Classic NY Mets broadcast team of Nelson, Murphy, and Kiner

My first memories of following baseball come from the 1969 season and the New York Mets tremendous broadcast team of Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy, and Ralph Kiner. This trio was the inaugural set of announcers for the expansion Mets in 1962 and stayed intact for 17 years handling both TV and radio duties.



Nelson was a versatile broadcaster who also called a lot of college and pro football on the national stage. He was known for wearing an array of colorful patterned sports jackets. Murphy was a solid announcer who also called some regional college football on ABC. He moved exclusively to radio when the Mets created separate radio and TV crews in 1982. Both Nelson (1988) and Murphy (1994) were honored by the baseball Hall of Fame with the Ford C Frick broadcasting award.

Kiner, a Hall of Fame player, was never a polished broadcaster and was prone to mispronunciations and malapropism. But he was a great storyteller and provided brilliant baseball insight. In 1973, Mike Schmidt struggled mightily during his first full season and stuck out frequently. But I recall watching a Mets-Phillies telecast that year as Kiner kept raving about Schmidt's swing and predicted he would have a bright future. Ralph also hosted the Kiner's Korner postgame show after home telecasts on WOR-TV channel 9. This quirky but popular show typically featured highlights from the game with Kiner interviewing a key player from the winning team.

This clip from the 1969 East division clincher features Murphy at the start, Kiner around the 0:57 mark and Nelson around the 1:23 mark.



After the 1978 season, Nelson left to become the lead announcer of the San Francisco Giants. Murphy remained the voice of Mets radio through the 2003 season. Kiner is still a part-time member of the Mets TV team and makes occasional on-air appearances.

Jim Lampley calling Division 3 football on ABC in 1977

Here is an ABC regional college football telecast from 11/12/1977 between Division 3 rivals Wabash and DePauw with a young Jim Lampley calling the action. Lampley started with ABC in 1974 as a sideline reporter. By 1977, he had moved into a regional play-by-play role. The analyst was former Detroit Lions coach Rick Forzano.

At the time, the ABC TV contract with the NCAA required the network to televise a few Division 2 and Division 3 games each year, so this telecast helped ABC satisfy the terms of that deal. These D2/D3 games typically went to very small regional audiences. When this game ended, viewers joined in progress the primary ABC telecast between Colorado and Oklahoma which was called by Keith Jackson and Ara Parseghian.



Here is a brief video with some background on this telecast. ABC decided to televise it only 3 days in advance. This clip also includes a great tidbit about Billy Joel performing a concert on the DePauw campus the night before this game (which was 6 weeks after his breakout album "The Stranger" was released).

The launch of ESPN on 9/7/1979

33 years ago today at 7 pm ET, ESPN launched and its first program was SportsCenter. Lee Leonard was the first voice on the air on the Total Sports Cable Network as ESPN billed itself. George Grande was at the SportsCenter desk that evening. The first actual sporting event that ESPN televised was slow pitch softball.

Here is what it looked like when ESPN hit the airwaves on 9/7/1979:

Two ESPN Classic specials on 1972 Munich Massacre

Tomorrow marks the 40th anniversary of the September 5th terrorist act against Israeli athletes and coaches at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. ESPN Classic will show a pair of 1-hour episodes numerous times over the next 2 days. The first one, called Tragedy at Munich, is part of the tremendous ongoing series featuring original ABC footage from this Olympiad. The second is titled Tragedy of the Munich Games. Set the DVR for both.

ABC coverage of the "imposter" at the 1972 Olympic marathon

Here is my review of the episode in the ESPN Classic series on the 1972 Munich games which focused on the Olympic marathon. Jim McKay called the action for ABC with Erich Segal as "expert commentator" which was the term ABC used for its Olympic analysts. Segal was an author best known for writing the novel Love Story, but he was also a recreational runner and had raced in the Boston Marathon many times.

ABC televised the start of the marathon live and the episode began with that footage. The special then showed an interview Segal had conducted with Shorter while the two were running. Segal taught at Yale where Shorter had been one of his students. Host Chris Schenkel voiced over some of the mid-race footage.

But the most memorable aspect of this event took place near the end of the race when a West German student wearing a running uniform with the number 72 emerged from the tunnel onto the stadium track ahead of leader Frank Shorter and pretended to be winning the race.

Segal was noticeably upset at what was unfolding and his emotional commentary is priceless and worth a viewing: "That is an imposter! Get him off the track! ... This happens in bush league marathons! ... Throw the bum out! ... Get rid of that guy!" A bit later, he personalizes his on-air remarks: "Come on Frank! You won it! ... It's a fake, Frank!"

ESPN committed an embarassing gaffe by superimposing a graphic reading "voice of Eric Siegel" which botched the spelling of both his first and last names. ESPN Classic will provide multiple re-airigs of this 30-minute episode as it doing for all shows in this series.

ABC coverage of USA track controversies in 1972 Olympics

The USA Track Controversy episode in the great ESPN Classic series on the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics focused on the following events:

• sprinters Rey Robinson and Eddie Hart missing their 100m heats because the USA track coaches were using an outdated time schedule
• the controversial podium demonstration by 400m gold medalist Vince Matthews and silver medalist Wayne Collett during the playing of the national anthem
• Jim Ryun being tripped in a 1500m qualifying heat and failing to advance in that event

The highlights of the episode are the original ABC interviews by Howard Cosell, specifically the famous one he conducted with USA sprint coach Stan Wright who accepted responsibility for the 100m time schedule foulup. This 1-hour show (which will be re-aired a few more times) is well worth DVRing just for this interview alone. At the time, many felt that Cosell was overly harsh during his questioning of Wright.

Say what you want about Cosell as a broadcaster, but the man conducted interesting interviews, was willing to ask probing questions, and always seemed to get the key figures on the air to discuss difficult topics. The episode also included separate interviews that Cosell did with Robinson and Hart and a joint interview that he got with Matthews and Collett.

Jim McKay and Bill Toomey called the 400m races. McKay and Marty Liquori called the 1500m heat. The show also included one 100m heat which McKay called without an analyst.

Upcoming replays of classic Ryder Cups on Golf Channel

The next three Tuesdays, Golf Channel will be re-airing original NBC telecast footage from previous classic Ryder Cup matches. Here is the schedule for these 3-hour episodes titled Ryder Cup Tuesdays which cover the final day singles matches (times are ET):

• Tues 9/4 at 8:30 pm - 1997 Ryder Cup final day
• Tues 9/11 at 8:30 pm - 1999 Ryder Cup final day 
• Tues 9/18 at 8:30 pm - 1991 Ryder Cup final day 

The NBC coverage for 1997 and 1999 featured Dick Enberg as lead announcer along with main analyst Johnny Miller. NBC used former Ryder Cup captains Tony Jacklin (1997) and Bernard Gallacher (1999) to add a European flavor to the telecasts. Dan Hicks, Roger Maltbie, and Gary Koch were also part of the NBC TV crew.

Charlie Jones handled the lead play-by-play role for NBC in 1991. And David Feherty played for Europe in the famous Ryder Cup known as the "War By the Shore".

Observations on the ABC coverage of 1972 Olympic basketball

One of the episodes in the ESPN Classic series on the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics focused on USA basketball. This 2-hour special (which will be re-aired a few more times) contained original ABC footage from 4 of the USA games. Over half of the show was devoted to the gold medal game against the USSR.

Frank Gifford and Bill Russell were the primary basketball announcers and called the final. However, Bill Flemming worked with Russell on a few games. (Gifford also called wrestling in Munich.) The special included Olympic host Chris Schenkel leading into the game coverage (which was shown on tape delay) and providing the results in advance.

Gifford sounded out of his element calling basketball play-by-play. At times, ABC showed a fullscreen view of the scoreboard while game action was taking place. At one point, you could hear loud coughing (presumably Russell) and soon afterwards, it sounded like a microphone got switched off.

Throughout the end of the controversial gold medal game, Gifford seemed extremely confused although it is hard to blame him too much considering the bizarre scene and strange actions by the officials. Right as the USSR was about to inbound the second time with 3 seconds left, ABC inexplicably cut to a shot of the scoreboard and missed the attempted play. After the finish, Gifford provided the incorrect score when he referred back to the earlier apparent USA victory. For some reason, Russell, after making a comment during free throws with 1:50 left on the game clock, was not heard on-air for the rest of the game.

ESPN Classic series on the 1972 Summer Olympics

Over the next two weeks, ESPN Classic is running a series to mark the 40th anniversary of the 1972 Summer Olympics. These episodes titled Summer Olympics - 1972 Munich feature the original ABC telecast footage. This series includes episodes on:

• Olga Korbut
• Mark Spitz 
• USA Track controversy
• USA-USSR basketball final
• Marathon (won by Frank Shorter)
• USA boxing (Ray Seales)
• USA swimming and diving
• USA wrestling
• USA women's gynmastics
• Tragedy at Munich
• and more

In this series, you will see Jim McKay and Gordon Maddux on gymnastics, Keith Jackson on swimming, Frank Gifford and Bill Russell on basketball, Howard Cosell on boxing, McKay with Erich Segal on the marathon (Segal: "That is an imposter! Get him off the track!"), and of course, McKay and Chris Schenkel on the hostage crisis. The series started last night and each episode will re-air a few times. Check out the complete schedule (all times ET) and set the DVR.

Estimating the total number of MLB games broadcast by Vin Scully

Recently the Dodgers announced that the legendary Vin Scully will return in 2013 for a 64th season of broadcasting games for the franchise. On the heels of this news, a member of the506 wondered how many Major League Baseball games Scully has called during his career and decided to initiate a collaborative effort towards estimating that number. (Note: Free registration required to view this forum thread on the506.)

As of this writing, the estimate (which counts regular season, postseason, and All-Star games) is that Scully will have broadcast a total of 9183 MLB games by the end of the 2012 regular season. The number includes his network (NBC television and CBS radio) appearances along with his local TV/radio work for the Dodgers.

Error by filmmaker in ESPN 30 for 30 Pony Exce$$ documentary

One of the best episodes from the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary series was Pony Exce$$ which chronicled the 1980s SMU football program. An NCAA investigation into illegal payments to players led to the school receiving the so-called "death penalty".



Starting around the 28:55 mark, the film devotes a few minutes to the 10/25/1980 SMU game at Texas. This segment contains ABC TV footage featuring announcers Al Michaels and Lee Grosscup allegedly previewing this matchup between the Mustangs and Longhorns. The documentary inserts the 10/25/1980 date on the screen right after the first ABC clip and later describes this game as being on "national TV".

However, there are several problems here. ABC did not televise this 1980 game at all. ABC covered nine regional games in two timeslots that afternoon (noon and 3:30 pm ET), but not the game from Austin which started at 2 pm. The ABC video clip contains a CFA logo, but the CFA TV package didn't exist in 1980. Also, Michaels and Grosscup didn't work together in 1980.

It turns out that this ABC footage is actually from an SMU-Texas game in 1984. The insertion of this clip into the otherwise excellent documentary was a definite error by the filmmaker.

Golf Channel documentary on Snead/Nelson/Hogan

Golf Channel is premiering a film on Mon 8/13 at 9 pm ET which chronicles the impact of Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, and Ben Hogan on the game of golf. This documentary titled American Triumvirate includes interviews from other greats such as Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, and Ken Venturi. Golf Channel will re-air this special multiple times in the upcoming days.

This preview clip from the episode features Nicklaus discussing Nelson:

Curt Gowdy calling an Olympic swimming event in 1976

Want to hear Curt Gowdy announcing a swimming race? Here is a video of the women's 4x100m freestyle relay from the 1976 Olympics in Montreal as the USA team took the gold medal over the favored East Germans. Gowdy called the race for ABC along with analyst Donna DeVarona. Gowdy worked for NBC at the time and was still their #1 NFL play-by-play voice, but NBC loaned Gowdy to ABC for the Montreal Olympics. Gowdy also called basketball with Bill Russell at the 1976 games.



A few items of note from the clip: When the announcers appear on the screen at the 0:53 mark wearing the famous ABC yellow blazers, their press credentials are clearly visible on camera. Around the 6:23 mark, Gowdy twice cuts off DeVarona and talks for almost 20 seconds recapping the lane assignments before allowing her to make a point. Also, multiple times Gowdy refers to the event as the "4 times 100 meters".

Historic Olympic Broadcaster Logos

I stumbled onto an interesting feature on a blog which contains images of the broadcaster logos for the United States networks which televised the Olympic games going back to the 1960s. The site has some commentary on the designs of these broadcaster logos along with images of the official logos for each Olympiad and provides an intriguing look at how these emblems have evolved over time. It also includes historical background information on the US TV coverage over the years such as rights fees and hours of programming.

Here are a few of the TV broadcaster logos: NBC Tokyo 1964, ABC Lake Placid 1980, and CBS Albertville 1992.

ABC clip of spectacular Olga Korbut routine from 1972 Olympics

Here is perhaps the most famous gymnastics performance of all time. During the team competition of the 1972 Olympics in Munich. 17-year old Olga Korbut of the USSR executed a never before seen maneuver  on the uneven parallel bars. This routine propelled the then unknown Korbut into a household name and helped fuel interest in gymnastics. The electritfying move which became known as the Korbut Flip was subsequently banned for safety reasons.

Jim McKay called the action for ABC and the enthusiastic analyst was former gymnastics coach Gordon Maddux. 

Remembering Dave Wottle winning 1972 Olympic 800 meters

While the 1972 Summer Olympics are unfortunately best known for the terrorist attack on Sept 5, the Munich games featured many memorable events during the competition. I still vividly recall watching the 800 meter final on Sept 2 when Dave Wottle of the USA came from well behind to win the gold medal at the wire. Wottle famously ran the race wearing a golf cap. The IOC has since banned hats during track events.



The ABC announcers were Jim McKay and former middle distance runner Marty Liquori. This is a classic call by McKay who handled track and field and gymnastics during the 1972 games. Of course, he is best remembered for his coverage of the hostage crisis a few days later.

At the start of the race, ABC displayed individual graphics for each runner, but never showed one for lane 8 as the event started while McKay was still announcing the participants. The end of the clip also features Chris Schenkel who was the primary ABC host for the Munich Olympiad.

Observations on the 1967 NIT final footage on MSG Vault

Recently, I posted about the MSG Vault episode which included footage from the CBS telecast of the 1967 NIT championship game featuring Walt Frazier. After watching my recording a few times, I will share some observations:

The show contained a fair amount of footage from the original telecast. The audio and video quality was fantastic considering this game took place 45 years ago. What a find by the Carbondale PBS station!

I found several aspects of the playing surface quite noticeable. The floor contains mostly light colored boards interspersed with some darker ones, but not in any specific pattern. The midcourt stripe was yellow as were other court lines. The color of these markings was not significantly distinguishable from that of the light floorboards making these lines rather difficult to see. Also striking was the complete lack of logos on the floor. There was nothing on the court surface which identified this as an NIT game or the site as Madison Square Garden. You can see the court in the video clip I added to my original post.

Play-by-play man Tom Kelly did a decent job, but analyst Frank Gifford offered very little commentary during game action. There was also an odd moment during the opening to the telecast. As Kelly set the scene, Gifford's head shifted awkwardly several times as he almost seemed to be going out of his way to look anywhere but at the camera. You can see also this segment in the same video clip.

The only CBS graphic I noticed was the one identifying Frazier as the MVP during the postgame interview.  A few times, CBS superimposed a shot of the stadium scoreboard underneath the action. And Kelly mentioned the score quite frequently during his play-by-play. Throughout the telecast, you can also clearly hear the public address announcer providing information on score, fouls, substitutions, etc.

If you haven't seen this and have access to MSG Network, I highly recommend this episode which will be re-airing many times over the next few weeks.

The 25th anniversary of Sports Radio WFAN

Sports Radio 66 WFAN in New York celebrates its 25th anniversary this weekend. On 7/1/1987 radio station WHN 1050 AM transformed from a country music station which held the rights to the reigning World Series champion New York Mets into a 24x7 sports format. WFAN later moved to 660 on the AM dial and remains the radio flagship of the Mets.

Over its 25 years, WFAN has held rights to other sports teams in the NYC market and featured many unique radio personalities including Mike Francesa and Christopher Russo who teamed up for 19 years as Mike and the Mad Dog in the afternoon drive slot. The success of WFAN led to a plethora of all-sports formats in markets across the country.

I was one of the listeners on that inaugural day and remember Jim Lampley hosting the first show.

Here is the original WFAN 1987 weekday schedule of hosts:

    6 am - 10 am: Greg Gumbel
    10 am - 1 pm: Jim Lampley
    1 pm - 3 pm: Art Shamsky
    3 pm - 7 pm: Pete Franklin
    7 pm - midnight: Howie Rose
    midnight - 6 am: Steve Somers

Note: Franklin was recovering from a heart attack when WFAN launched so the station rotated a number of fill-in hosts in the afternoon drive slot until Franklin was healthy enough to take over.

MSG Network to air footage from 1967 NIT title game featuring Walt Frazier

The MSG Vault series on MSG Network will feature color video from the original CBS telecast of the 1967 NIT championship game. In that contest, Southern Illinois led by Walt Frazier defeated a Marquette team coached by Al McGuire. MSG Network (DIRECTV 634) will premiere this episode titled Before He Was Clyde on Saturday 6/23 at 9 pm ET and will re-air it multiple times. Al Trautwig is the host of MSG Vault.

A PBS station in Illinois recently discovered a videotape of the game and this will be the first time this footage has been shown on TV since the live telecast in 1967. The CBS broadcast team was Tom Kelly on play-by-play with Frank Gifford as the analyst.

ESPN Classic to show 1973 King-Riggs Battle of the Sexes

On Saturday 6/23 at 9 pm ET, ESPN Classic is re-airing the Battle of the Sexes tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs during the ESPN commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Title IX. ABC televised this event in prime time from the Houston Astrodome on Thursday 9/20/1973 with Howard Cosell calling the action. The co-analysts were tennis pros Rosemary Casals and Gene Scott.  Both Casals and Scott received quite negative reviews for their on-air commentary. Frank Gifford was also part of the telecast doing interviews.

An interesting sidebar to this telecast: ABC had originally planned to use former tennis pro Jack Kramer as a co-analyst along with Casals. However, King was displeased with Kramer's treatment of women's tennis and threatened to withdraw from the match on short notice if Kramer remained involved. ABC executive producer Roone Arledge agreed to take Kramer off the commentary team and named Scott as a replacement. Kramer appeared during the opening of the ABC telecast and announced that he was stepping down. I believe that Kramer's statement will air during the ESPN Classic replay.

Classic Wimbledon on ESPN Classic

ESPN Classic is replaying many past Wimbledon championship matches over the next week. The broadcast team of Dick Enberg and Bud Collins called many of these on NBC starting in the early 1980s. Here is a subset of the schedule:

• 1975 Ashe-Connors: Tue 6/19 at 1:30 am
• 1977 Borg-Connors: Tue 6/19 at 4 am
• 1982 Navratilova-Evert: Wed 6/20 at 2 am
• 1984 Navratilova-Evert: Wed 6/20 at 4 am
• 1980 Borg-McEnroe: Wed 6/20 at 1 pm
• 1981 McEnroe-Borg: Wed 6/20 at 3 pm
• 1982 Connors-McEnroe: Thu 6/21 at 4 am
• 1984 McEnroe-Connors: Thu 6/21 at 10 am
• 1985 Navratilova-Evert: Fri 6/22 at 2 am
• 1988 Graf-Navratilova: Fri 6/22 at 4 am

Here is a clip from the famous 4th set tiebreaker of the 1980 match called by Bud Collins and Donald Dell: