Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
December 13, 2008
Immediate Video Replay

I just received Instant Replay: The Day That Changed Sports Forever in the mail. The author, Tony Verna tells the story of how he conceived of and executed the first instant replay in a zinc-plated, vacuum-tubed culture. His tape machine weighed a ton, and there was no way of cuing tapes. He had to invent a way to make a machine do something it wasn't meant to do.

For fifty years, Verna directed major television events and he tells the story of his life in broadcasting. Having spent some time in production trucks, it's amazing how much broadcasting changed since his invention. It's a nice gift for someone interested in the history of broadcasting.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:41 PM | Books | TrackBack (0)
Comments

never realized instant replay started so long ago, what took baseball so long to put it in the world series etc. and for the nba to use it?

book sounds like fun read.

Posted by: mike stark at December 14, 2008 02:10 PM

Too bad it wasn't ready for the first World Series (1947) to be televised. We could have a more accurate show of Cookie Lavagetto's breaking up Bill Bevens' no-hitter with a game winning hit off Ebbets Field's famous concave RF wall or later to have an actual show of Al Gionfriddo's famous catch off Joe DiMaggio. What is sometimes shown as the catch is a re-creation before the 7th game with Gionfriddo circling back and sticking his glove out. It is so phoney that an ump was paid a few bucks to come up to Gionfriddo & signal the (3rd)out. I was sitting right in the bleacher corner next to the LF bullpen where Gionfriddo raced straight back & took the hard liner just over his right shoulder into his lefty glove a step before the fence.
That was the first Series with foul line umps, but no ump was anywhere near the actual catch. Ironically none of these 3 players ever appeared again in the bigs after that Series.

Posted by: Bob S at December 15, 2008 11:30 PM
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