TFTP On This Day: NBA Finals, Game 6, Celtics vs. Lakers from CBS (Jun. 14, 1987)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Christopher Banez Lim'
Length - 1:44:00

It Was 31 Years Ago Today: The basketball rivalry between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics is legendary, and no period of that rivalry is more storied than the string of mid-1980s NBA Finals match-ups between the two teams. This 1987 Finals was the third time in four years that they'd met to battle for the NBA championship; with Boston winning in 1984 and LA in 1985, this was the rubber match for the Larry Bird-led Celtics and the Kareem-and-Magic-led Lakers. In this final game of the series, originally aired on this day 31 years ago on June 14, 1987, LA took home the trophy.

Above is the game in its entirety (minus commercial breaks). The Celtics took control early, with a five-point lead of 56-51 at halftime. But the Lakers caught up in the first moments of the second half and never relinquished the lead for the rest of the game. By the end of the game, LA was dominating, and the final score was 106-93. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar led the scoring for the Lakers with 32 points, but Magic Johnson ended up getting the series MVP award. Magic and Larry Bird had been personal rivals ever since they faced each other in the NCAA championship in their final year of college in 1979 (Johnson for Michigan State, Bird for Indiana State). Just like in that NCAA championship eight years before, Magic again defeated Bird.

TFTP On This Day: 1987 World Series, Game 7, Twins vs. Cardinals from ABC (Oct. 25, 1987)

Posted to YouTube by user 'MLBClassics'
Length - 2:43:24

It Was 30 Years Ago Today: Going into the 1987 season, the Minnesota Twins had never won a World Series. They'd gotten close in the mid-1960s, making it to the Series just a few years after moving to the Twin Cities from Washington, D.C., only to get defeated by the Sandy Koufax-era LA Dodgers. By this day in 1987, thirty years ago today, they were on the cusp of their first ever World Series title, having battled the St. Louis Cardinals to a deciding game 7.

Luckily for the Twins, the final game was scheduled for their home field, the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. The Metrodome (only five years old in 1987) was still a relative novelty as a domed multi-purpose stadium and had gained a reputation as offering the ultimate home-field advantage. Because of the acoustics of the fabric-roofed, air-pressure inflated dome, the crowd noise was deafening, and as a result the stadium had gained the nickname "the Thunderdome". In addition, during the '87 postseason, Twins fans had become known for waving their white "Homer Hankies", creating a fluttering white sea in the Metrodome stands.

The Twins fielded a team that included Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbek, and pitching ace Frank Viola, while the Cards countered with Willie McGee, Vince Coleman, and the legendary Ozzie Smith. St. Louis took an early 2-0 lead before the Twins tied it up by the 5th inning. Minnesota took a one-run lead in the 6th, expanding to a two-run lead in the 8th, before finishing as World Series champions for the first time.

The full game broadcast, embedded above, is from ABC with Al Michaels and former ballplayer Tim McCarver doing play-by-play duties. Looking at on-screen graphics from televised sporting events is always fascinating, especially in an era such as the 1980s (or earlier) when the score was not always displayed on screen. There are other interesting touches here, such as the "Inside Pitch" segments in which a current or former player offers some insights into various aspects of the proceedings (including one by current Twins manager Paul Molitor, then a player for the Milwaukee Brewers).

TFTP Sports: MLB Game of the Week, Phillies vs. Cardinals from NBC (Apr. 15, 1978)

Posted to YouTube by user 'ClassicMLB11'

Now that Memorial Day has passed, and summer is truly upon us, TFTP says: Play Ball! This game between the St. Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies from early in the 1978 season of Major League Baseball is a great example of late-1970s baseball in the astroturf and double-knit era. The game takes place at St. Louis's Busch Memorial Stadium, which was one of the typical all-purpose, multi-use stadiums of the time. The Phillies' reddish-purple "P" logo seen here was an iconic part of period baseball uniforms (as was the powder-blue coloration it was paired with); the Cards' uniforms here, on the other hand, look pretty much the same as they do now (and as they always have).

This game is also a great example of how sports broadcasts from earlier periods can seem peculiar to us now, as they lack the polish and graphical sophistication that we have come to expect. For instance, something like not having the score (and in the case of baseball, the strike/ball count) constantly onscreen--which are onscreen continuously and universally, for the most part, on sports broadcasts now--seems odd and disorienting when we are so used to being able to refer to it at any time while watching.

A great deal about this broadcast from 1978 seems familiar, though: the play-by-play and commentary from Joe Garagiola and Tony Kubek, the camera angles from which the action is shown, the use of slow-motion instant replay--all of these are used in this now nearly-forty-year-old sportscast in almost exactly the same way they would be today.

As far as the game itself, we're not going to spoil it by naming the winner of this ten-inning contest. But the Phillies were at a high point in the late-1970s, in the middle of their Mike Schmidt heyday, with Tug McGraw pitching here and Larry Bowa contributing. A final fun fact: ten days after this game, on Apr. 25, 1978, was the debut of the Phillies' legendary mascot the Phillie Phanatic.

TFTP Sports: NBC SportsWorld (1979)

"SportsWorld" was NBC's answer to ABC's "Wide World of Sports"--a diverse array of sporting events presented under the umbrella of a single series. This clip is the opening tease for a 1979 episode of "SportsWorld" that included horseracing (the Marlboro Cup), swimming (the FINA World Cup), and track (a 1500 meter race held at the Brussels World Fair).

The "SportsWorld" series ran for 14 years on NBC between 1978 and 1992, featuring, like "Wide World of Sports before (and after) it, lower-profile and sometimes offbeat sports that would never have warranted independent TV coverage. Bowling and auto racing (both of which have, at different times, had independent TV coverage on various networks) were mainstays of "SportsWorld" for many years. The "SportsWorld" name lives on for NBC in a recently-launched section of the NBC Sports website dedicated to long-form sports-related reporting.