NBA 75 Celebration Game

 

I'm watching the 75th anniversary NBA broadcast on ESPN (or ESPN 2 or The Ocho or whatever).

FOX did something similar back in the 90s and it was outstanding. They tried to demonstrate the development of baseball broadcasting up to the current time.

ESPN is doing the same tonight, although their broadcast includes interviews, which admittedly is taking away from the brilliant crew of Mike Breen, Jeff Van Gundy, and Mark Jackson calling the game.

It's an ambitious idea that I had last year to celebrate 100 years of baseball broadcasting. I wanted to take each inning and dedicate to a decade.

Now, I realize there's an immediate flaw given baseball has nine innings and I wanted to cover 10 decades but I was prepared to adjust via half innings.

Anyway, as I said, it was an aggressive idea.

@lombari_peter on Twitter

But, my idea was to use a booth cam initially and do some of this...

1st inning, 1920s -- a lot of static and very basic descriptions. Perhaps I'd even try to work in an element of a recreation somehow. There would have been no commercials.

2nd inning, 1930s -- Less static and more description. I'd also bring a second voice in but only in breaks because there was only one microphone. In that break, we could also do spot mentions but still no produced commercials.

And so on. Produced commercials would come along later and I'd interject with history and historic calls from each decade. It would have been so much fun. Eventually, we could have worked TV in and technological advances but I also realize there would have been certain limitations.

Alas, it didn't happen. Other than I called a game on the actually 100th anniversary and I admit that meant the world to me.

So I enjoyed watching what ESPN did. I really respect how they included all of the networks that have covered the league, including their graphics, logos, and personalities. ABC (which is ESPN, of course), CBS, NBA (and "Roundball Rock"), and Turner were all included.

Maybe one day I'll get a chance to try what I wanted to do as well.

Also, the Knicks are terrible.

Mark Jackson, Jeff Van Gundy, and Mike Breen rock the ABC mustard jackets