ref>) was a radio broadcaster. Nicknamed "the Maverick of Radio", McLendon is widely credited for perfecting, during the 1950s ...
( 1949– 1952)
*Lindsey Nelson
Lindsey Nelson (May 25, 1919 – June 10, 1995) was an American sportscaster best known for his long career calling play-by-play of college football and New York Mets baseball.
Nelson spent 17 years with the Mets and three years with the San F ...
( 1950– 1951)
Mutual
* Bud Blattner ( 1952; 1954)
*Dizzy Dean
Jay Hanna "Dizzy" Dean (January 16, 1910 – July 17, 1974), also known as Jerome Herman Dean (both the 1910 and 1920 Censuses show his name as "Jay"), was an American professional baseball pitcher. During his Major League Baseball (MLB) career ...
( 1951– 1952)
*Gene Elston
Robert Gene Elston (March 26, 1922 – September 5, 2015) was a Major League Baseball (MLB) broadcaster, primarily with the Houston Astros.
Early life and career
A native of Fort Dodge, Iowa, Elston was born on March 26, 1922. He started work i ...
( 1958– 1960)
* Al Helfer ( 1950– 1954)
*Van Patrick
Van Patrick (August 15, 1916 – September 29, 1974) was an American sportscaster, best known for his play-by-play work with the Detroit Lions and Detroit Tigers.
Patrick, self-nicknamed "The Ole Announcer", called Lions games from 1950 until hi ...
( 1960)
''A'' Games and ''B'' Games
The ''A'' Game is generally the nickname for the baseball game that is broadcast to approximately 80% of the country. The ''B'' Game (also known as the ''Backup Game'') only aired in the participants' home markets. For example, if the Cubs were playing the Cardinals
Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to:
Animals
* Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds
**''Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae
**''Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, the ...
, only the Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
and St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
television markets would get a chance to see the game. The B Game also generally existed as a backup in case of rainouts/delays at the A Game.
Previously (i.e. pre-1980s), NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
typically had the A Game going to most of the country (but not to the markets of the participating teams). While the B Game only went to the home markets of the teams in the A Game. In those days, the TV rules did not allow a market to see its local team play on NBC. However, in situations where the B Game got rained out, the rules would relax.
In the early years of ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
's ''Monday Night Baseball
''Monday Night Baseball'' was a live game telecast of Major League Baseball that aired on Monday nights during the regular season.
These games formerly aired weekly on ESPN. The game started at 7 p.m. ET, following ''SportsCenter'', and usually l ...
'' broadcasts (c. 1976
Events January
* January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force.
* January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea.
* January 11 – The 1976 Phila ...
), the rules changed to allow the home market of the A Game's road team to see the A Game. Meanwhile, the A Game's home team got the B Game.
References
External links
*
Jump The Shark – ''MLB Game of the Week''
Searchable Network TV Broadcasts
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