Never before seen on TV!
“Well,” said Tim Hanley, “not on your TV, not yet.”
Forty years later, Hanley can’t quite recall if he’d been assigned to sell peanuts, ice cream or soda, that day: “I was 17, so I know I wasn’t allowed to sell beer.”
Regardless, it was the ninth inning, quitting time, as far as he was concerned. Shoot, with a 13 percent commission as a Shea Stadium vendor, and with a full house for Game 4 of the 1969 World Series, he’d already had a big day, cleared at least 15 bucks.
Besides, young Tim had brought along an 8mm movie camera. He could be the first on his block in Ozone Park to have home movies of the ’69 Series.
So in the top of the ninth, with one out, Orioles on first and third, down 1-0, Hanley stood on a water fountain just outside the vendors’ locker room in right field. And when Brooks Robinson hit a sinking liner to right-center, and Ron Swoboda made the greatest catch in Mets history, Hanley not only caught the catch, he caught it flush, a clean angle never before seen on our TVs.
“It was still sunny in right. The shadows hadn’t yet covered the outfield,” said Hanley, who now lives in Manhattan and is the law librarian for Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. “I probably was the closest person to the catch who filmed it, and certainly the only one with that distinct angle.”
Hanley says that in NBC’s coverage of the game we can see, in the ninth, a distant figure standing on top of something near the right field corner. He figures that has to be him.
In transferring home movies to disc last year, Hanley threw in the Swoboda catch. This year, when the 40th anniversary of the catch came up, Hanley contacted the folks at MLB Productions in Secaucus. And they liked what they saw.
Wednesday night at 8:00, Thanksgiving Eve, MLB Network will present “Baseball’s Seasons,” this one devoted to the ’69 Mets — Hanley’s clip included.
Oh, Frank Robinson tagged from third to tie the score, but then Elrod Hendricks lined out. The Mets won it in the 10th.
So remember: Any rebroadcast or retransmission of any game without the expressed written consent of Major League Baseball is strictly prohibited, give or take 40 years.
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Sports Culture Game of the Week: In what almost surely was one more home loss than will be indulged under Charlie Weis, Notre Dame on Saturday was leading UConn 14-0 when, on third-and-4 from its own 31, UConn threw incomplete. But DB Sergio Brown nailed the intended, exposed receiver with a late and excessive hit.
Brown seized an opportunity to hit a defenseless guy as hard as he could, perhaps even knock him out of the game. That’s how the game is now coached, sold.
And, instead of punting, down 14-0, UConn was given 15 yards and a first down. Six plays later it was 14-7. Regulation ended 20-20. ND lost in OT.
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Given that this city’s most self-serving radio play-by-player and biggest homer, John Sterling, also is the city’s most imitated, the purveyors of good-faith radio deserve recognition.
Saturday, when Nets center Brook Lopez was called for fouling the Knicks’ Danilo Gallinari — Lopez felt it was a clean block — Lopez and Nets coach Lawrence Frank erupted. And on WFAN, Nets’ play-by-player Chris Carrino seemed sold on the Nets’ contention they were robbed. Even if he was wrong, who’d know? It’s radio.
But Carrino next said that having just watched a replay, ref Mike Smith made the right call. Lopez fouled him, got him in the head. Much appreciated.
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Moose Johnston‘s “Keys to the Game” on Fox yesterday included this for the Falcons’ defense: “Get off [the field] on third [down].” Translation: Force the Giants to punt. Geez. Johnston is another who would be twice as good if he said half as much. Yesterday: “[Browns’ QB] Brady Quinn has had a tough start to his professional career, over the years.”
Marv Albert yesterday told us that a report — later debunked — about a fist-throwing beef he had with 50 Cent‘s crew prior to appearing on Jimmy Kimmel‘s show was “preposterous. As much as I value my street cred, my posse and his posse weren’t even in the same room.” . . . Frank Caliendo‘s parody of Jim Rome and his ESPN show, during Fox’s pregame show, was a howl.
We’re (almost) used to it. As the Falcons and Giants played OT, CBS picked up OT of Steelers-Chiefs — only to lose it to the opening of Jets-Pats. . . . Catch of the Day: Keith Levin, Vernon, Conn., correctly notes that the crawl during Fox’s pregame show gave the forecast for Jets-Pats, a 4:15 kickoff, as “mostly sunny.” Sunset in Foxborough, Levin added, was 4:19.