(The following is a special sneak preview of a review which will be read by Yours Truly at the first Zoom meeting of the Talking Sports Gather Group on November 9.)
During the early part of the New Millennium, my ritual on the last Football Sunday of September, October, November and December was to volunteer at Temple Emanu-El's Sunday Lunch Program and package meals for the homeless before heading over to the former General Motors Building( then changed to Trump International Plaza, now promoted as its building address, 767 Fifth Avenue) and seeing CBS Sports' pioneering pre-game show, THE NFL TODAY, broadcasting live coast-to-coast before every national telecast of the NFL National Football Conference. When the show made its outdoor debut in 2001 on the set usually reserved for THE EARLY SHOW (later CBS THIS MORNING ,currently CBS MORNINGS ,subject to change if the Great Gods of Nielsen frown upon it), Jim Nantz, who hosted the show from 1998 when CBS acquired the rights to the American Football Conference from NBC, to 2003 when Greg Gumbel took the reins, presided over an announce team comprised of former New York Jet Boomer Esiason, former Miami Dolphin Dan Marino, former Chicago Bears head coach Mike Ditka, and the multitalented Deion "Primetime" Sanders. I laughed, I cried, I got autographs (from football star Ronde Barber, Dean "Superman" Cain, Heidi Klum, and Dr. Phil, many of whom came by to promote their upcoming CBS programs), I watched out-of-market CBS games as well as the game for the New York market and games from a certain network I will not name, but which acquired, I believe STOLE is a better word, the NFC package...I froze my butt off in late November and December, but above all, I saw the greats of the gridiron and hung with some of the nicest people to either cover or play football or work behind the scenes of a television broadcast. That is what has made THE NFL TODAY work since Bob Wussler took a boring 15-minute pre-taped preview of only one NFL game on CBS, added Brent Musburger, Phyllis George, Irv Cross, Jimmy "The Greek", an exciting, modern look, and 45 additional minutes, and that's what makes YOU ARE LOOKING LIVE! by a guy who was there from the start, Rich Podolsky, the best book on sports and sports TV of the year. Until I read this book, I didn't fully appreciate Phyllis and her dedication to player interviews (Her malapropisms like "He kicked a touchdown!" and "intersession" instead of "interception" drove me crazy, and don't get me started about the time she interviewed a woman and the man she falsely accused of rape and said, "How about a hug?"!) but now I truly understand her, albeit a little too late for reasons you'll find out in this titanic tome about touchdowns and TV. You'll also find out about the real story behind the friendship between Brent and The Greek and how The Greek almost didn't make it on over-the-air broadcast TV, and how Irv blazed new trails as the first African-American on a sports TV program.
Others may try to put on a better show, but whatever they did, THE NFL TODAY did it first, and there's no other team like the team behind it, in the control room or on the field. Whether you read it before, after, or instead of the game, YOU ARE LOOKING LIVE! is worth looking at, and to borrow from another great of the game, it does! Go! All! The! Way! On a scale of Strike Out to Home Run, I rate YOU ARE LOOKING LIVE! a Home Run!
(This is for the benefit of those who can't make it to the Zoom meetings to my Gather Fan Group. It may or may not, be subject to a lot of tweaking, but I believe the Group might like it and weigh in with their own opinions. WATCH THIS SPACE!)
Sports Book Loving Steve
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