The End of the World Series Program As We Knew It

OCTOBER 1974: Gerald Ford was two months into his abbreviated presidency. The Muhammad Ali-George Foreman boxing match in Kinshasa, Zaire -- known as the Rumble in the Jungle -- was set for Oct. 30. 

Earthquake, in Sensurround!, starring Charleton Heston, Ava Gardner, Geneviève Bujold and Lorne Greene would strike America's movie theaters in November.

But something else was afoot, something far more subtle and pernicious, but to those of us of a particular bent: horrifically depressing.

Meh, before meh was even a thing.

Fifty years ago this month, Major League Baseball ended the era of team-produced World Series programs, subbing out the often charming, definitely distinct and occasionally iconic locally-designed and produced magazines for more uniform, corporate and nationally available... blah.

Yes, this is entirely about judging these books by their covers. But you only get one chance to make a good first impression. 

MLB's first cover art was a globe stand where the Earth is replaced by a baseball.

Inspired. Clever. Ooh. In other words, not good.

Who's playing in this series? Doesn't matter. And it wouldn't matter again for about 20 years and even then, well... feh.

Less than a decade earlier and from the same spherical starting point, the Los Angeles Dodgers had produced this bit of Project Gemini-inspired whimsy:

Truly out of this world.

Now artistry was banished in favor of mass produced, mass market product. At least they were up front about it, more or less.

"'1974 World Series marks an all-time first,'" the publication self-referentially declared on its page 3. "Previously the two teams involved in a World Series each published a separate program. '1974 World Series' represents the first joint World Series program. It is designed to tell the story of this year's major league baseball season and features both the East and West Division champions of the two leagues."

Yay.

It's tempting to say at least some of this was in response to frugal Charles O. Finley, then-owner of the then-two time defending champion then-Oakland A's.

The famously skin-flinty Finley just they year before had substantially just repurposed the team's joint scorecard and yearbook as its World Series program,  slapping American League Champions on the top left, New York Mets beneath "Oakland A's" at the top right, and re-labeling the bottom right "1973 World Series Souvenir Scorecard & Program."

The post-season publication was otherwise almost indistinguishable from its regular season predecessor.

 The regular season program

The not-so-different World Series edition

To be fair, the only somewhat less frugal Mets had repackaged one of their regular season game programs as their National League Championship Series program.

But when it came to the World Series, they issued a new magazine with split screen cover, the left side featuring a pensive skipper Yogi Berra, the right a photo of predecessor Gil Hodges and the team riding down Manhattan's Broadway amid a ticker tape parade celebrating their 1969 championship. Now that program was special.

Retro-perspective

And retrospective

More likely, the shift from local pubs to national had to do with the money to be had from national advertisers, and from sales to a national audience to which the new mags could be pitched. 

It wasn't a change for the better. Not for the public and, to be honest, not for those of us who collect, as part of the fun of that hobby is collecting things that are scarce. 

Those home-spun programs spoke of the teams that created them, their personas and places they played. More importantly, they spoke to their fans. 

The new generation shifted the game program vibe from Main Street shop owner to chain store shopping mall: deliberately faceless, representative of any town and any team, one size fits all, or -- in reality -- one size fits none.

Just how generic?

In the early '80s, baseball pulled its own Finley maneuver, taking the artwork created for the 1980 World Series program, a contest between the Philadelphia Phillies and Kansas City Royals, and re-using it three years later for the three-way AAA World Series involving the Tidewater Tides, Portland Beavers and Denver Bears.

From the grand stage...

... to AAA

Yes, the 1980 program artwork got demoted, and they didn't have to change anything about the image to do it.

They never really got better. In fact, as the years wore on, they got worse, more generic and more forgettable even as the digital publishing revolution allowed for tighter deadlines, more content, more recent content, contestant-specific covers and inevitably, higher prices.

Along the way Major League Baseball gained dominion over all the other post-season playoff programs, plus that of its mid-Summer classic, the All Star Game.

Product. Product. Product.

Montreal? Texas? Who knows?

Recognizably Pujols and Big Papi

Nowadays, we're kind of back to where we started: with team-specific looks, but they're soul-less mass produced representations of what once was, some with cover advertisements, and sometimes ironically shadowed by special stadium-only versions attempting to restore some of that old-time collectible exclusivity.

The 2016 Series program,
Wrigley Field edition

The 2019 series program, 
brought to you by YouTubeTV

Handsome zombies. You can buy the one for this year's showdown between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers online, or just look at it for free. 

-- Follow me @paperboyarchive on the social network formerly known as Twitter

Canadiens-Islanders Stanley Cup Final 42 Years Overdue

IT WAS EXPECTED TO BE the best vs. the best, the reigning dynasty vs. the rising power.

But something happened on the way to the 1979 Stanley Cup finals, and the series that performance and passion demanded, pitting the defending champion Montreal Canadiens against the National Hockey League's top regular season team, the New York Islanders, was not to be.

Montreal captain Yvan Cournoyer
hoists the Stanley Cup in 1978. 

The Isles. The Habs. Two storied franchises. Together they combined to win eight consecutive cups, monopolizing hockey's big silver chalice from 1976 through 1983 without ever having to defeat one another in a head-to-head fight for its possession.

Now, 42 years later, and midway through the NHL's semifinals, there remains the possibility to reschedule this date with destiny. 

It's an opportunity that exists only by dint of a provisional divisional realignment prompted by a once-in-a-century pandemic, and the resultant closure of the U.S. Canada border that forced the league to abandon its Eastern and Western conference structure, opening the door to an all-Eastern final.

The Islanders-Tampa Bay Lightning series is tied at two wins apiece, Montreal leads the Vegas Golden Knights, two games to one.

C'est maintenant! This chance may never come again. 

Way back then, the NHL playoffs were a little different. The four division winners got a first-round bye. Those that finished second played a best-of-three preliminary series against one of four wild card teams: those with the highest point totals, that didn't finish in first or second, regardless of their division or conference of origin. Survivors got reseeded for the ensuing rounds. 

The 78-79 Canadiens held up their end, winning the NHL's Norris Division and earning a bye while mayhem played out among the league's hoi polloi. 

The Flower, from the Habs'
1978-79 yearbook

Stacked with Hockey Hall of Fame talent including head coach Scotty Bowman, the Habs rolled up 115 points during the regular season, accruing a 52-17-11 record, second only to that of the Islanders' 116 (51-15-14).

Leading their attack was Guy Lafleur, whose 129 points (52 goals, 77 assists), put him third in the league for scoring. Surrounding Lafleur were sniper Steve Shutt (37G, 40A), Pierre Mondou (31G/41A), Mario Tremblay and Yvon Lambert. Still on the team, though ailing, was their veteran captain, Yvan Cournoyer.

Flashy as the Flying Frenchmen were, defense was their backbone.

Forward Bob Gainey was in the midst of a four-year run as recipient of the Selke Award bestowed annually on the league's top defensive forward. Behind him were a slew of Hall-bound defensemen: Serge Savard, Larry Robinson, Guy Lapointe and Rod Langway. And behind them, superlative goaltender Ken Dryden and backup Michel "Bunny" Laroque.

Loaded though they were, Montreal only narrowly escaped dethronement by the Boston Bruins, who led game 7 of their semi-final series 4-3, with just 2:34 left in regulation when they got caught with too many men on the ice.

Lafleur scored on the power play, sending the game into overtime where Lambert slid a goal line pass under Boston net minder Gilles Gilbert for the series winner.

The regular season champion Islanders too were stocked with hall-bound superstars starting with center Bryan Trottier and his wingmen, Mike Bossy and Clark Gillies, aka the Trio Grande. Trotts' 134 points (47G, 87A) led the league, capturing the Art Ross trophy as scoring leader and the Hart trophy as MVP. Bossy tallied 69 goals and 126 points, while Gillies added 35 goals and 56 assists.

Sandwiched amid those top scoring forwards was rock solid defenseman Denis Potvin, en route to winning his second straight Norris Trophy as the league's top blueliner, while posting 31 goals and 70 assists. Their head coach was the Hall-bound Al Arbour.

Everything but the Cup.
(From the 1978-79 Islanders yearbook)

Steadily accruing talent since their 1972 incarnation, the Isles lost three straight semifinals before being bounced in the quarters by the '77-78 Toronto Maple Leafs. With a solid supporting cast including goalies Glenn Resch and Billy Smith and that gaudy regular season performance, they seemed primed to take the next step.

They stepped, and fell, over the rival New York Rangers, a wild card team who'd dispatched the Los Angeles Kings and then the Philadelphia Flyers en route to their semifinal clash with their suburban brethren. 

Four of the series' six games were decided by a single goal, twice in overtime -- both Islanders' victories -- but it didn't matter. After knotting affairs at two games a piece, the Isles dropped game five at the Nassau Coliseum and game six at Madison Square Garden. 

Just like that, the NHL's top regular season team was done, or undone, and in any event, finished. Snuffed out. There would be no faceoff with the Habs, who beat the Rangers four games to one, capturing the cup for the fourth straight year.

Had things played out differently, Montreal might have surrendered the cup to the Islanders much in the same way the Isles would lose it to the upstart Edmonton Oilers in 1984, launching that next dynasty. 

Though the Habs and Isles met in subsequent series, most recently the 1993 semis won by Montreal, the potential for a main-à-main struggle for the silver was formatted out of existence, until now.

While there's no replacing that missing bookend to the Canadiens-Islanders-Oilers succession, there is -- as of this writing -- at least the potential for serving up a variation on that NHL finale fans were denied so many years ago.

Now may never come again.

-- On twitter @paperboyarchive

"Do They Know It's Christmas?" Wonder and Woe

"I DON'T LIKE MONDAYS" was one fucked up piece of pop music. A bouncy 1979 ditty inspired by the true story of a teen-aged girl who opened fire on a San Diego school yard, killing two people and wounding nine just 'cause, its off-kilter sentiments have not aged well.

But a shot at redemption for its co-author, Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats, came just five years later in the form of perhaps the most impactful holiday song since Irving Berlin wrote White Christmas in 1942.

The sleeve for the Columbia Records single

As with Geldof's prior hit, Do They Know It's Christmas was inspired by a tragic situation with deadly consequences: famine in war-torn Ethiopia. Geldof's response to that disaster was epic, misguided, wonderful and misunderstood.

Recorded by some of the biggest stars of the era in U.K. and Irish pop under the moniker Band Aid and carried to the world by MTV at the peak of its influence, Do They Know It's Christmas reverberates to this day.

In their three-minute and fifty-second tune, Geldof and co-author Midge Ure of Ultravox shamed the Euro-American world for living in relative safety, security and plenty while those on the horn of Africa were starving to death, then urged people to open their hearts and their wallets to help.

Among those belting out their trenchant message were Sting, Bono, Phil Collins, Culture Club's Boy George, George Michael, Bananarama, Paul Young, Jody Watley, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet. In artfully pieced together solos, duets, trios and quartets they sang:

... But say a prayer, pray for the other ones... At Christmastime it's hard, but when you're having fun... There's a world outside your window, and it's a world of dread and fear... Where the only water flowing, is the bitter sting of tears... And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom... Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you!

Then, pivoting to the thesis question:

And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmastime... The greatest gift they'll get this year is life... Where nothing ever grows... No rain nor rivers flow... Do they know it's Christmas time at all?

The obvious answer was yes, yes they knew it was Christmastime. Christianity had come to Ethiopia 1,600 years earlier, making it one of the oldest Christian nations on earth. Africa as a whole, was and is heavily -- even if not predominantly -- Christian. That didn't stop critics from calling the sentiment Eurocentric and condescending.

A side/B side

Whether it felt like Christmas time was the issue. Yuletide greetings and neatly wrapped gifts all seem rather beside the point when there's nothing to eat at all, which lead to the point carried home by the ensemble chorus:

Feed the world! Let them know it's Christmas time again... Feed the world! Let them know it's Christmas time again... Feed the World! Let them know it's Christmas time again...

But that's where the real problems began. 

Do They Know It's Christmas was released on Dec. 3, 1984. Almost immediately it zoomed to the top of the U.K. charts where it perched on Christmas Day and selling more than three million copies there before the year was out. It sold another 2.5 million in the U.S. and 12 million worldwide. It also made money, perhaps as much as $28 million, intended for Ethiopian famine relief.

We Are the World, an American counterpart single was recorded in 1985 by Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Lionel Richie and other big stars who wrapped it in an LP's worth of material under the banner USA for Africa. Then came the trans-Atlantic benefit concert, Live Aid. Surely all of that frenetic activity could contribute something positive.

Foreign aid at 45 rpm

And that's been a subject of some dispute.

While all this was going on, Ethiopia was ruled by a Soviet-backed dictator, Mengistu Haile Mariam.  The famine, which killed an estimated 1.2 million people, happened on his watch and -- according to Human Rights Watch -- as a result of his policies, while the government he led fended off an insurgency.

Much of the money raised through all these efforts went not for food, but for weapons, according to a 1986 Spin Magazine expose. Over the ensuing four decades, Geldof has vehemently disputed this was the case.

While the cloud over his efforts and those of Ure and the performing artists has never truly dissipated, the song has endured, being remade in 1989, 2004 and yet again in 2014, the last time in service of raising money to combat an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus.

Still, there was no time like that first time, 35 years ago this month.

-- Follow me on Twitter @paperboyarchive

When Skylab Made Us All a Little Chicken Little

SKYLAB WAS MANKIND'S first semi-permanent off-world home. Shot into Earth orbit in May of 1973, the combination laboratory and apartment housed nine men during its cumulative 171 days of occupancy.

Its last three-man crew vacated the premises in February 1974, after a record 84-day stay, leaving behind an assortment of supplies including film, food, and a roll of teleprinter paper for future visitors. Then, using their own spacecraft, the astronauts nudged the space station into a higher orbit and returned to their planet.

Damaged upon launch, Skylab began life as a fixer-upper.
NASA photo taken by the lab's last departing crew.

For five and a half more years, Skylab circled the globe patiently awaiting new residents or the boost of a passing space shuttle, but neither one came.

Without assistance, the nearly 100-ton satellite gradually lost its war with gravity and drag and began falling back to Earth, reentering the atmosphere 40 years ago today, July 11, 1979.

Though its return was long forecast, the imminent arrival of a large falling house, superheated by atmospheric friction, set off a planetary frenzy.

While NASA -- America's National Aeronautics and Space Administration -- had put the laboratory in orbit, it had utterly and completely failed to make adequate plans for either keeping it there or gently landing it in some pre-ordained safe place.

Project Apollo, which provided launch vehicles for the lab and its three separate crews, had long since ended. The shuttle program was years behind schedule.  Only a year earlier, a Soviet-launched nuclear satellite crashed in Canada, spreading radioactive debris.

Now, NASA could identify a swath of Earth over which its wayward space station may come down, but it could not say precisely where. In Europe, some people panicked. In America, some held parties.

Poster board headgear promised
.00193 nanoseconds of warning you've been hit

The San Francisco Examiner newspaper offered a $10,000 bounty for the first piece of genuine wreckage brought to its offices. The rival San Francisco Chronicle promised $200,000 to any subscriber whose home sustained damage. Some enterprising folks cashed in by offering early-warning headgear.

NASA downplayed the risk, predicting the odds of any individual being struck by its falling object were about 600 billion to 1. Some of the implements aboard the disintegrating station: a 5,000-pound airlock, a 4,000 pound lead safe and a half-dozen 2,700 pound oxygen tanks.

Still, the space agency -- in a last ditch effort to influence the outcome -- fired the station's remaining booster rockets upon reentry, aiming it toward the Indian Ocean. They missed.

Skylab broke up in the sky, raining parts over rural Western Australia, earning NASA a $400 fine from the Shire of Esperance for littering. There, resident Stan Thornton collected some some of its fragments and flew to San Francisco to collect his prize.

-- Follow me on Twitter @paperboyarchive

"Hey... Dad, Wanna Have a Catch... With Your Limited-Edition Non-Baseball Souvenir Baseball?"

HEY, DAD... WANNA HAVE A CATCH?

Imagine a boy -- any boy -- flexing a new baseball glove while offering his father a well-worn mitt, the kind embossed with the autograph of some big league player long since retired and enshrined.

In that picture-perfect moment, the boy makes the Field of Dreams request that made grown men cry. If the scene follows the script, dad replies, "I'd like that," and off they go to some sun-splashed field.

There the boy uncorks his first throw, but, the flight of the ball is odd, its rotation exaggerated, discernible not just in spinning seams but in splotches of color all over. Dad snags the toss, examines what he's caught and stops.

Mazel-tov, Jake! Mazel-tov!

There's silence, a dawning recognition and then a question.

"How did you get this ball?" Dad asks.

More silence.

"This is not a ball we use," he adds. "We don't play with this ball."

Son screws up his courage to respond, "but it's a baseball."

"It's not a baseball baseball," dad replies, sending son back inside to find a suitable replacement. Son grumbles about the general unfairness of life and wonders, "Why would anyone want a baseball that's not meant to be batted, thrown or caught?"

Why indeed? But people do, and so baseballs have joined key rings, t-shirts, caps and coffee cups as one of those ubiquitous souvenirs that often have little or nothing to do with where they came from. They've left the field of play and graduated to that semi-useless realm of things we just buy to look at, to have and to hold, forever and ever. At least I do. And if you're still reading this, so do you.

Time was that a "souvenir baseball" was one you caught at a ballpark, perhaps at the cost of bruised or broken finger. Or maybe you took the easy way out, ponied up a couple of bucks at the souvenir stand for an "official" one with the league president's signature on it, then waited for some ballplayer to autograph it.

And now they're everywhere. All purpose and no purpose, except for display. Ballgame not included.

For a famous former prison

Below the sidewalks of NY

For politicians

For presidents

For Chicago residents

For theme parks...

... and their rivals

And for new ballparks too

Which brings us back to baseball... and baseballs that celebrate baseball, even as they're not meant to be used for playing baseball.

The NY-Penn League's Cyclones

 

The Atlantic League's Ducks

Frontier League's Thunderbolts

and Washington's Nats...

The Astros of Houston

... and White Sox of Chicago

And finally one for outfielder Jay Davis of the 1993 Binghamton Mets. Thanks for the autograph, Jay.

-- Follow me on Twitter @paperboyarchive