WGN-TV special on Cubs strays on bases, but scores
It takes a critic to find fault with "Cubs Forever: Celebrating 60 Years of WGN-TV and the Chicago Cubs," but such is my calling in my life, so let me get a couple things off my chest right away before it debuts at 6 p.m. Sunday on WGN Channel 9.
First, even in celebrating Wrigley Field, there is no need to go into the Cubs' equipment manager or the scoreboard operator, delightful as it is to hear that Fred Washington likes to wait until a CTA train is going by before he raises the W flag above the bleachers following a victory.
Second, not to deprive anyone of another look at the so-called Ryne Sandberg Game, in which he hit not 1 but 2 game-tying homers off Bruce Sutter in the magical year of 1984, but that was an NBC "Game of the Week," not on Channel 9.
Sorry, but I'm a stickler for such things. More than that, however, my point is the history of the Cubs on Channel 9 is so rich, so storied, there's no need to bring in anything else. Stick to the obvious -- Don Cardwell's Cub-debut no-hitter, with Jack Brickhouse urging, "Come on, Moose!" as Moose Moryn makes a literal shoe-top catch for the final out, Ernie Banks' 500th homer ("Hey! Hey! He did it!"), Kerry Woods' 20-strikeout game -- then delve into fine points such as the genius of Arne Harris, and there is more than enough to fill out a two-hour documentary special.
Why, there's enough there to empty out and replace all of Ken Burns' New York-Boston-centric PBS "Baseball" miniseries. And oh, how any Chicago baseball fan wishes to do that.
That said, I'm not going to even try to dissuade anyone from tuning in and watching when it premieres Sunday night. Prepared with love and perhaps just a little too much all-encompassing scope by Bob Vorwald, this is a lovely special that figures to charm Cubs fans. TiVo it, tape it, preserve it in any way possible, because the highlights are pretty much all here, from the above-mentioned no-brainers to more esoteric fare such as Ron Santo's 1969 heel-clicking, Milt Pappas' imperfect no-hitter, the 23-22 slugfest with the Phillies ("I charted that game," Mike Krukow recalls, "and I had to go on the disabled list because I had carpal tunnel") and Andre Dawson's season-ending homer in 1987.
Yet my favorite segment of "Cubs Forever" finds Harris calling the shots in the truck for a typically joyous Cubs homer. By working 150 games a year, Harris became, in my opinion, the best TV baseball director of all time. He had an unerring feel for the rhythms of the game, and to sit in the truck while he dissected a triple as it happened was to be in the presence of greatness.
As I've written many times, Arne Harris taught generations of Cubs fans how to watch baseball: that it wasn't just the action on the field that mattered, but also the hat shots, the babes in the bleachers, the sailboats on the lake, the guys sitting outside the firehouse and the mother walking her baby just outside in a stroller. Harris was as responsible as anyone for creating the image of Wrigley as the Friendly Confines, and it sustained Cubs fans through years of losing.
The announcers get their due, but they always do as the faces and voices of the Cubs. A group of kids mimics Brickhouse ("Back, back, back -- Hey! Hey!"), and Harry Caray gives his own best appraisal.
"I'm a people guy," he says. "Not only do I go to bars because I like to drink -- and I do like to drink -- I go to bars because who do you see there? Baseball fans!"
This one too is for the fans. I just wish it had a little more inside baseball where the TV coverage is concerned: more Arne and Jack Rosenberg and all the unseen cameramen who did such great work bringing baseball into our homes over the last 60 years. This one should be for them as well.
In the air
Remotely interesting: Comcast Cable is adding HorseRacing TV to its offerings on its digital sports tier, effective April 30. It will cover the entire season at Arlington Park.
Our long National Football League nightmare is over. Bryant Gumbel is leaving the NFL Network, meaning he will not be the play-by-play man on the late-season Thursday and Saturday night games. … Brett Favre appears on CBS' "Late Show With David Letterman" at 10:35 p.m. Thursday on WBBM Channel 2.
End of the dial: Bob Costas has been nominated for the National Radio Hall of Fame at the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago for his weekly "Costas on Radio" show.
The Philadelphia Phillies' Harry Kalas, a Naperville product, is also nominated as a local pioneer.
-- Ted Cox