= = = 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

..

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

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

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.

In article ,
J. McLaughlin wrote:


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

He had a regular weekly broadcast on Mutual network back about 1950.
--

jhhaynes at earthlink dot net