After 30 minutes last night of the new MLB network, my eyes were glazed over and I had to quit. It even managed to make special guest Jimmy Rollins, a thoughtful, articulate guy with a gift for turning a phrase, come across as a dull dog.
And the undertaker look should be dropped immediately. Everyone on the show but Rollins and Hazel Mae was dressed in a black suit, almost all of them of the kind found hanging in the back of the closet for a funeral. The sets seemed to be very big and the people in them far from each other. Studio 42, a tribute to Jackie Robinson, may turn out to be something special but in its debut there was too much talking and too much standing around.
No sign at all of Mitch Williams. I can't imagine him in the confines of those sets but some kind of real voice is badly needed.
So I forgot till much later that the network's much-touted debut was to feature a broadcast of Don Larsen's perfect game in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series between the Dodgers and Yankees. When I returned to the TV set, it was the bottom of the 6th and there was Larsen coming to bat. Wow! The game was at Yankee Stadium but Larsen was batting. Yeah, the good old days when there was no DH in the American League.
More signs of the times followed. It was a World Series game being played during the day. Some 64,000 fans were in attendance and--weirder than weird--it looked as if 90% were men, most of them wearing suits. Then there were the baggy baggy unis worn by the players, which made them look like shambling giants. And there was the pace of the game, brisk by today's standards. Only Jackie Robinson in his last at bat made an obvious try to get Larsen out of his rhythm.
Even the commercials included in the footage were short and sweet. As the shadows fell at Yankee Stadium, the game just kept moving along. When Larsen finally struck out the last Dodger, a pinchhitter for Dodger starter Sal Maglie, he calmly walked off the mound and almost reached the first base line before catcher Yogi Berra leaped onto him and he was swarmed by his teammates.
Larsen and Berra were in the studio watching the rare footage of the game, which had come to light earlier this year. The shot of Larsen's face as he watched the final strike of the game was absolutely priceless. He said that not a day goes by that he does not think about that game, and the expression on his face showed the wonder that he still obviously feels. In this age of instant classics, that game was the real thing.
Shot in Kinescope, with only a camera behind home plate, the grainy black-and-white film captured the drama and tension of the game. Mickey Mantle hit a solo homer in the 2-0 win and Duke Snider made a running outfield catch to keep the Dodgers in it. The announcer was the cherry on top: Vin Scully, who must have still been in his 20's.
