Unraveling a mystery: was this game re-created?
Crafting the Call: Harry Kalas is outstanding describing Game Five of the 1980 NLCS ... but wait, was this live or re-created a month later?
Let me start with a behind-the-scenes story from this week’s episode of “Crafting the Call” that’s dedicated to appreciating Harry Kalas, the legendary voice of NFL Films and the broadcaster for over 5,000 Philadelphia Phillies games.
I’d compiled the calls from his career that I wanted us to use. My friend Kevin Collins specifically mentioned the final out from Game Five of the 1980 NLCS, in which Kalas’ longtime partner Richie Ashburn is cackling almost uncontrollably in the background.
I found that clip (part of a condensed package of all the main plays) and was excited to finish the episode focused on that game. Something about the clip looked odd to me though.
I went in search of some answers, and while we need to be wary of the Wikipedization of human knowledge, that’s a logical starting point. I found the following note:
Oh my! Was this not live?!?
My co-host Jesse Goldberg-Strassler and I debated whether we should still use this clip, not tell the audience this might have been re-created, or try to determine during the episode if this was re-created.
We furiously tried to look for additional sources to guide us whether this was Live or Memorex1. But we were short on time. Jesse and I are both working broadcasters, need to get ready for our games each night, plus everything else with our jobs and lives.
Ultimately, we decided to be honest with the audience. Since the point of our YouTube series is to analyze baseball play-by-play announcing, this gives us a chance to break down a broadcast that was probably done after the game ended.
Here’s a clip from how we started the discussion:
After we recorded the episode, I did a deeper dive on newspapers.com and discovered, yes, indeed, this is a re-creation. Here’s a story from the Nov. 18, 1980 edition of The Philadelphia Daily News.
For new subscribers: Hi, I’m Josh, a former newspaper reporter who is now the play-by-play announcer for the Albuquerque Isotopes (the Rockies Triple-A affiliate). I write essays on baseball, life, and promote my other side projects on this Substack Newsletter.
Let me emphasize what is hopefully obvious. There is nothing scandalous about this.
The local Philadelphia TV station wanted to capitalize on the Phillies winning the World Series. In 1980, not everyone had a VCR and even fewer knew how to record shows. Many fans didn’t get a chance to watch the games live and would be watching them for the first time. Surely, a lot of viewers would be recording these games for their eternal collection … or until VCRs became obsolete.
Considering the outrage that local announcers were not permitted to broadcast the playoffs games live, forcing Phillies fans to listen to the national voices, this would allow them to experience these memorable games from their trusted local voices.
[Mission accomplished!]
That 1980 NLCS was not the only clips we used from Harry Kalas’ legendary career. We also marveled at the following:
Final out of the Phillies winning the 2008 World Series. [This was absolutely live.]
Michael Jack Schmidt’s 500th home run.
Bob Dernier’s legendary night of throwing and running in extra innings.
“Chase Utley … you are The Man!”
Here’s the full episode of Appreciating Harry Kalas.
Crafting the Call is a YouTube series that I developed along with Jesse Goldberg-Strassler. Each week, we examine different aspects of baseball play-by-play announcing, offering our perspective as working professionals for fans, and advice for fellow broadcasters. To help support our work, subscribe, like, comment, or send us a suggestion for a future episode.
Here’s a link to all the prior episodes of Crafting the Call. If you’d like to sponsor our YouTube series, please contact me. I have a marvelous proposal for you.
Anyone else remember those “Live or Memorex” commercials?