Rode my bike as fast as I could after little league baseball. So I could watch this show every Saturday afternoon. Then watched the game of the week. Baseball was real back then.
You must be from the same generation as I'm from I remember doing the same thing. After my Saturday morning paper route I went to play my weekly little league game(I played first base and was #8 because Carl Yastremski was my favorite living player then) then I rushed home to watch "This Week In Baseball" and then watch as many games as I could. Most games were free back then in the"Pre-ESPN" days. The Red Sox were my favorite team. We lived about an hour north of Boston. My dad has a job for a company that bought season tickets for The Red Sox at Fenway Park every year. I'm not kidding in a 5-6 year period we went to hundreds or more games at Fenway Park. We couldn't always go to key games or if the game was a special occasion. We went to mostly weeknight games which was fine with us and these tickets were free. We also bought tickets quite often for certain games when we couldn't use his company tickets. We went to a special YAZ Day which was cool. It was common for us to go to 2-3 games a week quite often for the entire season. I mostly saw games in the mid to late 1970s but did see plenty of games in the early 1980s as well even after he left that company. Tickets were so cheap back then and parking was as well. We didn't realize what an awesome deal we had by going to hundreds of games mostly for free. @13:00 they show Bill Campbell who was an excellent reliever for the Red Sox who won the Fireman of the Year award at least once. I got to see Bill Campbell save many games live. I saw Louis Taint, AKA El Tiant, Dennis Eckersley when he was a starter, Bill(Spaceman) Lee, who talked to the ball, I also got to watch Fergie Jenkins, Rick Wise, Jim Willoughby, Dick Drago, Reggie Cleveland, and Mike Torrez as well as many others pitch for the Red Sox I also got to see many great Pitchers and players from many other teams as well. Rollie Fingers, Rich(the Goose) Gossage, Catfish Hunter, Sparky Lyle, Ron Guidry, Mark (the Bird) Fidrych from the Detroit Tigers(he also talked to the ball), Vida Blue, Dock Ellis, Nolan Ryan, and Jim Palmer just to name a few. I got to see the Toronto Blue Jays & the Seattle Mariners very first season when they were an expansion team which has been fun watching them grow over the years . I could go on for a very long time but I don't want to bore you any more. I was very fortunate to have grown up during that time period & fortunate that my dad worked for a company that always had season tickets. We would get there early and hang out by the dugouts and talk to the players as they warmed up tossing the ball around. Sometimes they would actually come over, chat with us and give us their autographs. We met plenty of players back then. This week in baseball was a huge part of my weekend & I remember looking forward to it all week long.
Speaking of the White Sox, just look at who's pitching 9 and 3/4 minutes from the beginning, with the name "RYAN" and the number 30 appearing on the back, and trying to strike out a batter: Nolan Ryan of course! (Or did he walk the batter; he has done that, too?) Well, Mister No-Hitter gave away a home run to Chicago on that pitch--lol!
Was lucky to be able to attend the two (Fri/Sat) games LA vs SF, and see the Pirates play LA that Mon and Tues "this" week that was featured. To my dismay the Pirates 0-6 at LA and overall 4-8 record vs LA that year most likely caused them to miss winning the NL East in 1978.
Only 46 years later I'm sitting here cussing the fact that the Dodgers ended the Giants winning streak at 8 games in 1978 as if it were happening real time.
Baseball was real .Dodgers & Yankees series played during the day.I’m a orioles fan we were always neck to neck with NewYork. Just like Dodgers & Giants.
