2026 All Star Shenanigans

[oblong]

When ESPN got baseball for the 1990 season that was pure joy.  Baseball Tonight.  Every night.  To me that was the turning point.  We got the Cubs on WGN and the Braves on TBS but that became so normal you just took it for granted and most games seemed to be during the day.

 

[Tiger337]

7 minutes ago, oblong said:

When ESPN got baseball for the 1990 season that was pure joy.  Baseball Tonight.  Every night.  To me that was the turning point.  We got the Cubs on WGN and the Braves on TBS but that became so normal you just took it for granted and most games seemed to be during the day.

 

Yes, that was big for me too.  It was also when the Tigers had Fielder, Phillips, Tettleton, etc.  I loved that period of baseball even though the Tgers were not great. 

[Sports_Freak]

17 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

The sweet spot for me was when there were a few cable channels (mostly Atlanta and New York Yankees for me) and ESPN had a bunch of games on every week.  I also wouldn't trade what we have now, but baseball did feel more special when there weren't so many games on and access to highlights any time you want.  It is overwhelming now and take it all for granted.  

I remember signing up for PASS just to watch the Tigers, I think in the mid-80"s. Jim Northrup used to do the games and there was very, very little giggling. He always seemed very negative (or grouchy).

[oblong]

11 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Yes, that was big for me too.  It was also when the Tigers had Fielder, Phillips, Tettleton, etc.  I loved that period of baseball even though the Tgers were not great. 

I remember being home alone, I was between my junior and senior year in HS and my folks went to TN.  THat was the summer of 1990 and Fernando and Dave Stewart both pitched no hitters and ESPN showed both live.  

[chasfh]

13 hours ago, IdahoBert said:

From what I could tell all the Yankees got booed but for Riley there was no response from the crowd.

They don't know who he is. He's known for having good stats on a computer screen, but beyond that, he has almost no profile outside of Detroit.

[CMRivdogs]

6 hours ago, oblong said:

When ESPN got baseball for the 1990 season that was pure joy.  Baseball Tonight.  Every night.  To me that was the turning point.  We got the Cubs on WGN and the Braves on TBS but that became so normal you just took it for granted and most games seemed to be during the day.

 

In addition to the teams you mentioned we had WOR and the Mets on cable. If I remember they were also mostly day games. Ralph Kiner could give Jim Price a run for his money, even though I think 21st Century Price was better.

There was also NBC’s Game of the week. My job had me working from 6AM til Noon, then there was a delivery run for the florist and nursery my dad had a piece of. I’d usually got home in time for the game, watched a few innings then fell into my baseball nap. I’d usually rouse when something happened. For a while that was the only way to “watch” a game

 

Edited July 15 by CMRivdogs

[casimir]

Ah,…. NBC’s game of the week.  I remember fishing on Lake Erie and we somehow had the TV broadcast via radio of the Cardinals and Dodgers.  Vince Coleman doubled on a bunt that the Dodgers waited on to roll foul.  Per the description (Vin Scully and Joe Garogiola?), Coleman simply never stopped, rounded first as if it were a hit to the outfield and caught everybody of guard.  Might have been nobody covering 2B, too.  Anyway at that point I was mad about being on the lake and not watching this game because I missed this play.  But no doubt it had to have been on This Week In Baseball as a highlight the next week, right?

[gehringer_2]

12 minutes ago, casimir said:

we somehow had the TV broadcast via radio of the Cardinals  and  Dodgers

AM-FM portable radios with TV audio bands were pretty common 70s-80s. Or I wonder if they might have been simulcasting the game of week on both TV/radio - they used to do that sometimes back in the day. Doesn't really work today because the radio listener can't see all the graphics that have become part of the telecast, but when the TV broadcasts had less/no extra stuff simulcasting could still work.

[Tenacious D]

I remember sleeping with a transistor radio under my pillow for West Coast games. Never made it past the 3rd inning and would be frustrated when I woke up for school and the Free Press didn’t have the the box score/final because it ended too late.

i wish that was my biggest problem now.

[IdahoBert]

6 minutes ago, Tenacious D said:

I remember sleeping with a transistor radio under my pillow for West Coast games. Never made it past the 3rd inning and would be frustrated when I woke up for school and the Free Press didn’t have the the box score/final because it ended too late.

i wish that was my biggest problem now.

I remember in the early 1960s listening to Ernie broadcasting from Anaheim on my transistor radio and it was so delicious that the parents didn’t know I was up. He loved pronouncing the name “Bo Belinski.“ I was getting one over on the rents and it was nice. 

[IdahoBert]

The first NBC game of the week in 1984 was Vin Scully announcing the Jack Morris no-hitter. I was enthralled, stupefied, dazzled etc. etc. 

[NorthWoods]

1 hour ago, Tenacious D said:

I remember sleeping with a transistor radio under my pillow for West Coast games. Never made it past the 3rd inning and would be frustrated when I woke up for school and the Free Press didn’t have the the box score/final because it ended too late.

i wish that was my biggest problem now.

I think a large percentage of young boys in MI did the transistor under the pillow thing for Ernie&Ray, then Ernie&Paul.    

 

Ive told my kids that and they just can't relate.

[gehringer_2]

37 minutes ago, NorthWoods said:

I think a large percentage of young boys in MI did the transistor under the pillow thing for Ernie&Ray, then Ernie&Paul.    

 

Ive told my kids that and they just can't relate.

it's weird, I remember Harwell and Kell as a team, and I remember Ray as the wrap around guy, but I now have no recollection of listening to Lane actually doing PBP, though I must have heard him enough, and I had always known who Lane was because he was a buddy my uncle's from their old neighborhood and in fact I had met him once at a Wings game when I was just a squirt. I guess I just took hearing him for granted or something. Memory is a just a weird thing.

And who else had a 'pillow speaker'? (my old man always had a gadget for everything electronic)

Edited July 16 by gehringer_2

[Sports_Freak]

7 hours ago, Tenacious D said:

I remember sleeping with a transistor radio under my pillow for West Coast games. Never made it past the 3rd inning and would be frustrated when I woke up for school and the Free Press didn’t have the the box score/final because it ended too late.

i wish that was my biggest problem now.

I also remember that. The Free Press had a phone number you could call and a recording would give you all the scores.

[oblong]

8 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

AM-FM portable radios with TV audio bands were pretty common 70s-80s. Or I wonder if they might have been simulcasting the game of week on both TV/radio - they used to do that sometimes back in the day. Doesn't really work today because the radio listener can't see all the graphics that have become part of the telecast, but when the TV broadcasts had less/no extra stuff simulcasting could still work.

During the Pistons bad boys run they would often simulcast the TV and Radio feeds with Blaha and whoever.  

[chasfh]

10 hours ago, Tenacious D said:

I remember sleeping with a transistor radio under my pillow for West Coast games. Never made it past the 3rd inning and would be frustrated when I woke up for school and the Free Press didn’t have the the box score/final because it ended too late.

i wish that was my biggest problem now.

Back then games in Oakland and Anaheim started at 11pm. These days, for me, west coast games start as early as 840pm and have a reasonable chance to be done by 11pm.

This is but one example of how people routinely went out and did social things up to and even past midnight on "school nights", and I don't mean just young people. We live our lives earlier in the evenings nowadays, and I am not clear why things have evolved that way over the past half century or so. But I'm fine with it.

[chasfh]

17 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

In addition to the teams you mentioned we had WOR and the Mets on cable.

 

I was so mad when Comcast came to Warren in the early 80s promising WGN and daytime Cubs games, only to replace it with WOR and nighttime Mets games instead. Plus, GN had way better programming outside of baseball than OR, which was riddled with New Yorky shows like Joe Franklin. Comcast kept GN off their lineup all the way up to 1992 when I finally moved to Milwaukee just to get it on my cable. 😉 

[chasfh]

9 hours ago, NorthWoods said:

I think a large percentage of young boys in MI did the transistor under the pillow thing for Ernie&Ray, then Ernie&Paul.    

 

Ive told my kids that and they just can't relate.

Just like we couldn't relate to our parents' experience of staring at a huge console radio in the parlor every Sunday night so they could hear a ventriloquist make jokes.

[CMRivdogs]

48 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I was so mad when Comcast came to Warren in the early 80s promising WGN and daytime Cubs games, only to replace it with WOR and nighttime Mets games instead. Plus, GN had way better programming outside of baseball than OR, which was riddled with New Yorky shows like Joe Franklin. Comcast kept GN off their lineup all the way up to 1992 when I finally moved to Milwaukee just to get it on my cable. 😉 

We had WGN and WOR as well as WTBS Norfolk, Va was the home to the Mets AAA team at the time. 
Sometimes I wondered who annoyed me more Harry Caray, Ralph Kiner or whatever Caray WTBS had at the time

Edited July 16 by CMRivdogs

[oblong]

I was mad we didn't get WOR because they showed wrestling.

My dad watched WGN news every night for two reasons.  "They showed more killings"  He thinks Coleman Young made our news stop showing them so often.  He also liked to see what weather they had in Chicago because "that's what we'll get tomorrow"

 

[NorthWoods]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Just like we couldn't relate to our parents' experience of staring at a huge console radio in the parlor every Sunday night so they could hear a ventriloquist make jokes.

Old man story.....

Last night my son was here and mentioned taking my grandson to a card show in Flint this weekend at the Dort Financial Center.  My response: "Oh the new IMA, I saw some good concerts there."   

Why was it the new IMA?

Because the old IMA was downtown and a better place for shows.  Saw one of the best shows in my life there in '78 Blue Oyster Cult, Thin Lizzy and UFO.

Got kind of a blank stare.

Then I realized that was nearly 50 years ago....and my parents talking about something in a similar time frame would have been discussing the 1920s....and once again it occurred to me that I'm getting really old.

[Sports_Freak]

More trivia;

Miguel Vargas of the White Sox hit an All Star home run. Name the only 2 other White Sox players to hit All Star home runs.

[papalawrence]

Sherman Lollar and Richie Allen

Edited July 18 by papalawrence

[Sports_Freak]

38 minutes ago, papalawrence said:

Sherman Lollar and Richie Allen

Not even one correct. Nice try though, it didnt  HURT.