ESPN Classic never shows baseball games [Archive]

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Blackout

12-19-2005, 04:15 PM

Mattingly

12-19-2005, 04:25 PM

You were expecting 3-4 hour baseball games? They host the events in Cooperstown, and they've done tons of profiles of MLB players, including HoF players.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/classic/index

Here's their schedule: http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tvlistings/schedule?network=18

I'm also moving this to the TV forum, since that seems more appropriate.

POLO GROUNDS 1957

12-19-2005, 05:08 PM

anyone else notice this? they show countless old boxing matchups, NFL Films, NBA's Greatest Games, even an occasional golf tournament

but they never show old baseball games, nor do they ever do Sports Century biographies on baseball players
espn classic is not as good anymore. you are right they dont show any old baseball games anymore and they dont show any old hockey games either.i dont watch it as much anymore.:radio

chiefpaddy

12-19-2005, 05:29 PM

I wish they would show the old Home Run derby shows, they were great. And it's always fun to see old Wrigley Field in LA.

Brian McKenna

12-19-2005, 05:34 PM

just went through their january listings and not one baseball game - they only repeated the same 15-20 anyway - i emailed them asking about showing some old web gem of the year shows a while back - they never answered

Mattingly

12-19-2005, 11:17 PM

I'd forgotten to mention, if you have Tivo, if trying to auto-schedule profiles on baseball stars, you'd use:

Title: SportsCentury
Category: Sports
Subcategory: Baseball

I'm not sure how other DVRs work, but you'll have to figure those out separately.

It's worth noting that there's only about 1 more week left in the regular NFL season, so they're focusing now more on past NFL greats, as we enter the pro football playoffs.

.406

12-19-2005, 11:44 PM

definantly. I can think of a bunch that they could show and have people sit for the whole 3 hours.

Roger Clemens 1st 20K Game
1988 WS Game 1 (Kirk Gibson Walk Off!)
2004 ALCS Game 5 (Papi w/ the Walk-Off)
1986 WS Game 6 (As Much as I Hate It) (Screw Buckner)
Pete Rose 4,192
1975 WS Game #6 (Carlton Fisk!)
7/24/2004 Yankees @ Red Sox (The A-Rod/Tek Brawl)
2001 WS Game 7

Brian McKenna

12-20-2005, 07:08 AM

espn classic does do things seasonally but they used to have baseball all year anyway (here and there) - i've actually been reading their schedule every month for at least 3-4 years and noticed a big drop off probably 2-3 months ago - in fact i didn't even look at december's schedule because they hadn't been doing baseball in a while so i figured they would show anything in december that i would want to tape

it's the pre-1980 games that draw my interest - unfortunately their library is mighty slim

Cubsfan97

12-20-2005, 02:57 PM

Didn't they play Baseball Weekly or something at like 7 in the morning (Central Time Zone)? I remember watching it before school, now I leave at 6:40 for High School. I could think of a bunch of cool stuff they could show. They never have any documentaries on baseball either. I go to On Demand under HBO for documentaries. They don't always have baseball though. They should also find really old games from like the 30's or 40's and play them even if nothing exciting happened. I bet people would watch that.

64Cards

12-21-2005, 04:35 PM

Agreed, they've pretty much ruined it. Unfortunately, there are hardly any MLB games available on tape before the late 60's, but plenty from the 70's and you're right, they hardly ever showed those or college football from that era. Also used to show old MLB highlight films from 50's & 60's,plus they would also show old Roller Derby and pro wrasslin' matches, which were funny to watch. Now they have all this crap like "Classic Now" and 5 Reasons You Can't Blame So & So and those 2 dorks on at 9pm, who are funny for about 5 minutes. I do like the "Arliss" reruns though. But I rarely watch the channel anymore.

Redondos

01-02-2006, 05:01 PM

Baseball Guru

01-03-2006, 06:18 AM

Who cares about baseball when you can watch the 1997 Spelling Bee not once but twice tomorrow?:clapping

lol

PopTop

01-03-2006, 06:17 PM

Who cares about baseball when you can watch the 1997 Spelling Bee not once but twice tomorrow?:clapping Word. :cool:

scribe114

01-03-2006, 07:00 PM

It's pretty much a seasonal thing with ESPN Classic as far as I can see.

The Bowling binges and "Cheap Seats" marathons are getting a bit old, andd they really haven't broke any new ground with Sportscentury. They are doing a lot on current athletes and that to me takes the "classic" out of the channel. There are a lot of athletes they could still do.

Baseball

Jimmie Foxx (Definitely)
Lefty Grove
Whitey Ford
Phil Rizzuto
Al Kaline (Definitely)
Combo: Willie, Mickey and the Duke
Lou Boudreau
Robin Roberts
Richie Ashburn

(Voices of the game week)
Red Barber
Jack Buck
Ernie Harwell
Harry Caray
Mel Allen

Dick Allen
Ernie Banks
Mike Schmidt (maybe they did this one already?)
Ken Caminiti
Tony Gwynn
Don Drysdale
Milt Pappas (If you read his book you would agree)
Lou Brock
Ron Santo
Joe McCarthy
Alex Rodriguez

Football (Most I wanted to see have been done)

Otto Graham
Y.A. Tittle
Sammy Baugh
Bobby Layne

Hockey

Goalies week

Terry Sawchuk
Glenn Hall
Tony Esposito
Ken Dryden
Grant Fuhr

Defenseman week

Red Kelly
Doug Harvey
Larry Robinson
Pierre Pilote
Denis Potvin

Dave "The Hammer" Schultz
Mark Messier
Brad Park
Ted Lindsay
Jean Beliveau

Basketball

None that I can really think of they have done a very good job with Basketball IMO

Agree with the choices? let me know what you think, feel free to generate your own list.

Take Care....

DTF955

02-02-2006, 07:03 PM

Sounds like a good list. I remember liking it when watching a few times, but didn't have the money to up my cable for just that one channel; I watch hardly any TV anyway, and now noe at all.

I saw the 1980 World Series Game 6 just before I became a huge fan. This was back in the late 1990s, though, and I figured maybe it would get better as they found more relics from thepast.

It sounds like instead, they want to make you think anything that happened 5 minutes ago is already a classic :-(

When will these stations learn thaat you can't make money if everyone is like everyone else? The key to making a name for yourself is finding a niche that's unique. There are already a bunch of sports things focusing on current stuff. (I could say the same int he TSN thread.)

However, if there aren't that many games available...well, there should still be some

ANd hey, if they think black and white would be boring, if they made the colors accurate, I wouldn't even mind watching a colorized version of a game from the 1950s or earlier. It doesn't have to be perfect - it can be fsorta like the way color TV was in the early days, from what I've seen they just couldn't get the contrast right or something in some of those shows from the first year or two of color.)

TonyK

02-02-2006, 07:40 PM

Shouldn't PBS or the Learning Channel be carrying the National Spelling Bee?How is spelling a sport?

My son did very well in our countywide spelling bee contests and finished as the #1 boy. I was as tense during it as I was during his LL All Star games. The word salve tripped him up. It cost him a savings bond.

wamby

02-02-2006, 09:04 PM

Classic Sports Network was much better before it was taken over by ESPN. I think the beginning of the end of ESPN Classic's dealing with baseball in a competant matter was during the 2004 ALCS when they dropped all their scheduled programming to only show Red Sox and Yankees programming. Cinsidering the fact that they kept rerunning about four or five games this seemed to me to be a very bad decision and they don'r seem to have shown much baseball since then.

64Cards

02-05-2006, 12:06 PM

Now they even show "Classic Poker" and "Classic Bowling"...nothing against either activity, I can have fun doing either, along with knocking down a few cold ones while I'm at it. But can anyone show me much difference between a bowling match from 1992 or one that is live?

As for poker, when in the hell did that become a "sport?" Will they next be showing old ladies playing slot machines?:confused:

Rome Colonel

02-06-2006, 02:40 PM

[QUOTE=64 Will they next be showing old ladies playing slot machines?[/QUOTE]

I hope they aren't reading this thread. :)

Noticed recently that they were showing bowling from 1974 and it appeared that some people in the audience were smoking.

Occasionally they will have an interesting fight from the 50s but I agree that it's gone downhill.

Gashouse6

02-06-2006, 04:10 PM

I've seen an old Big Red Machine game on ESPN classic.

Redondos

02-08-2006, 02:47 PM

However, if there aren't that many games available...well, there should still be some

ANd hey, if they think black and white would be boring, if they made the colors accurate, I wouldn't even mind watching a colorized version of a game from the 1950s or earlier. It doesn't have to be perfect - it can be fsorta like the way color TV was in the early days, from what I've seen they just couldn't get the contrast right or something in some of those shows from the first year or two of color.)

It's one thing to try to colorize film. Quite another to colorize kinescopes. And when you consider that the TV cameras were taking shots in less than ideal lighting conditions in an outdoor setting, you will realize that any attempt to colorize old baseball telecasts would be futile and hopeless.

DTF955

02-19-2006, 06:02 PM

Good point, I'd forgotten they'd be taken with different technologies.

bluejaysfan

02-19-2006, 09:43 PM

We have ESPN Classic Canada and at first when it originally started broadcasting we'd get alot of baseball. They played the 1992 and 1993 World Series on the 10th anniversary of them happening and then stopped showing baseball all together. But, I've noticed they're showing baseball now, good on them. Alot of people have fond memories of the Jays glory days and even the Expos glory days.

Williamsburg2599

02-25-2006, 09:27 AM

I wish they would show the old Home Run derby shows, they were great. And it's always fun to see old Wrigley Field in LA.
right before the homerun derby they usually show all of them. im not sure its on classic or 2 though.

Williamsburg2599

02-25-2006, 09:29 AM

tmorss9

02-25-2006, 06:14 PM

Thats right, usually during the all-star break they do a marathon of the HR derby shows. They'll probably start showing a good bit of baseball programming in the last week of march, going into opening day.

But like someone mentioned before, I'm really tired of seeing last weeks USC football or Duke basketball game on there as an "instant classic"

bhss89

02-26-2006, 06:30 PM

They showed one today . . .

Erik Bedard

03-01-2006, 01:52 PM

Two of the first things I saw on ESPN Classic were a bio of Sandy Koufax and an old 1988 Cubs game... no baseball since.

CAV

03-07-2006, 07:43 AM

Even when ESPN Classic showed those baseball games, practically all of them were edited, anyway. I think the final straw for me was when they added that sports ticker. Haven't watched that crap since.

If you want pre-1980 baseball broadcasts that are complete, go to my site.

How did you get all of these on tape before the vhs vcr was a standard recording device in all of our homes? Did you work for NBC or a NBC affiliate?
What video format are these games on? (VHS, DVD, or something else)

Stray Cat

05-31-2008, 12:01 PM

RuthMayBond

05-31-2008, 12:16 PM

Even when ESPN Classic showed those baseball games, practically all of them were edited, anyway. I think the final straw for me was when they added that sports ticker. Haven't watched that crap since.

If you want pre-1980 baseball broadcasts that are complete, go to my site.Do you have a list of what you want? Not sure if I'd have anything but ya never know

steve rogers

05-31-2008, 10:04 PM

They are currently showing the Royals Phillies 1980 World Series game 6.
It's a real blast from the past. Disco music, Pete Rose, George Brett, afros, UL Washington
with a toothpick, astroturf......
:hyper:

Thanks for posting that. I watched the whole thing. That save by Pete Rose to save an error from Bob Boone is one of the best plays ever. Right there with Jeter's relay in the 2001 playoffs.

Scott

Stray Cat

06-01-2008, 07:38 AM

Thanks for posting that. I watched the whole thing. That save by Pete Rose to save an error from Bob Boone is one of the best plays ever. Right there with Jeter's relay in the 2001 playoffs.

Scott

How about the pumped up Tug McGraw. :hyper: