In 1975 I watched the entire T.V. broadcast of Game 2 of the World Series, and it’s striking to see the parallels in the ways games are covered then and today.

For those who don’t remember that was the classic between the Red Sox and the Reds, and in Game 2 there was a rain delay.

NBC did a great job with that broadcast because of the access they provided, especially during that rain delay.

During that delay, you had Joe Garagiola, who was dressed in a Sherlock Holmes outfit, talking to Ned Martin, the play-by-play man for the Red Sox.  
This was before the Internet and MLB TV, when you couldn’t just watch any game from a Desert Island.

There was nothing fancy about it, just a great conversation where the two discussed some of the things a fan watching the Red Sox for the first time would be interested in.

You also had some inside access that today would almost be impossible.  During the rain delay, instead of texting or tweeting, the players sat down for interviews.  In a 2-1 game in the 7th, there was Johnny Bench and Sparky Anderson in the dugout casually talking to Marty Brennaman with the tension of the game still hanging in the air.

With rain constantly in the forecast this postseason, don’t look for Charlie Manuel or Derek Jeter to sit and chat in the dugout with me to give you some honest feedback on the pulse of the game.  

Those were the good old days of broadcasting, where you got a real sense of what was going on at the game and inside the game, straight from the players themselves.

But the similarities are in the way T.V. networks use every asset they have to their potential.

In this respect, Fox has done such a great job with the playoffs.  Today, it’s much tougher to get that kind of access, but they have used every resource under the sun to bring the viewer as close to the game as possible.  They use replays and super slo-mo shots at just the right moment; the technology enhances the game instead of taking away from it.  Joe Buck and Tim McCarver are also terrific together in the booth.

Looking at these two broadcasts side to side, you can really how far we’ve come as an industry of broadcasting baseball.  Our technology and skill has exploded, but the access back then was golden during such an innocent time.  

Another parallel that ties that ’75 series to our current fall classic is the inordinate celebrity shots.  Back then you had the same type of star power sitting in the front row, inspiring the players on the field, just like Kate Hudson is doing for A-Rod and the Yankees.

There is no doubt in my mind that Henry Kissinger is an early version of Kate Hudson.  Henry’s a viable partner to co-star in romantic comedies, with Matthew McConaughey and Owen Wilson. Had the planets been aligned a tiny bit differently, he could have been a hit teamed up with Dean Martin or Jerry Lewis in classic romantic comedies.

Tune in to MLB Tonight before Game 3.  I’ll go into a deeper analysis on this idea.
– Matt Vasgersian