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#1
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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. |
#2
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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". -- To reply via e-mail please delete one c from paccbell |
#3
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= = = 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 .. |
#4
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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 |
#5
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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. |
#6
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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 -- To reply via e-mail please delete one c from paccbell |
#7
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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. |
#8
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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 . -- To reply via e-mail please delete one c from paccbell |
#9
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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. |
#10
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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? ~^Monitoring The Spectrum^~ Hammarlund HQ129X /Heathkit Q Multiplier Hammarlund HQ140X Multiple GE P-780's(GREAT BCB Radios) RCA Victor *Strato- World* RCA Victor RJC77W-K(Walnut Grain) 1942 Zenith Wave Magnet 6G 601M Cathedral/ Ross#2311/Rhapsody-MultiBand DX100/*SUPER-DELUXE Mod- DRIVEN*394/*Modded*398/399/402 OMGS Transistor Eight/Realistic 12-1451 Henry Kloss Model One/Bell+HowellSW ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Alpha Delta DX Sloper 57ft. 500ft. 12AWG. (non-terminated) 120ft. 12 AWG Long-Wire 2 Radio Shack Loop Antennas Radio Shack Amplified Antenna 30X30 DiamondLoop(six section 830pf Cap) * Diamond Loop mounted to Lazy Susan TurnTable* *21/2X2ft.FiveSpoked~Penta-Loop~PancakeLoop* ~OptimusCTR-111Cassettte Recorder~ ~Radio Shack 2Speed VOX#43-476~ ~Ramsey Speech Scrambler~ |
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