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Old June 7th 04, 02:17 AM
Joel Rubin
 
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Default Telegraphic reproduction of baseball games

I've asked this question before, but now that the most famous
practitioner of this art has died, it seems time to ask it again.

At one time, bandwidth was so expensive that not only couldn't you
post a large binary in a non-binary group -) but it was too expensive
to get a broadcast-quality phone line to broadcast a Chicago Cubs game
over radio station WHO in Des Moines.

So, someone like Ronald Reagan would sit in the studio at WHO, reading
a telegraphed ball-by-ball description of the Cubs-Pirates game at
Forbes Field, and would dramatize what he read off the wire.

This is not a great art but it can be made exciting and informative or
it can be deadly dull. By all reports, Reagan was good at it. This
helped lead to his later career in Hollywood.

Well, anyway, I'd like to know if the telegraphic reproduction of the
San Francisco Giants game over WAAT in Hackensack, NJ, during the 1958
season, was the last such broadcast, and, since I was about 7 years
old, then, I should like to know the details.

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Old June 7th 04, 02:31 AM
George Grapman
 
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Default



Joel Rubin wrote:

I've asked this question before, but now that the most famous
practitioner of this art has died, it seems time to ask it again.

At one time, bandwidth was so expensive that not only couldn't you
post a large binary in a non-binary group -) but it was too expensive
to get a broadcast-quality phone line to broadcast a Chicago Cubs game
over radio station WHO in Des Moines.

So, someone like Ronald Reagan would sit in the studio at WHO, reading
a telegraphed ball-by-ball description of the Cubs-Pirates game at
Forbes Field, and would dramatize what he read off the wire.

This is not a great art but it can be made exciting and informative or
it can be deadly dull. By all reports, Reagan was good at it. This
helped lead to his later career in Hollywood.

Well, anyway, I'd like to know if the telegraphic reproduction of the
San Francisco Giants game over WAAT in Hackensack, NJ, during the 1958
season, was the last such broadcast, and, since I was about 7 years
old, then, I should like to know the details.


I remember Les Keiter doing the recreations in 1958. I thought it was
WMCA which had been the NY Giants station but i could be wrong. Mutual
Radio did a game of the day at least as late as '57.
Two stories about re-creations:

When I was very young I went to summer camp in western Jersey. The
mutual game was blacked out in major league cities but we got it from a PA
(Stroudsberg?) station. I used to think that the announcers had a hectic
schedule as they would be in NY, St.Louis, Washington and Chicago on
consecutive days.

This may be urban legend but is still funny. The re-creations would
start after the actual game to allow for the possibility of the ticker
breaking down. When this happened the announcer would have the batter
fouling off pitch after pitch. If need be there was a heated argument and
is all else failed they would fake a rain delay. A man in a small town
tells his wife that he is going to the Cubs game. She listens to the game
and hears the announcer describe a torrential downpour that delays the
game. At dinner she asks about the weather and is told ," Honey, it was a
beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky".



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Old June 7th 04, 10:47 AM
RHF
 
Posts: n/a
Default

= = = George Grapman wrote in message
= = = ...
Joel Rubin wrote:

I've asked this question before, but now that the most famous
practitioner of this art has died, it seems time to ask it again.

At one time, bandwidth was so expensive that not only couldn't you
post a large binary in a non-binary group -) but it was too expensive
to get a broadcast-quality phone line to broadcast a Chicago Cubs game
over radio station WHO in Des Moines.

So, someone like Ronald Reagan would sit in the studio at WHO, reading
a telegraphed ball-by-ball description of the Cubs-Pirates game at
Forbes Field, and would dramatize what he read off the wire.

This is not a great art but it can be made exciting and informative or
it can be deadly dull. By all reports, Reagan was good at it. This
helped lead to his later career in Hollywood.

Well, anyway, I'd like to know if the telegraphic reproduction of the
San Francisco Giants game over WAAT in Hackensack, NJ, during the 1958
season, was the last such broadcast, and, since I was about 7 years
old, then, I should like to know the details.


I remember Les Keiter doing the recreations in 1958. I thought it was
WMCA which had been the NY Giants station but i could be wrong. Mutual
Radio did a game of the day at least as late as '57.
Two stories about re-creations:

When I was very young I went to summer camp in western Jersey. The
mutual game was blacked out in major league cities but we got it from a PA
(Stroudsberg?) station. I used to think that the announcers had a hectic
schedule as they would be in NY, St.Louis, Washington and Chicago on
consecutive days.


" This may be urban legend but is still funny. The re-creations would
start after the actual game to allow for the possibility of the ticker
breaking down. When this happened the announcer would have the batter
fouling off pitch after pitch. If need be there was a heated argument and
is all else failed they would fake a rain delay. A man in a small town
tells his wife that he is going to the Cubs game. She listens to the game
and hears the announcer describe a torrential downpour that delays the
game. At dinner she asks about the weather and is told ," Honey, it was a
beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky". "


GG - LMAOROTF ) ~ RHF

..
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Old June 7th 04, 06:22 PM
Jim Haynes
 
Posts: n/a
Default

William Shirer's autobiography tells of his years in Paris as a sportswriter
for the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune. They would receive the scores
of U.S. college football games by cable (very costly) at the end of each
quarter. He would then fabricate a written description of the game to
publish in the paper. He tells how much fun it was to go into the bars
frequented by Americans after the paper came out and hear the animated
discussions of the previous day's games.

James Thurber worked for the paper at the same time. His specialty was
fabricating speeches of Calvin Coolidge. Those were the days when
newspapers printed the full text of Presidential speeches. They would
receive word by cable that Pres. Coolidge had gone to such and such a
place and given a speech on such and such a topic; and Thurber could
write a perfectly plausible rendition of what Coolidge might have said.

If Col. McCormick in Chicago had known what was going on in Paris he
would have fired the lot of them.
--

jhhaynes at earthlink dot net

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Old June 7th 04, 08:18 PM
Charlie
 
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Default



Joel Rubin wrote:
I've asked this question before, but now that the most famous
practitioner of this art has died, it seems time to ask it again.

At one time, bandwidth was so expensive that not only couldn't you
post a large binary in a non-binary group -) but it was too expensive
to get a broadcast-quality phone line to broadcast a Chicago Cubs game
over radio station WHO in Des Moines.


I can remember (barely) that when WIND in Chicago carried the Cubs in
middle 40's (or so) they would recreate a game whenever the Cub's game
was rained out. I believe the White Sox station would also do this on
rain outs. Both stations were very good at it. Crowd noise, hitting
something for the bat sound, etc.

Charlie who later worked at WIND but by then WGN had the Cubs.



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Old June 8th 04, 12:14 AM
George Grapman
 
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Default



Jim Haynes wrote:

William Shirer's autobiography tells of his years in Paris as a sportswriter
for the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune. They would receive the scores
of U.S. college football games by cable (very costly) at the end of each
quarter. He would then fabricate a written description of the game to
publish in the paper. He tells how much fun it was to go into the bars
frequented by Americans after the paper came out and hear the animated
discussions of the previous day's games.


In his Damon Runyon bio Jimmy Breslin notes that Runyon would have a fellow
writer show his his scorecard for a game that Runyon had missed and he would
write a story replete with diving catches and bench clearing brawls.



James Thurber worked for the paper at the same time. His specialty was
fabricating speeches of Calvin Coolidge. Those were the days when
newspapers printed the full text of Presidential speeches. They would
receive word by cable that Pres. Coolidge had gone to such and such a
place and given a speech on such and such a topic; and Thurber could
write a perfectly plausible rendition of what Coolidge might have said.

If Col. McCormick in Chicago had known what was going on in Paris he
would have fired the lot of them.
--

jhhaynes at earthlink dot net


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Old June 8th 04, 02:38 AM
Beloved Leader
 
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George Grapman wrote in message ...

Joel Rubin wrote:

This may be urban legend but is still funny. The re-creations would
start after the actual game to allow for the possibility of the ticker
breaking down. When this happened the announcer would have the batter
fouling off pitch after pitch. If need be....


The _Washington Post_ is delivered to my secret listening bunker. I
saw this article this morning and intended to forward it to an ex-RR
telegrapher. Since there are some dah-dah-dit-o heads here, I might as
post the link.

Come to think of it, those sounders communicated not with a dah-dit,
but with a clacka-clacka. I'll bet that somewhere along the way,
Reagan was in a movie in which a telegraph sounder clacked out a
message while someone asked, "what's that saying?" to which the
operator replied "the Yanks/Rebs are coming!"

I've got a few of those sounders. I rigged up a J-38 key to a tone
generator to practice for my blazing 5 WPM test. But I digress.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Jun5.html


Former President Had A Passion for Sports
He Played Football, Announced Baseball

By William Gildea
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 6, 2004; Page E01

.....
With radio becoming an integral part of American life in 1932, Reagan
auditioned for a sports announcer's job at WOC, Davenport, Iowa.
.....

Then came a four-year stint at a major station, WHO, in Des Moines.
.....

As inevitably happened in those days, Reagan suffered the agony of
having the telegraph connection go dead on him. It happened to him as
he recounted in "Where's the Rest of Me?" with the Cubs' Augie Galan
at bat. In his game description, Reagan already had the pitch on the
way when his in-house telegraph operator, Curly, slipped him a note
saying he had lost contact with the ballpark.

"So I had Augie foul this pitch down the left-field foul line. I
looked expectantly at Curly. He just shrugged helplessly, so I had
Augie foul another one, and still another; then he fouled one back
into the box seats. I described in detail the red-headed kid who had
scrambled and gotten the souvenir ball. He fouled one into the upper
deck that just missed being a home run. He fouled for six minutes and
45 seconds until I lost count. I began to be frightened that maybe I
was establishing a new world record for a fellow staying at bat
hitting fouls, and this could betray me. Yet I was into it so far I
didn't dare reveal that the wire had gone dead. My voice was rising in
pitch and threatening to crack -- and then, bless him, Curly started
typing. I clutched at the slip. It said: 'Galan popped out on the
first ball pitched.' Not in my game he didn't -- he popped out after
practically making a career of foul balls."
.....


Life imitates art. Or something like that.
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Old June 8th 04, 04:07 AM
George Grapman
 
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The sound effects were interesting for these games. Some just had
generic crows noise in the background with the volume turned up when
something happened. Others were tapes a parks as you could hear the
vendors. A batted ball was two drum sticks (the musical, not the edible
part) hit together .

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Old June 8th 04, 04:12 AM
J. McLaughlin
 
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I do not remember ball games, but I sure do remember Col. McCormick
giving a talk (usually on some bit of military history?) before a
concert that he sponsored. One could send the Chicago station a penny
postal card and receive a printed copy of his talk.
His delivery was poor, but his content was always interesting.
Anyone else remember? I do not think that this went out on short wave,
but the Chicago Police did their dispatch on SW.
Mac N8TT
--
J. Mc Laughlin - Michigan USA
Home:

If Col. McCormick in Chicago had known what was going on in Paris he
would have fired the lot of them.


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Old June 8th 04, 07:01 AM
GO BEARCATS
 
Posts: n/a
Default

I remember Les Keiter doing the recreations in 1958. I thought it was
WMCA which had been the NY Giants station but i could be wrong. Mutual
Radio did a game of the day at least as late as '57.
Two stories about re-creations:


***********rest good post snipped*********

This thread has kind of grabbed me and I'll tell you why and also I guess
there's a question also.

*Right before* I got into the hobby, through a goodwill store or some place
like that, I happened upon a ?????.

The reason I took it actually was because it was going to be pitched, and I
don't remember the particulars of it, like the exact look or anything, but I
remember what was on it......oh how I wished I had kept it -if it had been
maybe another five months I would've kept it because I got into 'electronics.'
cb/scanners/shortwave in that order and haven't turned back :-)

But it was a recorder of some sorts. It was extremely old, and how I know
without remembering of seeing a date on it or whatever is it actually was
because of the reason I grabbed it. I'm a sports fans.

This recorder was (if I remember right) longer than my hand and a little of my
forearm in length, I can't remember the width, but it had actual reel to reel
tape on it. The voice on it was 'someone' (DARN I wished I had this thing)
doing the Cincinnati Reds vs. Brooklyn Dodgers and they were doing play by play
and this guy was reading what was happening as you could hear 'typing' {?} in
the background.

But it was innings 1 though 6 and then went to a lady speaking to a man,
completely different- like the game part was stopped and then this started.
Being a Reds fan like I am, I remember thinking "I don't want anything like
this sitting around." Never thinking of the historical significance either-I
just didn't think like that. Wow- how radio changes you.;-)

It was old looking and it stuck out like a thumb and back then - I just didn't
think of any type of electronic equipment except the typical of having.

I've always wondered what exactly was that I had at one time, but I do know the
era because of the names of the players and the game was at Ebbets Field and it
was the Brooklyn Dodgers against my beloved Reds. Should have kept it. :-(

Can someone tell me maybe what actually it was, and did I pitch something of
big-time value?

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