I had something extra to be thankful for this past Thanksgiving and that was the fact that ESPN Classic ran old baseball features for most of the afternoon through midnight. I saw highlights of the 1955 World Series, as well as the 1959 World Series. I watched Don Larsen's perfect game and I have DVRed 7 episodes of Home Run Derby to be rationed out over the coming cold winter nights. The first episode features Mickey Mantle vs. Willie Mays and I find myself drooling in anticipation the way Homer Simpson drools for donuts.
Two things struck me while watching Don Larsen throw that perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1956 World Series:
Mel Allen and Vin Scully, who is still announcing Dodger games, did the play-by-play. There was no color commentator in the booth with Scully who wasn't afraid to say nothing when nothing needed to be said. I can't remember Scully informing the audience about a single seasonal statistic of any of the players as opposed to today when we know which hitter has the highest average in an 0-2 count against a left-hander wearing an even uniform number. On Thursday. At night. While I find those statistics highly interesting, Scully's broadcast made me realize how distracting they can be from simply watching the action.
Perhaps most interestingly, players came to bat sans gloves, body armor, shin guards, and helmets, for that matter. They swung at strikes and didn't step out between every pitch. For their part, pitchers got the ball from the catcher and pitched it. They didn't walk around the back of the mound rubbing a ball and then deciding that they wanted a different ball and then staring in for the sign and then calling the catcher out for a conference. The pitching coach didn't run out every inning to remind the pitcher how to pitch to certain hitters. In other words, I was left to watch only . . . the game. It was casual and relaxing and yet, this game moved along quickly. This is as opposed to the modern game where everyone is in a hurry to make sure that nothing happens and therefore, the game hardly moves at all. Today, the pitchers don't want to put the ball into the strike zone (what's left of it) and the hitters don't want to swing the bat until they have to.
And for those of you who only know the modern game, you'll be shocked to learn that no one was warming up in the Yankee bullpen in the 9th in case Larsen faltered.
So, here's to a new tradition thanks to ESPN Classic: a Thanksgiving full of . . . baseball!
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