Here it is: Hosted by Curt Gowdy..."The way it Was!"

[Slugfester]

I watched it. Very enjoyable. Dunphy is the best I know of at calling fights. Did someone say he was not calling this one live from the arena but from the studio of the show? I watched several other episodes of TWIW that came up on the menu too. Graziano/Robinson and a Robinson retrospective.

[Anthony342]

The Brooklyn Dodgers and their contemporary twins, the Chicago Cubs were legendary for being able to fck up any chance no matter how ironclad it may have seemed! The Brooklyn Bums, as they were affectionately called, were probably responsible for making Brooklyn and Ebbets Field the epicenter for High Blood Pressure and Beer consumption! A few years back I remember a clip on TV of a "Cubie" (My wife's term for the cub players, she, having spent some good years in Chicago) literally drop a flyball and lose the series for the Cubs.

Of course where my wife is orginally from (Southern Louisiana) via nah Orleans, there is also a record of mishaps... It got pretty bad. Bobby Herbert, the Cajun QB threatened to punch a reporter and the reporter shrugged and said "Bobby, do as you will, just know that your punch, given your track record, will probably be intercepted."

Are these teams cursed? I mean there was greatness in the players... jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax, and Chicago had perhaps the most reified infield, memoralized with the incantation: "Tinker, to Evers, to Chance." Some teams could win... But I still remember when Gabe Paul managed the Yankees and the Red Sox would treat Yankee Stadium as their stomping grounds... Those days were such that the yankees could not win to save their souls. As much as Steinbrenner was hated, he bought us a winning team.

Speaking of the Dodgers and Giants, I found out recently on a 30 for 30 on the 1986 Mets that they got their colors of orange and blue from the old Giants and Dodgers as a kind of tribute, which I thought was kinda cool. And in another documentary on HBO, when the team started in 1962, they said that the owner would've kept the Dodgers team in New York if Robert Moses would've allowed him to build a stadium in Queens, since there was already a subway line going there. It took until later for the guy to get his Queens team. So because one guy had to be a petty douchebag, New York lost the Dodgers to LA.

[Willie Pep 229]

Speaking of the Dodgers and Giants, I found out recently on a 30 for 30 on the 1986 Mets that they got their colors of orange and blue from the old Giants and Dodgers as a kind of tribute, which I thought was kinda cool. And in another documentary on HBO, when the team started in 1962, they said that the owner would've kept the Dodgers team in New York if Robert Moses would've allowed him to build a stadium in Queens, since there was already a subway line going there. It took until later for the guy to get his Queens team. So because one guy had to be a petty douchebag, New York lost the Dodgers to LA.

There's Moses' side to the story as well.

Just one example: O'Malley wanted a dome stadium (in 1957), he was running around with the blue prints that would eventually become the Astrodome. He hated losing money on rain-outs.

Of course that stadium proved to be a logistics nightmare in 1965 never mind 1957.

OK, one more.

Moses was in the process of preparing for what would become the 1964 New York Expo. He was buying up waste land in Queens, with the intent on a new stadium as a center piece to the land development.

O'Malley refused the idea of a Flushing Medows stadium in Queens. He wanted Brooklyn proper. O'Malley wanted Moses to tear down the highest quit-rent district in Brooklyn.The area right around the new subway/train station that was proposed and Moses would develope after the Flushing Medows project was finished. (This is what eventually happened.)

Moses was getting Flushing Medows cheap. O'Malley wasn't interested, he wanted Brooklyn proper.

There is no natural border between Brooklyn and Queens, just designed districts. The Brooklyn Dodgers could have played there without a name change. The New York Giants (football) played for years in New Jersey, and they were separated by a river.

Meanwhile a very smart Congress woman in Califorina (whom I believe took VP Nixon's seat) made O'Malley a deal he couldn't refuse. Part ownership in the new "Dodgers" stadium she was offering, and with LA being in the desert O'Malley abandoned his dome stadium plan.

O'Malley as owner of the Dodgers would now be paying part of the rent to himself.

They say O'Malley's original intent was to talk to California merely as a leverage move against Moses, but he ran into a very smart congress woman who saw an opportunity.

The Giants were tired of the very old Polo Grounds as well but knew nothing was going to happen until the Dodgers got a new stadium first, so they jumped on the California band wagon and made a deal with San Francisco.

(Which BTW, having two teams move west made MLB happy about scheduling. They were still using trains.)

Moses got all the blame. He is part of the blame no doubt, but O'Malley gets some too.

P.S. Old Brooklyn Joke:

Q. You got two bullets in a gun, with Hitler, Stalin, and O'Malley standing in front of you. Who do you shoot.

A. O'Malley twice, too make sure.

P.S.S. The1964 New York Expo was an economic bust. Moses fell from grace and his power subsided.

[Willow The Wisp]

That was a great show. I remember the original broadcasts well. I had tons of films and two projectors as a collector, but ya; no YouTube back then.
Season 1 in 74' had two all-time greats on, for a showing of Pep - Sadler III.

https://youtu.be/gIR_rhhJgI0

[Willow The Wisp]

Love the way Galento as an old man was still a cranky prick!
A few years later the diabetes would overtake him and he had a leg amputated.
Two Ton Tony died July 22, 1979 in his hometown of Orange, NJ.

How would would such a short, squat slugger do in today’s game? Most would think pretty poorly, but not me. Whatever David Tua could do, Galento could do just as well.
Remember that I don't debate; I just know better.

[QueensburyRules]

SORRY DIGRESSION

I always thought the Bobby Thompson HR as a perfect way to teach historical context.

The HR is not that important to the history of the NY/San Fran Giants. (They got beat in the '51 Series by the Yankees 4-2.)

It's true impact, as you note, broke the heart' of a million Dodgers fans.

It was the apex of the 'Wait till next year' claim, that began when the Dogers lost the 1947 World Series to the Yankees 4-3.

Years of frustration made the HR infamous. Its importance even increased as the Dodgers would continue to struggle in '52-'54.

Finally getting the monkey off their back in '55.

- - The real impact was the Leo Durocher led Giants was not on a card cheat and restaurant/haberdashery cheat repeatedly called up before Commissioner Landis, but he also had a telescope in Center Field with an electronic buzzer to give pitcher signals by the catcher to his players for the whole of the season with more to come.

Ralph Branca a HOF level pitcher became identified as the ultimate loser for the rest of his life, suffering both publically and privately until the cheating scandal surfaced just before he died in his 90s.

That was also the season Willie Mays came out of his long slump dating to his debut where he was sent back to the minors. All the players were honorable men who deserved better.

The Dodgers with Jackie Robinson battled the Yanks hard the next year in a classic that can seldom be repeated, but had they had that extra chance that broken year for them, could be they might have pulled off the win either year. Those Dodgers were as hot as any team in history with Jackie who set the team on a competitive fire like no other.

[billeau2]

Speaking of the Dodgers and Giants, I found out recently on a 30 for 30 on the 1986 Mets that they got their colors of orange and blue from the old Giants and Dodgers as a kind of tribute, which I thought was kinda cool. And in another documentary on HBO, when the team started in 1962, they said that the owner would've kept the Dodgers team in New York if Robert Moses would've allowed him to build a stadium in Queens, since there was already a subway line going there. It took until later for the guy to get his Queens team. So because one guy had to be a petty douchebag, New York lost the Dodgers to LA.

The Mets definitely were a team with shades of the Dodgers Zeitgeist. I was always a Yankee fan because I found the National League boring compared to the American league, but, for a good deal of my childhood we went to Shea stadium to see the Yankees because they were rebuilding Yankee stadium. I always enjoyed Shea stadium... My dad would walk with me from East Harlem to see the games and when you crossed the bridge (Forgot the name of the bridge) there was this incredible odor of bread baking from a bread factory! Lol.

[billeau2]

There's Moses' side to the story as well.

Just one example: O'Malley wanted a dome stadium (in 1957), he was running around with the blue prints that would eventually become the Astrodome. He hated losing money on rain-outs.

Of course that stadium proved to be a logistics nightmare in 1965 never mind 1957.

OK, one more.

Moses was in the process of preparing for what would become the 1964 New York Expo. He was buying up waste land in Queens, with the intent on a new stadium as a center piece to the land development.

O'Malley refused the idea of a Flushing Medows stadium in Queens. He wanted Brooklyn proper. O'Malley wanted Moses to tear down the highest quit-rent district in Brooklyn.The area right around the new subway/train station that was proposed and Moses would develope after the Flushing Medows project was finished. (This is what eventually happened.)

Moses was getting Flushing Medows cheap. O'Malley wasn't interested, he wanted Brooklyn proper.

There is no natural border between Brooklyn and Queens, just designed districts. The Brooklyn Dodgers could have played there without a name change. The New York Giants (football) played for years in New Jersey, and they were separated by a river.

Meanwhile a very smart Congress woman in Califorina (whom I believe took VP Nixon's seat) made O'Malley a deal he couldn't refuse. Part ownership in the new "Dodgers" stadium she was offering, and with LA being in the desert O'Malley abandoned his dome stadium plan.

O'Malley as owner of the Dodgers would now be paying part of the rent to himself.

They say O'Malley's original intent was to talk to California merely as a leverage move against Moses, but he ran into a very smart congress woman who saw an opportunity.

The Giants were tired of the very old Polo Grounds as well but knew nothing was going to happen until the Dodgers got a new stadium first, so they jumped on the California band wagon and made a deal with San Francisco.

(Which BTW, having two teams move west made MLB happy about scheduling. They were still using trains.)

Moses got all the blame. He is part of the blame no doubt, but O'Malley gets some too.

P.S. Old Brooklyn Joke:

Q. You got two bullets in a gun, with Hitler, Stalin, and O'Malley standing in front of you. Who do you shoot.

A. O'Malley twice, too make sure.

P.S.S. The1964 New York Expo was an economic bust. Moses fell from grace and his power subsided.

There was an inevitability about the move to the West Cost regardless of how the dynamics played out. As baseball got bigger, and players got better, there was an edge on the West Coast... One could play all year. I played in a travelling team (gil hodges league) and as good as teams could get you were never going to compete with players who had a whole year to develop their skill sets.

This meant that one way, or another, the West coast was going to get teams. As a business proposition, do you just build stadiums and start new teams? Or do you take branded teams that are chronic underperformers, knowing that you will be proximate to the best farm system environment, and move these underperforming teams out to the area? You know that you will have winning teams and plenty of fans who know the history of the teams. California could not get enough... Even back then.

As far as New York? You do exactly what happened historically: You create a new "underperforming group" lol. I am being daft, but the Mets filled the role of the more colorful Dodgers. The Giants were not really as international as the Dodgers... They were a Nativist team for the Bronx... a borough in NYC, while for much of the Dodger's existence, Brooklyn was the "4th largest city" and/or the most populated borough in the city (I think Brooklyn had more people than Manhattan, not sure). Now some might say: "Didn't the Bronx have the Yankees?" My own opinion... The Yankees were known as an American league team, which had a different character than the National league (at the time) the yankees were considered the New York Team representing "the Heights" Pep you know that expression lol. And finally... If you Really pressed people about theb yankees, they were associated with The Grand Concourse, a very specific area of the Bronx, known at the time to be a high falutin neighborhood... a place very different from the general Bronx borough.

That is a great crack about O'Malley lol.

[billeau2]

Love the way Galento as an old man was still a cranky prick!
A few years later the diabetes would overtake him and he had a leg amputated.
Two Ton Tony died July 22, 1979 in his hometown of Orange, NJ.

How would would such a short, squat slugger do in today’s game? Most would think pretty poorly, but not me. Whatever David Tua could do, Galento could do just as well.
Remember that I don't debate; I just know better.

Toney was legit... He looked like a washroom attendant and had his own approach to the sport. A brawler, Toney threw the left, as he said, "because the right put him off balance." The big problem for Galento, and the reason imo he would not do so well, was because he was so damn hittable. He would have to be more defensively responsible to compete with other big hitters. But he could hit!

[Willow The Wisp]

Toney was legit... He looked like a washroom attendant and had his own approach to the sport. A brawler, Toney threw the left, as he said, "because the right put him off balance." The big problem for Galento, and the reason imo he would not do so well, was because he was so damn hittable. He would have to be more defensively responsible to compete with other big hitters. But he could hit!

Here's a couple of Heavyweights recalling a great Galento story:

https://youtu.be/wFK3qM_4Sd4