Just a Friday

Joe Buck does an live "commercial" from the booth during the Turn Back the Clock game from 2000

The insanity could be setting in.

But, in truth, I'm just tired.

So I just discovered that the audio for today's Doubleheader on Mixlr was terrible. Shame on me for not checking.

In terrestrial radio, there's a board operator to tell you that things sound awful. The shame of it is that a click of a switch would have fixed it. We continue to live and learn here.

I still love the grass roots feeling of the show from home, but of course I'm a perfectionist (also known as a pain in the ass).

To be clear, the Facebook audio is just fine, and I could recover it there if I wanted to.

The shame of it is that I really liked today's show, even if it was just me talking about (dare I say) various and sundry things.

*****
I was able to rediscover a game that I remember watching at the time years ago. It was on Aug 26, 2000 when FOX did a "Turn Back the Clock" game. The Cubs and Dodgers met at Wrigley Field that Saturday and the network chose the game to honor the technological advances in the history of sports broadcasting.

They begin in 1939 in the top of the first, when Red Barber called the first televised MLB game on (not surprisingly) Aug 26 between the Dodgers and Reds from Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. Columbia and Princeton had been the first baseball game of any type on May 17.

In the first half inning, the sound quality is not great and picture is difficult to see (and black and white). There are no graphics and Joe Buck called the action solo (analysts didn't exist yet). The technology improved slightly in the bottom of the first to 1944 and even more in the second when they moved to the second inning, as it became 1953. By that point, very rudimentary graphics were introduced.

In 1957 -- love it or hate it -- analysts started being somewhat prevalent, and thus Tim McCarver joined the call. In truth, one broadcaster -- the play-by-play announcer -- did most of the talking. The analyst really came into being a "partner" in the booth in the 1960s.

Later on, the technology moved to 1969, and thus attempts made at the picture in color. Again, with each half inning, the sound and picture quality improved.

Obviously, they rolled on from the 60s to the 90s.

It's a wonderful time capsule that absolutely fascinated me back in 2000, and you think about just how we've come in the nearly 20 years since.

FOX made sure to say that was not intended to be "mocking" of sports broadcasting and the people who help create those early broadcasts. That was a smart move because when FOX first came on the scene, they were very outspoken about being "edgy" and modern, and not dwelling on history. They quickly realized that was flawed logic and this day was meant to honor those who had come before them (such DuMont, CBS, and of course, NBC).

Anyway, I'm babbling as I often do. Here's the boxscore of the Aug 26, 2000 game. The game is on YouTube (shout out to Gershon Rabinowitz for finding this).

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Last note tonight: We've got Doubleheader up and running from home. We are considering trying a home version of The Clubhouse also. Stay tuned.