More Cuts at ESPN

It portended my career as a journo, but as a kid I enjoyed Biography with Mike Wallace in the Sixties.

 

Remote employees at ESPN (and its affiliates, like SEC/ACC/Longhorn Network) and CBS Sports must get COVID boosters by Jan. 24 to continue working at live events. The NFL's media mandate kicks in Jan. 12.

 

Does this mean Clay Travis won’t be covering the NFL playoffs?

 

And the gorilla trying to tear the shit out of Samsonite luggage.

 

Maybe they can do it for the live sports drought of 2022-infinity!

 

“The Way It Was,” a PBS show hosted by Curt Gowdy in the 1960s, was this concept, though with film rather than live broadcasts. Good show. And a vote here for watching vintage telecasts. It’s like a movie you’ve seen before. If it’s good, it’s worth seeing again.

 

How far back does the Real Sports library go on HBO Max?

 

Collecting original broadcasts of sporting events is one of my main hobbies. I’ve been doing it for close to 20 years and have well over 1,000 games and news broadcasts, starting with Game 6 of the 1952 World Series. I would say 99 percent of the games and news broadcasts are original and most have commercials.

For me, I just love reliving that time period. Even if I wasn’t born yet, I still like looking at what life was like at that time. I could pop in a random 1970 game between the Cardinals and Lions at Tiger Stadium and imagine what it must have been like to be in Detroit on this particular cold afternoon. Or, as I’m about to do, throw on an April 1978 playoff game between the Red Wings and Canadiens at Olympia Stadium with Bruce Martyn and Sid Abel on the call and imagine being there.

Keep in mind that I trade games to get games - no money is exchanged. This started with four VHS tapes from my father of the three ‘86 Giants playoff games and the final round of the ‘86 Masters, and it’s turned into this. It’s funny that an earlier post had that ‘74 Cowboys-Raiders game; that was one of the first I had in my collection. It was a faded-out multigenerational copy, and now I have that and everything else on two 8TB hard drives.

Invariably every conversation where I start with “let me tell you about this hobby” goes from “that’s a weird hobby” to “can you make me a copy of Game 7 of the 1971 World Series?”

 

Not far enough. Probably the best hour of television I watch just about every month for 20 years.

 

What's the best trade you've made?