Retro: Atlanta Sunday, May 7, 1950

[bpatrick]

From the Atlanta Constitution, a bit of
very early Atlanta TV history:

WAGA Ch. 5 (CBS/DuMont)

1:30 Sign On And Cartoon Parade
1:45 Warming Up--interviews with
Jim Woods (Ch. 5 sportscaster)
1:50 Baseball: Atlanta Crackers at
Mobile (Game 1 of a doubleheader)
4:15 Dugout Dope--interviews with Lee
Hendrickson (time approximate)
4:30 Atlanta vs. Mobile (Game 2) (Jim
Woods calls both games, time
approximate)
6:30 Mr. I. Magination--Paul Tripp (CBS)
(time approximate)
7 PM Cavalcade Of Stars--Warren Hull
(Jackie Gleason would debut on this
show July 8) (DuMont)
8 PM Toast Of The Town--Ed Sullivan (CBS)
9 PM Fred Waring Show (CBS)
10 PM Celebrity Time--Conrad Nagel, John
Daly (CBS) (What's My Line? hadn't
moved to Sunday night yet, and wouldn't
until October 1, so that's why Daly's on
this show.)
10:30 Glamour Go Round--Ilka Chase (CBS)
10:45 Sign Off

WSB Ch. 8 (NBC/ABC--wouldn't move to
Channel 2 until September 1951)

4 PM Weekly News Review
4:20 Tele-Travels: "Island Queen"
4:30 The Little Review--Johnny Desmond (ABC)
5 PM Movie: "Way Down South" with Bobby Breen
('30s child star)
6:05 Paradise Island--Danny O'Neil, Anne Sterling
(NBC)
6:20 Film: "On The Fly"
6:30 Hollywood Screen Test--Neil Hamilton (ABC)
7 PM Paul Whiteman's Revue (ABC)
7:30 Leave It To The Girls--Maggi McNellis, John
K.M. McCaffery (NBC)
8 PM Supper Club--Perry Como, William Bendix (NBC)
8:30 One Man's Family (NBC)
9 PM Television Playhouse: "The Man In The Black
Hat" (NBC)
10 PM Garroway At Large--Dave Garroway, Jack Haskell
(NBC)
10:30 News
10:55 Sign Off

 

[wditto]

how can a baseball game be televise from mobile alabama in 1950 the coxail cable had not rea ch mobile till september 1954 on waga tv

 

[bpatrick]

The listings say Atlanta vs. Mobile. Normally,
that means the visiting team is listed first, but
I don't know if there was any prohibition against
Channel 5's carrying the Crackers' home games.
So it is possible that this was a doubleheader
played in Atlanta. I didn't know it took so long
for the coaxial cable to reach Mobile. Did their
first station sign on in 1954?

 

[wditto]

the first station to sign on in mobile alabama was wkab tv dec 29 1952 itwas a dumont station with cbs secondary wala tv sign on jan 14 1953 it carried nbc with cbs abc secondary a lot of snowy kinescopes at first both station power was 2500 watts reaching only 15 miles wala tv went full power jan 2 1955 then pensacola could pick up ch 10 wkab tv went off air aug 1 1954

 

[bpatrick]

WKAB later became the call letters of Channel
32 (ABC) in Montgomery; those call letters have
been changed a couple of times since, to WHOA
and then WMCF (I think that's right).

 

[Tim-In-Houston]

WKAB later became the call letters of Channel
32 (ABC) in Montgomery...and then WMCF (I think that's right).

It's WNCF. Meant to reflect their positioning statement for their (now-defunct) news department: Where News Comes First. The station changed their calls then dropped news a few months later. Actually, I think now they are getting some form of "centralized" news updates from some outfit in Iowa.

 

[wditto]

wkab tv turn it license march 1956 wkab tv was ch 48

 

[Charles1]

WKAB later became the call letters of Channel
32 (ABC) in Montgomery; those call letters have
been changed a couple of times since, to WHOA
and then WMCF (I think that's right).

Actually, WMCF is Channel 45, the TBN affiliate in Montgomery.

 

[bpatrick]

Two stations in the same market with almost-
identical call letters does get confusing, but you're
all right that WMCF is Channel 45 and WNCF is
Channel 32.

At least I don't have the same problem with
KING and KONG in Seattle.

 

[bpatrick]

how can a baseball game be televise from mobile alabama in 1950 the coxail cable had not rea ch mobile till september 1954 on waga tv

I ran across a website on WSB's history the other day. Televised Crackers
games did come from Ponce de Leon Park in Atlanta. WSB had them around
1949; later they went back and forth between WAGA and WLW-A (now WXIA).
WSB was the Braves' flagship station from the time they came to town in 1966
until about 1973 (somebody correct me on this), and Ted Turner bought the
team soon after, having acquired the games for Channel 17.

 

[Charles1]

I think the first year that the Braves were on Channel 17 was either '75 or '76, whichever was the first year that Skip Caray and Pete Van Wieren replaced Milo Hamilton. That was also the first year that a lot of their regional TV affiliates changed (in Birmingham they moved from WAPI-13 [now WVTM] to WBMG-42 [now WIAT]. I don't ever recall Milo Hamilton on any of the broadcasts that were shown on Channel 42. And, please, don't ask me how I remember that!

 

[ShawnHill1]

Milo Hamilton's last year with the Braves was 1975, and he left for Pittsburgh with the Pirates the following years. In fact, before he finally settled in Houston (replacing another recent Hall of Fame inductee, Gene Elston), he bounced quite a bit.

Here's Hamilton's Baseball Hall of Fame profile:
http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/frick_bios/hamilton_milo.htm

 

[Ultimajock]

Milo Hamilton's last year with the Braves was 1975, and he left for Pittsburgh with the Pirates the following years. In fact, before he finally settled in Houston (replacing another recent Hall of Fame inductee, Gene Elston), he bounced quite a bit.

Here's Hamilton's Baseball Hall of Fame profile:
http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/frick_bios/hamilton_milo.htm

...it's a shame that Harry Caray, so Hamilton says, had such a low opinion of Hamilton as a co-worker (and vice versa). Milo was vastly superior to the bunch that replaced him as Harry's sidekick since then. Also interesting to realise that, while supporting Bob Elson as a White Sox announcer in the early '60s, Milo was also a disc jockey for WCFL...

 

[KeithE4]

...it's a shame that Harry Caray, so Hamilton says, had such a low opinion of Hamilton as a co-worker (and vice versa). Milo was vastly superior to the bunch that replaced him as Harry's sidekick since then. Also interesting to realise that, while supporting Bob Elson as a White Sox announcer in the early '60s, Milo was also a disc jockey for WCFL...

To put it mildly, Caray & Hamilton had a history going back to the '50s when both were in St. Louis doing Cardinal baseball and some college basketball games. It finally blew up in 1982 when Caray came over to the Cubs from the White Sox after Jack Brickhouse retired. Brickhouse (who was also WGN Sports Director and was responsible for hiring the announcers) had anointed Hamilton as his successor a few years earlier, but reneged on the deal when Caray became available.

Hamilton (erroneously) always blamed Caray for the backstabbing, but it was Brickhouse that handled the situation badly - a fact he admitted in his autobiography. But Caray & Hamilton never liked each other even before that.

And Hamilton was definitely not superior to Caray as a play-by-play man, a fact that Caray was alleged to rub in Milo's face at regular intervals (Caray was suprisingly difficult to work with even when sober). They were equal at best. Hamilton is an excellent play-caller, similar to an Ernie Harwell or Vin Scully, but he never had much personality and as such, was a combustible mixture when paired with Caray. Personality counts as much, if not more than ability when calling a baseball game. Both could call a game (at least when Caray was in his prime pre-1980), but Caray was considered superior due to his colorful persona and there's nothing Milo Hamilton will ever be able to do to change that.

 

[Ultimajock]

...it's a shame that Harry Caray, so Hamilton says, had such a low opinion of Hamilton as a co-worker (and vice versa). Milo was vastly superior to the bunch that replaced him as Harry's sidekick since then. Also interesting to realise that, while supporting Bob Elson as a White Sox announcer in the early '60s, Milo was also a disc jockey for WCFL...

[snip]

And Hamilton was definitely not superior to Caray as a play-by-play man, a fact that Caray was alleged to rub in Milo's face at regular intervals (Caray was suprisingly difficult to work with even when sober). They were equal at best. Hamilton is an excellent play-caller, similar to an Ernie Harwell or Vin Scully, but he never had much personality and as such, was a combustible mixture when paired with Caray. Personality counts as much, if not more than ability when calling a baseball game. Both could call a game (at least when Caray was in his prime pre-1980), but Caray was considered superior due to his colorful persona and there's nothing Milo Hamilton will ever be able to do to change that.

...I hope you're not suggesting that I said Milo was superior to Harry. He wasn't. But as a contrast and supportive compliment to Harry's colourful approach, Milo still had the goods to be much better than, say, Steve Stone or Dewayne Staats...

 

[KeithE4]

...I hope you're not suggesting that I said Milo was superior to Harry. He wasn't. But as a contrast and supportive compliment to Harry's colourful approach, Milo still had the goods to be much better than, say, Steve Stone or Dewayne Staats...

No, but Milo certainly thought that.

Trouble was, Harry could never really mesh with another PBP man in the booth at the same time. Yeah, I know he was paired up with Jack Buck for 15 years, but IIRC, they split their time in the booth and didn't do many innings together. They weren't best buddies either from what I've heard, but they at least tolerated each other and had a mutual professional respect.

Harry worked best with a good analyst, the best-known being Gabby Street (when they were doing the Browns' games together), Jimmy Piersall (White Sox), & Steve Stone (Cubs). Street was way before my time (in the 1940s), and I thought Piersall complimented Caray much better than Stone did until after Harry had his 1987 stroke and Stone had to take on more of the load.

The other play-callers that were with Harry in his last years were there to give him a rest due to his declining health, as well as work the radio side. Staats, Wayne Larrivee, & Thom Brennaman are who I'm talking about here. They were rarely paired up from what I remember.