Major League Baseball on ABC
[9] In 1959, ABC broadcast the best-of-three playoff series[10][11][12] (to decide the National League pennant) between the Milwaukee Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers.
[21] That same year, ESPN and Major League Baseball agreed to a contract extension that included the exclusive rights to a new Wild Card Series.
After ABC's contract for the Game of the Week expired after a single season, NBC felt compelled to dramatically alter their own baseball coverage.
So for NBC's coverage of the 1965 World Series, it featured videotaped replays, prerecorded audio analysis from key players, and enhanced animated graphics.
William Leggett of Sports Illustrated would in particular, note[36] that ABC seemed to try to hoodwink viewers with commentary that may sound insightful, but was often dead wrong, and with fancy camera work that was frequently used at inappropriate times during the action.
According to James Walker, professor in the department of communication at Saint Xavier University and co-author of the book Center Field Shot: A History of Baseball on Television, ABC brought the techniques it had perfected in its football coverage, including far more extensive use of replays, isolated cameras, and different angles.
ABC, under the watch of director Joe Aceti, brought some innovations[40] in time for their coverage of the 1980 National League Championship Series between the Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies, such as putting the camera in the gondola in the Astrodome looking straight down on the field.
ABC was also criticized for frequently showing all those players' wives cheering instead of giving viewers a wide- angle view of how the outfielders are playing the hitters.
David Remnick of the Washington Post felt[42] that Howard Cosell[43][44] while broadcasting the 1983 World Series alongside Al Michaels and Earl Weaver,[45][46] developed a few "human interest" tags and rammed them home in his inimitable ecclesiastical rhythms instead of actually sharing his knowledge with viewers.
To put things into perspective, Remnick noted that Cosell had more to say about the way the Baltimore groundskeepers combated the outfield's "slippage factor" with a miraculous "drying agent" than about Mike Boddicker's pitching.
Remnick in particular, criticized ABC for featuring interviews interspersed with the game action, which would sometimes cause them to miss a double off the wall while a prerecorded player is gabbing up in the corner of the screen.
Game 6 of the 1985 World Series[47] would become rooted in controversy when the bottom of the ninth, Jorge Orta, the leadoff batter for the Kansas City Royals, hit a slow roller to St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Jack Clark, who tossed the ball to the pitcher, Todd Worrell, who was covering first base.
[49] The first replay that ABC showed[50] was a faraway shot from high along the third base side that froze upon Worrell's catch, with Orta's foot still seemingly in the air.
NBC Sports executive producer Michael Weisman said[51] that while he thought that ABC's coverage of the 1986 League Championship Series was overall fine, he didn't think that they held on with the stories long enough.
For instance, Weisman thought that ABC should have kept a camera on California Angels third-base coach Moose Stubing longer in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series.
Weisman also felt that ABC should have stayed with New York Mets first baseman Keith Hernandez longer after he was called out on strikes in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series against the Houston Astros and argued vehemently with umpire Doug Harvey.
In June 1987, ABC director Craig Janoff said that[52] they didn't do quite the same thing as NBC since they would go two months without doing a game that season, and then they would do the World Series[53] in October.
When assessing ABC's coverage of the 1988 NLCS between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets, the Chicago Tribune's Steve Nidetz praised their camera work.
In contrast, ABC's production of the 1988 ALCS between the Oakland Athletics and Boston Red Sox under director Steve Danz, cameramen kept missing plays and according to Jim Sarni of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel,[57] seemed to be preoccupied showing the Harvard rowing crew on the Charles.
When the Loma Prieta earthquake struck at approximately 5:04 PDT, Tim McCarver was narrating taped highlights of Game 2, which had been played two days prior across the Bay Bridge in Oakland.
[61] ABC then switched to episodes of Roseanne and The Wonder Years, which was on standby for a rain delay situation, while attempting to restore electricity to its remote equipment.
Trecker did, however, point out that times, the broadcasters seemed to be ahead of the production people, especially when they wanted to talk about Raul Mondesi's speed getting to a drive into the right field corner.
Visser in particular, was singled out for asked such lengthy questions of Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Hideo Nomo that it was almost farcical when his answers came back in translation.
On December 12, 2014, WLS-TV signed a new five-year broadcast agreement with the Chicago Cubs, in which WLS would televise 25 of the Major League Baseball team's games per year, starting with the 2015 season.
