Off The Wire is sponsored by Pete’s Auto Body
The good people who do sales at Bayshore Broadcasting got me involved in a neat little project.
Similar to what The Great Paul Hill does with ” Today In History ” they wondered if I could doctor up a ” Today in SPORTS History ” feature for a prospective client.
Sure, it was more work, but what a blast I had hopping from day to day, trying to determine the most significant sports event on any given day in time.
One of the great flashbacks I had was July 13,1963 when future Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Early Wynn, won his 300th and final Major League Baseball game at age 43.
I was only 3 when that happened, but a decade and a half later I became familiar with Early Wynn as the original broadcast partner for Tom Cheek on Blue Jays Baseball.
In his book ” Road To Glory “, Cheek told the story of how the radio producers set up a segment where Wynn would interview the legendary Ted Williams whom Wynn had pitched against decades earlier.
Wynn started the segment by telling Williams that his high batting average was attributable to the fact the umpires always gave him the benefit of the doubt on close pitches, and the interview never really got going as the offended Williams departed in short order.
Then there was the classic segment where Tom Cheek welcomed groups in attendance at the Jays game including the Hooker Chemical Company from Buffalo.
Sensing a potential inappropriate comment, Cheek gently touched Wynn and nothing more was said.
A few games later during a similar on air segment, Cheek welcomed all the groups in attendance and noted how popular the Jays games were for group outings, to which Wynn said, ‘ like last week when we had that busload of Hookers from Buffalo ‘
The memories. Every day with ” Today in Sports History “.