Saturday, February 23, 2013

Live Televised Baseball

It's not about who's playing. It's not so much about how they do. Baseball is back, at least in the form of Spring Training. It's about waking up from the long winter slumber. It's about seeing this great game, either on television or in person. It's the sights and sounds. You might be up north somewhere where there is snow on the ground and rain falling, watching this game taking place what might be 1,000 miles away in the hot sunshine of March (or in this case, late February). The grass is green, the uniforms are colorful. If you're watching your favorite team, it's about hearing the voices behind the microphone again. The voices of summer.

The crowd is different. The sounds are a bit quieter during Spring Training. It's smaller, of course, and not to say they're silent, but it lends to a different, quieter atmosphere, while we're all still waking up to the game.

And it's a lot of fun to be there in Spring Training in person. Closer to the field. The warmer weather, and maybe a vacation for you. Closer to the players.

Baseball is back. And it's on my television.


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Mets Baseball 2013

This is my annual Spring Training sound byte post.

Back when I was a bit younger (we'll call it the late '80s and early-mid '90s, a time when I wasn't quite a teenager), I remember running home from school on the day that Spring Training games finally began, or at least the day of the first broadcast on WFAN (for some reason, I had no, or chose not to use, a walkman). I would look forward to hearing the voices that I knew meant baseball for the first time after the long offseason.

On the eve of the fist Spring Training game, I bring you three treats.

First up is a 1 minute audio clip from the Mets first broadcast on WFAN from Spring Training 1998. I won't say any more, other than the voice is forver the voice of the Mets...


Second is about 6 1/2 minutes in length, coming from another 1998 Spring Training game. This one is most of half of an inning from a road game against St. Louis in Jupiter's inagural season. The play-by-play voice again belongs to Bob Murphy with Gary Cohen along side.


and finally is Bob Murphy leading into a commercial


I invite any readers to submit or link to their own Spring Training audio and video from the 1980s and 1990s.


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