Clinching the Old Fashioned American (League) Way

There was a time when pennants weren't decided in a best-of-7 game series.  Or best-of-5, either.  Teams used to win their league's pennant in a winner-take-all best of 162 game series known as "having the best record in your league".*  Of course, this is also when there were only 20 teams in baseball.  With the advent of divisional play in baseball, the game forever changed with the expansion of the playoffs to include 4 teams (and eventually to today's number of 10 teams).

*until divisional play, the AL had seen only one playoff series in 1948.

There was also a time when the New York Yankees seemed to be the only team to win the American League pennant.  From 1949 to 1964, the New York Yankees were AL Champions all but twice ( '54 Indians, '59 ChiSox).  Much like the Iron Curtain, this too did pass.  When it did, with the Twins representing the American League in 1965, we saw a different team win the pennant each year from 1965 until the creation of divisions in 1969.

What we also have is a bit of a serendipitous collection of the final outs (or seconds after) of the final 4 American League pennants before divisional play in 1965, '66, '67 and '68.  More about each after the jump.

60 Years of Orioles on TV (Part 1)

For their 60th anniversary, the Baltimore Orioles have opened up their archives and published scans of every media guide the team has put out since their move from St. Louis.  In this treasure trove of history, you will find such tidbits like Jim Hardin was a top-notch golfer in 1968 (with rounds in the 70s) or that 26.1% of all those who attended Orioles home games in 1954 were from out of town.  These time capsules of past seasons also give us an idea about how baseball approached television broadcasting. 
 

That’s what were are going to try to look at here today, how baseball broadcasting evolved for the Baltimore Orioles from their move out of the ‘Gateway to the West’ to ‘Charm City’.

Check Your Local Listings (1971 games on TV) Part 1

For years this blog has devoted time to finding out where a clip came from or what station may have shown it.  Rarely do we take a look to see what COULD be out there and hasn't been found yet.  As we get into the early 1970s, we see the phasing out of kinescopes and the rise of videotape and satellite hook-ups.  It becomes easier for stations to broadcast games coast-to-coast and beyond.  

As a disclaimer, not a single regular season game from the 1971 season has survived (to my knowledge).  There a few partials that exist of regular season tilts. Also, we have the glorious color videotape of the 1971 All-Star game and various post-season games have survived.  However, 1971 featured quite a few historical moments and hopefully we can try to account for which of them actually made it on-air.  Once we have a true account of what games were broadcast, then we can take a look at some of the partials and get more in-depth into each of them.

Part One of this feature focuses on the American League and their distribution of their product. By the time we reached 1971, the American League was finally starting to catch up with the National League talent wise following a slow integration process.  While their approach to talent had been slow to change, let's take a look to see how their approach to television grew.