Five Minutes Is All You Need

When sportscaster Warner Wolf was unceremoniously dismissed from the Imus in the Morning radio show last week, media insiders speculated that he had chosen to retire; the Huffington Post questioned whether there is a market for the 79-year-old to do something new in the Internet age, like a blog or a podcast.

I can tell you with certainty: yes, there is.

For the past year, I have been vicariously publishing a Warner Wolf Twitter feed and YouTube channel, sharing his insights from 1986 with the Internet generation, exactly 30 years later -- and the response has been incredible. Fans, sportscasters, and the athletes themselves have demonstrated that Warner had something special on his hands. Compared to the dreadful shoutfests that make up sports television today, Warner could give us all the sports we need in 5 minutes, once a week.

How can the VHS era of sports highlights survive during the Internet age?  I've found that the two are actually a perfect fit. In 1986, Warner could only laugh at an athlete's embarrassing moments ("Nice catch, Jose.") But now in the social media era, we can ask them about it! Kicker Fuad Reveiz loves to relive slapping a Patriots linebacker across the face. Kelly Hrudey knows exactly why he smashed his stick after a random game. Howard Johnson revels in a botched spring training catch with John Gibbons. Danny Ainge tells us why he was smiling after falling down at the Garden!

And it wasn't just big-time names that Warner highlighted.  In 1985, Bruce Morris of Marshall University sank the longest in-game basketball shot in history: 89 feet 10 inches (it's such an important moment, Morris' footprints are still painted on Marshall's home court.) On the shot's 30th anniversary, it seems all of Herd Nation relived the moment on Warner Wolf's vicarious Twitter account -- including Morris' daughter Madison, who now plays for Marshall!

Likewise, it's been fascinating to see the children of famous athletes -- some of them now famous in their own right -- reacting to their parents' highlights on Twitter.  Check out these tweets from Orlando Woolridge's son, now a rapper and aspiring NBA forward; Gary Pettis' son, now an actor on Days of our Lives; and Boomer Esiason's daughter, now a sports broadcaster.  These young people are tweeting about Warner Wolf's Plays of the Week from 1986!

Warner also made some amazing predictions, which would have seemed like wild ideas 30 years ago, but are now commonplace.  In 1986, he proposed that professionals compete in the Olympics; that older-style baseball parks like Wrigley Field are better than "modern" parks; that in overtime, both NFL teams should have the opportunity to touch the ball; and that instant replay challenges should be called by coaches.

Even something as momentous as the World Series benefitted from some Warner Wolf magic.  In 1986, Warner's hometown Mets were the story of the year -- so much so, that he put together an '86 Mets highlight reel before they had even won the pennant. He also showed how loose they were in the clubhouse; Darryl Strawberry pranking Lenny Dykstra with a pie in the face during a commercial shoot (Dykstra later tweeted me, saying "I always love a good prank, and this ranks up there.") After the Series was over, Warner finished with a hot take on the Red Sox, giving them the Boo of the Week for having a parade after *losing* the World Series!


So what would a 5-minute Warner Wolf podcast look like? Check out this segment from November 14, 1986 -- exactly thirty years ago. First, he comments on how a late hit by the Eagles' Evan Cooper should have resulted in an ejection. Then, a montage of successful athletes who happen to be short (Marvin Hagler, Spud Webb, Doug Flutie, etc.) Next, he gives the Boo of the Week to the ridiculousness of the quarterback-in-the-grasp rule. Then, a suggestion that pitchers shouldn't be eligible for both Cy Young and MVP awards. Finally, a gleeful Plays of the Week montage featuring hockey fights, football players tackling officials, and the relatively new invention of trampoline basketball trick shots.  He even finds time to poke fun at himself for being short (claiming that he, Bob Costas, and Jim McKay all see eye-to-eye.)

There it is.  All the sports you need for the week, condensed into 5 minutes -- no shouting, and no angst.  Warner: we can make this happen.  With your help, we can bring joy back to sports broadcasting.

Broadcast Throwbacks: 6 Times Sportscasters Turned Back the Clock

UPDATE: We've been reposted by Uni Watch!  Their readers suggested several other examples of broadcast throwbacks, which you can read about at the bottom of this post.

1. Cubs vs. A's (August 6, 2016)

Everyone knows about "throwbacks" in sports -- players wearing replicas of uniform designs from their team's history. But only recently have television sportscasters joined in the fun. At a Cubs-A's game with early 80s throwback uniforms, Comcast SportsNet created spot-on 80s television graphics to match -- from the period-accurate NBC peacock logo to the delightfully long black drop shadows. (The Pirates also attempted this in April but, with absurd wigs and That-70s-Show graphics, just ended up looking goofy). Announcers also wore yellow blazers, which brings us to:

2. Monday Night Football (September 14, 2015)

ABC Sports invented the yellow blazer as the standard costume for 1970s television sportscasters.  Blame Monday Night Football, in which Howard Cosell, Don Meredith, and Frank Gifford all sported the mustard-colored jackets. Gifford served in the MNF booth for 26 years, and when he died in 2015 on the eve of that season's inaugural Monday Night Football game, Gifford's successors at ESPN donned yellow jackets to honor the longtime announcer.

3. Southern 500 (September 6, 2015)

NASCAR caught the nostalgia bug in 2015, moving the Darlington race to Labor Day weekend, and encouraging drivers to display throwback paint schemes. NBC had some fun with their retro graphics, but more significantly, they brought back legendary NASCAR personalities Ken Squier and Ned Jarrett to call a significant chunk of the race. This was a genius move, bringing living history to a current sporting event in a way that has not yet been duplicated. Old guys rule! (Interestingly enough, the current NBC Sports crew wore goofy 1970s jackets, while the 1970s announcers dressed normally).

4. Men in Blazers (September 18, 2014)

Every week, British comedians Roger Bennett and Michael Davies lampoon soccer on their NBCSN show and podcast, Men in Blazers. Though they have a tiny closet of a set, there's an incongruous neon sign on the wall celebrating the George Michael Sports Machine. As they explain on their blog, George Michael's weekly highlight reels helped to acclimatize Roger and Michael to the atmosphere of American sports in the 1980s. Not only do they display George Michael's original sign as an homage, but they frequently mimic the bloopy synth sound effect that started off Michael's show.

5. Dodgers vs. Cubs (August 26, 2000)

Fox Sports never shies away from trying new things (anyone remember the glowing hockey puck, or explosion sound effects for a touchdown pass?)  However, this ambitious broadcast was the gimmick to end all gimmicks. To celebrate the anniversary of the first televised baseball game, Fox began its broadcast in black-and-white, with one camera, no on-screen graphics, and purposely tinny audio. As each inning progressed, their broadcast style would advance one decade, and they would describe how that generation watched baseball. First they added a second camera; then, better sound. Color. Instant replay. Slow motion. Wireless cameras in the stadium. In the final inning, they unleashed all their modern toys, including mic'ed up managers, FoxBox onscreen graphics, and a helmet cam on the catcher. Lord knows what 1940s viewers would think of hashtags, high def, or live pitch tracking.

6. Brewers vs. Red Sox (June 26, 1982)

This final instance happened by accident, making it especially brilliant. Boston was down to Milwaukee 11-8, and before the bottom of the 9th, the power went out at Fenway Park. All television equipment stopped functioning except for one camera and the intercom. Luckily, the director of the telecast was Harry Coyle, who had previously guided 36 World Series broadcasts. He told the lone cameraman, Mario, "We'll show 'em what one cameraman can do!" and proceeded to direct the final inning of the game with just a single camera and zoom lens, located above home plate -- including a frantic near-comeback by the Red Sox. In essence, he was throwing back to the way baseball used to be broadcast (like Fox did), but doing it out of necessity! Even more remarkably, producer Rick Reed happened to be filming the TV truck for a segment on Coyle, and captured the entire incident, including the intercom chatter between Coyle and Mario.

OTHER EXAMPLES: Fox's spectacle of starting their broadcast in black-and-white is apparently not unique.  WGN copied the idea in 2008 for their 60th anniversary of broadcasting Cubs games; announcers Len Kasper and Bob Brenly were decked out in 1940s clothes.  It's also been mentioned that Bill Webb at WWOR did a "throwback" Mets game in the 1990s, simulating a 1960s broadcast complete with fake video line outage.  (I've been unable to locate footage or photos from either example).

In 2014, the BBC's stalwart "Match of the Day" program celebrated its 50th anniversary with throwback graphics, and a one-off appearance by 76-year-old commentator Barry Davies.  (Apparently in the UK, sportscasters' blazers are green).

Also notable is the WWE, who in 2010 transformed their flagship Monday Night RAW program to "Old School," using costumes and graphics from the 1980s, including the iconic "WWF" logo. However, due to their longstanding lawsuit from the World Wildlife Federation, in subsequent "Old School" nights they altered the iconic logo to remove the F.

The Almighty Bug

My dad sold paving equipment in the late 1970s.  Before his presentations, he used to warm up the crowd by bringing an 8mm film projector and showing pre-packaged sports movies he had purchased from a catalog (that's how I first saw the ethereal Football Follies).  By the early 1980s and the advent of VCRs, it became easier to just record something funny off TV -- like Warner Wolf's Plays of the Week.

He wasn't the only one.  Sports highlights were big business, and many cheeky producers would record and edit sports footage they had no rights to, and sell them as their own work.  Warner Wolf's highlight reels took a lot of effort to compile, and others were profiting from CBS' labor.  The answer?  A bug.

"Bug" is an industry term for an on-screen graphic, usually a network logo, superimposed on a TV program.  In Warner Wolf's case, all of his Plays of the Week featured a bug of the CBS "eye" logo in the upper left corner.  This would deter any potential copyright infringers from stealing Warner's hard work -- and even if they did, CBS would get the publicity (still pretty important in an era of just three television networks).

On-screen graphics themselves weren't new, but in television's early days they were pretty primitive.  Producers pointed a camera at a piece of black cardboard with white text, and then faded it with the live image to superimpose a title (for example, during the Beatles' appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964).  In 1968, covering the Democratic and Republican conventions, CBS didn't want to be fiddling with pieces of cardboard during live broadcasts, so they helped to pioneer the first ever digital character generators.

These devices became more and more sophisticated through the years, but they all had one thing in common: the graphics came on the screen, and then they came off.  When did the bug become a permanent fixture of our TV programs?

According to this Wikipedia page, CBS began superimposing the bug on all its newscasts in 1990.  They wanted business travelers to instantly identify a CBS station anywhere in the country.  However, Warner's Plays of the Week did this as early as 1985 -- meaning he probably pioneered the era of buggy TV!

Live sports also played a role in the evolution of the TV bug.  Originally, sports broadcasters only posted scoreboard graphics occasionally; if you started watching in the middle of a game, you'd have to ask your friends what the score was, or how much time was left.  Scroll through this broadcast of Super Bowl III, and see if you can find any on-screen graphic, other than the clock at the very end.  Here's another example from a BBC soccer match in 1979.

When Fox began broadcasting NFL football in 1994, they introduced the FoxBox: an on-screen scoreboard graphic that stayed permanently superimposed in the corner.  Since then, broadcasters have continually pushed the envelope of information overload; compare that 1969 NFL broadcast with a typical NFL broadcast of today.

Now all TV has gone the way of short-attention-span theater.  Desperate to maintain even the tiniest slice of brand awareness, TV networks put bugs on everything -- cramming them with logos, tickers, clocks, animated promos, scoreboards, and in the online era, websites and hashtags.  This was masterfully lampooned in 1999 by Saturday Night Live, in a prescient instance of life imitating art.

While we may put the blame at the feet of Warner Wolf, CBS, or Fox, I like to think that if my dad had just continued showing 8mm films at his paving conventions, none of this would have been necessary.

A Winner Never Quits: One-Armed Baseball Player Pete Gray

Thirty years ago, we saw the premiere of a TV movie dramatizing the life of Pete Gray.  A Winner Never Quits starred Keith Carradine as the one-armed baseball player -- also showing how his one year of fame on the baseball diamond in 1945 led to depression and alcoholism afterwards.  Interesting fact: his real name was Peter Wyshner -- a son of Lithuanian immigrants -- and he changed it to Gray to avoid ethnic prejudice while playing semi-pro baseball.

Gray died in 2002.

Mare Winningham, who played Pete Gray's wife in A Winner Never Quits, retweeted this blog.

Let's go to the videotape!

Warner Wolf's Plays of the Week
April 11, 1986

• 0:32 There must have been an errant VCR button press to erase Warner's 1986 Major League Baseball picks, but... SPOILER ALERT... here's how he did:
  --In the AL West, Warner picked the defending World Series champion Kansas City Royals.  They finished third (76-86) to the California Angels.
  --In the AL East, Warner picked the Toronto Blue Jays.  They did better (86-76), but finished fourth to the Boston Red Sox.
  --In the NL West, Warner picked the Cincinnati Reds, who also finished 86-76 -- good enough for second place to the Houston Astros.
  --In the NL East, Warner picked the New York Mets -- who won the World Series.  By his end-of-the-season recap, he claimed 1-out-of-4 was a pretty good percentage. However, his co-host Faith Daniels quipped back, "my grandmother could have picked the Mets!"
• 0:47 Rex Hudler only played in Baltimore for one of his 14 seasons in professional baseball.  Today, people either know him as the voice of the video game MLB: The Show, or as play-by-play announcer for the World Series champion Kansas City Royals.
• 1:05 According to DropYourGloves.com, Kevin Hatcher scored a "clear win" in this fight against Bobby Bourne.
• 1:11 Billy Smith was known for having a fiery temper; but he was also the first NHL goalie ever to be credited with scoring a goal.
• 1:19 Neither Chris Meakem nor George Ross made much noise in the boxing world -- in fact, half of their bouts were against each other!
• 1:31 Pervis Ellison became known as "Never Nervous Pervis," for his cool demeanor as a freshman on the title-winning 1986 Louisville Cardinals.  Unfortunately, despite a lengthy NBA career, multiple injuries kept him from greatness (teammate Danny Ainge jokingly called him "Out of Service Pervis.")  Pervis did pass his game onto his kids; his son plays for St. John's, and his daughter dunks (!) at Maryland.
• 1:38 The Celtics' home win streak did indeed set records in 1986.  But ten years later in 1996, two teams surpassed their record (the Orlando Magic and Chicago Bulls).  And then thirty years later in 2016, two more teams have broken *that* record -- the San Antonio Spurs and the Golden State Warriors (the Warriors' streak just ended at 54).

The Most Famous Stopped Clock in NCAA History

Thirty years ago, a stuck clock led to one of the most controversial games in college basketball history.  The error was so contagious, that Warner Wolf couldn't find the videotape of the game -- and had to describe it to his audience!  (Click here to watch Warner's original broadcast, and the new remastered version with game footage added).

The date: March 21, 1986.  The place: Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri.  The contest: Michigan State vs. Kansas in the NCAA Midwest Regional, starring Scott Skiles for the Spartans, and Danny Manning for the Jayhawks.

Everything about this game sets the hearts of 80s sports nostalgia fans a-flutter -- even the CBS Sports pregame show, where Verne Lundquist introduces his very young play-by-play man as "former Harvard player James Brown" (JB didn't start sportscasting nationally until 1987).

Like most college basketball games, each team had its peaks and valleys, exchanging the lead several times.  With 2:20 remaining, Michigan State's Vernon Carr made a free throw to put the Spartans up by four.

And that's when things started to go a little sideways.

Kansas' Greg Dreiling inbounded the ball to Cedric Hunter, who let the ball bounce to about half-court before he picked up his dribble -- presumably to save time.  What he didn't realize is that the clock never started at all.

Both teams continued to play, and Kansas' Ron Kellogg made a put-back to bring them within two.  Michigan State inbounded the ball and started up the court.  Still, the clock stayed at 2:20.

Michigan State coach Jud Heathcote noticed the error, and dashed to the scorer's table to holler at the operator (at which point the clock did resume).  The Spartans hesitated, as if looking for a timeout, but then continued playing.  Skiles drove to the lane, and appeared to be fouled by Kansas' Ron Kellogg -- his 5th foul, sending him out of the game (replays showed that Kellogg was barely involved in the play).

As Lundquist points out in the broadcast, both coaches were simultaneously arguing with officials.  Jud Heathcote demanded satisfaction for the 15 seconds lost by the clock error.  Meanwhile Kansas coach Larry Brown, livid about the bogus call against Kellogg, received a technical foul.

During this stoppage in play, could the clock error have been resolved?  Warner Wolf seemed to think so; his "Boo of the Week" went to the game officials for not taking any action to resolve the issue.  After the game, NCAA officials claimed that time cannot be added or subtracted to a game clock unless the exact amount is known.  Ironically, Kemper Arena had experienced similar clock errors the previous week at the NAIA tournament -- but assuming it to be a one-time problem, no NCAA official was keeping backup time.  While Warner's staff couldn't find his videotape, we've re-created the highlight here to confirm that exactly 15 seconds was lost:

The story doesn't end well for Michigan State.  Down by six with 1:08 to go, Kansas began fouling Michigan State players -- who all missed their free throws.  Kansas tied the game with ten seconds to go, and dominated the overtime to defeat Michigan State 96-86.

So did the clock operator cost Michigan State the game?  Both sides have a decent case.  Had the clock ticked off those 15 seconds, Jud Heathcote might not have been distracted, and more importantly, Kansas might not have had time to score their tying basket with 10 seconds left.  However, Michigan State wouldn't have needed the clock defense if they had made any of their free throws (or, indeed, not bottomed out during the overtime).

Kansas ended up losing to Duke in the 1986 semifinal, but returned two years later (with Danny Manning as a senior) to win the championship.  Manning ended up playing 15 years in the NBA, and then returned to Kansas -- winning a second championship twenty years later as an assistant coach.  Scott Skiles also went pro, playing for the Orlando Magic (he is now their head coach).  You might also recognize Michigan State's Carlton Valentine, whose son Denzel Valentine just completed his senior season with Michigan State as college basketball's National Player of the Year.

Michigan State-Kansas is now an annual rivalry, and ironically, both teams' current head coaches were actually at the clock game 30 years ago.  Michigan State's Tom Izzo was a graduate assistant in 1986, and claimed to be the first one to point out the clock error to Heathcote (who subsequently "told me where to go.")  Kansas' Bill Self was also a graduate assistant, but claims he "didn't have many responsibilities" at the time.

And finally, like many other sports, NCAA basketball now embraces videotape replay for all sorts of plays -- who knocked the ball out of bounds, was a three-point shooter on the line, or even the flagrancy of a foul.  Many complain that the incessant stop-and-looks make the ending of college basketball games a laborious affair.  But in 1986, Michigan State fans would have been thrilled to wait, if they had gotten their 15 seconds back.

Warner Wolf's Plays of the Month
March 28, 1986

• 0:00 The lore around this desperation buzzer-beater by Chris Coles of Buena Vista High School in Saginaw, Michigan has outlasted even the school itself -- it closed in 2013.  Not only was this basket Coles' only two points in the game (no 3-pointers in high school back then), it was Coles' final shot in competitive basketball -- check out this documentary about the shot, including an interview with "fainting" coach Norwaine Reed.  Coles stayed in the game, however; he now coaches for Olivet College in Michigan.
• 3:11 Lou Carnesecca did indeed win the Big East in 1986 -- but never won the Final Four in his 25+ years of coaching.  However, respect for Carnesecca runs so deep that St. John's basketball venue is now called Carnesecca Arena.
• 3:19 Rare mistake from Warner: hall-of-famer Gary Suter played for the Calgary Flames, not the Red Wings.
• 3:25 According to HockeyFights.com, George McPhee got the best of Rick Tocchet in this particular fight, and lead the Rangers with 8 fights that year -- but Tocchet had 23!
• 3:46 Stan Jefferson, who made that catch during his brief career with the Mets, eventually became a NYC cop, who was on duty (and on the scene) during 9/11. 
• 4:00 Ulf Findeisen's crazy ski-flying accident was one of several that occurred during the March 9, 1986 event in Kulm, Bad Mittendorf, Austria.  In fact, Findeisen didn't "get up and try it again"; his injuries prevented him from ever competing again.  After events like this, most ski-jumpers adopted the "flying V" form, which is much more stable.
• 4:16 Calvin Peete didn't just ace this hole at the USF&G Classic; he won the entire event -- his final PGA Tour win, before passing away last year.

In Praise of 1980s Video Editors Part 2: Major League Baseball

Last week, we highlighted the skills of the 1980s video editors who assembled montages like this NBA clipfest set to the 1812 Overture.  Now, another brilliant highlight reel -- focused mainly on the base stealers of Major League Baseball, and set to the William Tell Overture.  Watch the montage, and see if you can spot all the players highlighted (listed below).

A few more "where are they now?" notes about the people mentioned in Warner's Plays of the Week:

• 0:00 Everyone knows David Robinson, aka "The Admiral," as a legendary NBA champion/MVP/Hall of Fame/gold medalist.  But he only began playing organized basketball as a high school senior.  Robinson, 6' 7" at the time, followed his father's footsteps and enrolled in the Navy (even though their maximum height allowed is 6' 6", they allow a limited number of waivers for cadets up to 6' 8").  However, when he began to dominate the basketball court, NBA teams came calling -- only to hesitate, because Robinson was required to serve five years of active duty after graduation (this article quotes the Washington Bullets GM as saying that Robinson may be "worth the gamble").  This problem was solved when Robinson grew to be 7' 1"; he no longer met the physical requirements for Navy service, so after just 2 years of special service, Robinson was drafted by the Spurs, and the rest is history.
• 2:35 Ohio High School, located in the tiny of Ohio, Illinois (with a population of 550), made huge waves when they surged through Illinois' state basketball championships in 1986. Lance Harris, he of the 70-foot buzzer beater, moved a little closer to Chicago and became a firefighter.
• 2:47 Speaking of Chicago suburbs, Triton College is a 2-year community college just northwest of the Windy City.  James Parker's crazy behind-the-back shot was a staple of sports highlights shows for years -- very few of them mentioning that Triton went 29-5 that year.
• 3:07 While John Gibbons only played 8 games with the Mets after Spring Training, both he and Howard Johnson became MLB managers: Gibbons with the Toronto Blue Jays, and Johnson most recently with the Mariners.

Warner Wolf's Plays of the Week
March 21, 1986

Players in the William Tell Overture montage: 
0:29 Rickey Henderson
0:33 Mookie Wilson
0:34 Mookie Wilson
0:36 Mookie Wilson
0:37 Lenny Dykstra
0:40 Vince Coleman
0:53 ?
0:54 ?
0:54 one errant frame!
0:54 Ken Landreaux
0:54 Robin Yount
0:55 Darrell Porter
0:56 ?
0:57 Tim Raines
0:57 ?
0:58 Ken Landreaux
0:59 Willie Wilson
1:00 Willie Wilson
1:01 Carlton Fisk (putting out Dale Berra and Bobby Meacham)
1:03 Tim Raines
1:04 Tim Raines
1:04 Tim Raines
1:05 Rickey Henderson
1:06 Rickey Henderson
1:08 Rickey Henderson
1:09 Rickey Henderson
1:10 Mookie Wilson
1:11 Mookie Wilson
1:16 Lee Lacy
1:19 Mike Pagliarulo
1:22 Chili Davis
1:23 Vince Coleman
1:23 ?
1:23 ?
1:23 ?
1:24 Willie Wilson
1:24 Tim Raines
1:26 Tim Raines
1:27 Tim Raines
1:29 Lee Lacy (put out by Jesse Orosco)
1:32 Rickey Henderson
1:35 Tony Gwynn
1:39 Pedro Gurrero and Mariano Duncan
1:41 ?
1:41 Rafael Ramirez and Dale Murphy
1:42 Dickie Thon and Enos Cabell
1:43 ?
1:44 Rickey Henderson
1:45 ?
1:47 Brian Harper tripping Dale Berra
1:48 Bill Buckner
1:49 Mike Brown
1:51 Terry Harper
1:53 Ivan de Jesus
1:55 Ken Griffey Sr.
1:59 Ken Landreaux
2:00 Bob Walk
2:01 Chris Chambliss
2:01 Rich Gedman
2:02 Keith Hernandez
2:02 ?
2:02 ?
2:03 Lenny Dykstra
2:05 Juan Samuel
2:06 Scott Sanderson
2:07 Glenn Brummer
2:08 Juan Samuel
2:09 ?
2:10 Pete Rose

In Praise of 1980s Video Editors

As a professional video editor, I work with the latest high-definition non-linear software -- but as a kid, I got my start in editing by wiring two VCRs to each other, and then hitting play/pause/record very quickly.  You might not believe it, but in the 1980s, professional video editing was more like the latter than the former.  That's why quick-cut montages, like the one highlighted today, are all the more extraordinary.

The segment has 45 individual clips in 90 seconds.  For each 2 second clip, the editor had to have a physical tape of that 2-hour game, recorded off-air or delivered from a satellite service.  The editor then needed to rewind and fast-forward through the whole game to find the 2 most compelling seconds, mark in and out points, and then hit the "edit" button on the machine, which would transfer those two seconds onto the edit tape.  He'd then repeat the process 45 times, requiring 45 different physical tapes.  Even more amazing, the editor's cuts matched the music precisely.  He likely created a paper logfile of available clips, and did some extensive pre-planning to determine which clips might fit ideally into certain portions of the music.  This was a painstaking process, and could not easily be undone.  If you screwed up the edit, you had to start all over again.  Even film editing couldn't match the agony and the ecstasy of videotape.

That's why today's video software is called "non-linear editing"; users can drag and drop clips, experiment moving them around in different configurations, and then put it all back again with no harm done.  A teenager's mobile phone can edit video more easily and in higher resolution than the best equipment in 1986 (though one could argue about the teenager's skill at the practice).

Perhaps most significantly, video today never sees a physical form.  It's shot onto flash storage, transferred as digital files to a computer, broadcast over satellites and Internet, and played by end users on digital video boxes and smartphones.  Whereas a 1980s video junkie might proudly display his physical collection of tapes or films, a 2010s video junkie outsources his video storage to the cloud -- never to know the joy of having a stack of 45 videotapes, looking for just the right one, as the deadline ticks closer.

That's why it still gives me joy to say, along with Warner Wolf: "Let's go to the videotape!"

Warner Wolf's NBA Montage
(to Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture)
March 14, 1986

0:01 Spud Webb

0:06 Kelvin Ransey

0:09-0:12 four unknown swishes

0:13 Julius Erving

0:15 Larry Bird

0:16 Mike Gminski

0:17 Bob Thornton

0:19 Sedale Threatt to Charles Barkley

0:25 Ralph Sampson

0:28 Purvis Short to Terry Teagle

0:31 Orlando Woolridge

0:35 Rod Higgins to Buck Williams

0:37 Trent Tucker to Patrick Ewing

0:40 Darryl Dawkins

0:42 Julius Erving

0:44 Ken Bannister

0:46 Darryl Dawkins

0:48 Patrick Ewing

0:49 Ralph Sampson

0:51 Buck Williams

0:54 Darryl Dawkins (backboard shattered)

0:57 Darryl Dawkins (backboard shattered)

1:00-1:05 seven unknown swishes

1:06 Charles Barkley

1:07 Julius Erving

1:08 Michael Cooper

1:10 Michael Jordan

1:11 Julius Erving

1:14 Charles Barkley

1:15 Michael Jordan

1:17 Dominique Wilkins

1:18 Ralph Sampson

1:19 Lewis Lloyd

1:21 Michael Jordan

1:23 Julius Erving

1:24 Julius Erving (repeated)

Little Big Man: Warner Wolf and Andre the Giant

One of the biggest names in sport -- from one of the biggest men ever to play a sport -- owes a lot to the little guy. (Scroll down to see the whole interview).

"Andre the Giant" was born Andre Roussimoff in 1946 in Grenoble, France.  Most Americans know of him from his WWF days in the 80s (and his role in The Princess Bride) -- though at that point he was 40 years old, overweight, and suffering from alcoholism and other health problems that would lead to his death in 1993.  But take a time machine back to the 1960s and 70s, and you could see his showmanship on full display to audiences in Europe and Japan.  Check out these amazing photos from when he was truly at his physical peak.

So why was the little man (Warner Wolf) so important to the big man (Andre the Giant)?  In the 1970s, wrestling was not nationally organized, but a loose confederation of regional circuits.  If you lived in, say, Atlanta, you only got a chance to see wrestlers from the Georgia Championship Wrestling (check out this map of regional wrestling organizations that were all independent at the time).  The comedian Andy Kauffman's foray into professional wrestling only became public after the fact, because his matches were only broadcast locally in Memphis, Tennessee.

If you wanted to follow a phenomenon like Andre the Giant, who was outside of your geographical area, you were out of luck... unless you could watch Warner Wolf's sports highlights.  Unlike many of his prominent sportscaster colleagues, Warner regularly included wrestling in his TV highlights -- in Washington in the 1970s, New York in the 1980s, and nationally on the CBS Morning News.  Listen to this recollection of wrestling podcaster Don Tony, who attributes much of wrestling's early nationwide success to Warner Wolf.

The below interview is a perfect example.  On March 31, 1975, the Capital Centre was hosting a wrestling card featuring Andre the Giant -- who was so popular at the time, that his parent organization regularly "loaned him out" to all the regional circuits to promote his popularity.  Warner Wolf, then the sports anchor for WTOP-TV in Washington (now WUSA), obviously considered it a newsworthy local event, having shown Andre's highlights on numerous broadcasts.  Andre's showmanship was on full display, making jokes about having "too many girls," and picking up Warner with one hand at the end of the interview.  (For the record, Andre and Bruno Sammartino defeated the tag-team champion Valiant Brothers by disqualification).

By 1986, when Warner rebroadcast the clip on the CBS Morning News, wrestling had consolidated its regional circuits into a singular organization called the WWF, with Andre as one of its superstars.  A year later, at Wrestlemania III in Detroit, Andre fought Hulk Hogan in front of the largest audience ever at an indoor sporting event.  A year after that, he was immortalized as Fezzik, the friendly giant, in The Princess Bride.  And a year after that, Andre's image became a pop art sensation that still sells today.  And the WWF (now the WWE) has since become a nationwide media conglomerate, worth more than half a billion dollars.

The local-news interviews, smiling and waving at the end, seem quaint by comparison.

Yet without the little guy, the big guy wouldn't be nearly as big.

Let's go to the videotape!

Originally filmed March 31, 1975
Rebroadcast February 21, 1986