Thanks to a Red Sox Theme Channel on my Replay TV, I came across one of the few Bosox elimination game triumphs, Game 5 vs Cleveland in 1999 ALDS (back when Pedro could finish a game), on ESPN Classic. Thinking I could get lessen my baseball jones in this offseason, I left it on. Pretty weird structure....not only did the announcer summarizing the skipped innings get manydetails wrong (including which team some players played for), but for some reason any replays left in were reduced to audio-only. They matched B-roll footage of players milling about as I heard replays of moments like Jim Thome hitting a 511 foot HR and Kenny Lofton dislocating his shoulder on a headfirst dive into first base.

Is this standard operating procedure on Classic, or just some bizarre concession to Fox Sports for this particular game?

Yeah, ESPN classic tends to do that.

Being a Cub fan, one game I will never forget until the day I die is the Kerry Wood 20 strikeout game on May 6, 1998. They often skip innings and stuff when they replay that game for time contraints. It really sucks.

Sometimes they do a good job though especially with the stuff they lend out to ESPN. The ESPN classic game showcase specials on the 49ers/Cowboys '81 game and 49ers/Packers '98 game (The Catch and The Catch II) both brought me to tears. The '98 game was so well done I was sobbing like a baby right along with TO at the end. (Ahem. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Sappy Niners fan here. And it was Young's last "great" game. 8 seconds left. No. 8 throws a perfect pass to win the game...) They showed most of the games and added a lot of commentary from all the central figures and post game locker room coverage.

Overall I don't mind the edits. I really don't want to sit through the entire game generally.

I do love seeing the old school graphics though. And I really wish they could work out the rights so we could get more Instant Classics.

Yeah and that Jerry Rice play on that last drive is still a fumble

<<<--------still very bitter

Damn shame the refs didn't see it that way isn't it? Heh.

Besides I seem to remember a certain Monday Night game where the non-call went the Packers way, all the way for a touchdown. What goes around, comes around.

ESPN Classic was made for moments like Steve Young dropping back with 8 seconds left, nearly falling down, only to pop up and throw a perfect strike to TO in the endzone.

I really wish they would reair playoff games as Instant Classics during the week. Damn NFL. And I've yet to see the Pats/Raiders AFC Championship game on there. Or have I just missed it?

[QUOTE]Besides I seem to remember a certain Monday Night game where the non-call went the Packers way, all the way for a touchdown. What goes around, comes around.
[/QUOTE]

Okay I'll give you that one. But a Monday night game and the playoffs are two different beasts(sp.)



[/QUOTE]I really wish they would reair playoff games as Instant Classics during the week. [QUOTE]

I've been waiting for this for years, maybe they will do it on the NFL network.

Ah ... memories. I distinctly recall jumping up and down and screaming in my parents' basement after TO made that catch.

(and then Garrison Hearst broke his foot during their first drive against Atlanta the following week, and things went way downhill from there ... for three years)

Topic? ESPN Classic should be required to air the 1982 NFC Championship Game at least twice every week, IMNSHO.

Re NFL games as Instant Classics...



The NFL Network does have a "Game of the Week in High Definition," which I believe airs on Wednesday nights, but it's edited down to an hour, so it's not quite the same thing as an Instant Classic.

The college football games were hypnotic during bowl week.

Aren't they going to do something soon with the "weird" sports that used to run on Wide World of Sports and Sports Spectacular and the like? Seeing Evel Knievel reruns would be cool.

Being a baseball fan, I like the baseball programming best. They had one day where they showed three perfect games in a row--Len Barker, Mike Witt and David Wells. Great stuff.

Now if only they'd show the Francisco Cabrera game that ended the 1992 NLCS. Or practically any game from the 1991 World Series. Not a Braves fan, but that was riveting baseball.

They have shown the Cabrera game atleast once. Even though it's the only game to ever make me actually break down in hysterical tears (long suffering Pirates fan and Andy Van Slyke idolizer here), I sat and watched the whole thing all over again. I don't know... part of me thought maybe Bonds would throw Bream out at the plate this time.

Yup, no matter what Barry does in baseball, I can't help but think of that dying quail to home plate. The slowest man in baseball scored from second, for God's sake.

I would like to see more game rebroadcasts and less of those "Sportscentury" shows. And it would be nice if they told you why a game was worth watching. I'll tune into ESPN Classics and they'll have "Pistons vs. Celtics, 1988" or something, and no clue why that particular game is on the air. Did it go to triple overtime? Did Bird score 50? What?

I hope I'm justified in another entry, since it's been six days since anyone commented here.

Anyhoo, ask and ye shall receive--they're replaying the Francisco Cabrera game tonight. I remember watching this game in the TV lounge of my college dorm. When we went down there it was only me and two of my buddies. At the end, there must have been 20 people clustered around that TV.

Oh, no! Now that I know the Cabrera game is on, I'm obligated to watch it and re-live the most painful sports moment of my life. I can't NOT watch it! Thanks a lot ;-)

I was disappointed by the "SportsCentury: Tom Landry" episode. The trend towards half-hour shows gave Landry short shrift. They just glossed over everything. They mentioned Landry's revolutionary flex defense, but never bothered to say what the flex defense was, or why it was revolutionary. They never said who the Cowboys beat in their Super Bowl wins, or who they lost to in the losses. It needed to be an hour.

I have the entire 1991 World Series on tape. Not because I was a fan of either team, I just decided to tape the whole thing, as it happened. Good stuff.

Nevermind.

The only thing that I watch on ESPN Classic is Sportscentury. Other than that, I don't watch this channel very much.

I've noticed that Classic now basically shows no games what so ever, No Classic Games and if they do it's usually a "ON THIS DATE" game and is a game they've shown at least a 100 times before. Not sure if it's a Money Issue, Rights Issue or what but if They can show 8 back to back Episodes of "Cheap Seats" and 8 back to back episodes of "Sports Century" then why not some CLASSIC games.

Add to that the fact that they're basically starting to get away from the "Classic" thing altogether.

For example, tonight they're showing the Golden Gloves finals...live.

And then next week they are showing the French Open...live.

Then you factor in that they showed live basketball events (with classic graphics, of course), and I think this is becoming more ESPN3 then ESPN Classic.

Of all the "entertainment" ventures by ESPN, strangely Cheap Seats feels the most faithful to the old spirit of ESPN, both the network filling time with strong man competition eras and the Sportscenter pre-shark-jump phenomena era.

Maybe we're not that far away from the reality of ESPN8: The Ocho.

They once showed the most boring game between the Cubs and Mets from 1988. I could not figure out why the game was considered a Classic until the explanation scrolled across the bottom of the screen: it was the first "official" night game at Wrigley Field. They showed the whole game just for that.

Today I watched again perhaps the most memorable baseball game I have ever seen - the "Sandberg game" on June 23, 1984. Ryno hits game tying home runs in the 9th and 10th inning off ace reliever Bruce Sutter. Any diehard Cub fan remembers this game. It is part of Cubs history.

It was great fun to rewatch this game which was the national game of the week then and introduced Ryno to the rest of America. One thing that I didn't remember was that there was an incident eerily reminscent of the hated Steve Bartman. Gary Sarge Matthews is playing left field and runs to the same brick wall to go after Ozzie Smith's foul ball. A fan interferes, Sarge is frustrated, and Ozzie later gets on with a hit. He scores on Willie McGee's double. Luckily this game ended a bit differently than the recent Bartman game. But it was strange how similar the two plays were.

I assume ESPN Classic showed this masterpiece because of Ryno's introduction into the HOF. How fitting. What a great career he had.

I remember that game too. I remember my brother and I picking up the phone, dialing our three digit phone prefix and then four random numbers. When someone picked up the phone, we'd scream "CUBS WIN! CUBS WIN! HOLY COW!!!!" One guy said "you woke me up to tell me that?" Another said "I know, I'm watching right now!" Of course, this was long before caller ID. ;)

Too bad I missed seeing it again. I wonder if they will re-air it.

I taped Game 7 of the 1982 World Series, and Game 5 of the '85 NLCS, just the other day. That "Proud N" is my favorite of the older NBC logos, and with these games, I got more than my fill of it.

Ben

They do tend to do a lot of baseball on ESPN classic. More football and basketball would be nice. And meaningful games, too. I saw one where they replayed a Sixers-Celtics regualr season game from like 1986. I was wondering what was special about the game. From the best I could recall it meant nothing in particular about the playoffs or outcome of the season. It did remind me that Jerry Sichting played for the Celtics back then, though. How I had forgotten that little tidbit, I don't know.

Its not just ESPN Classic that is baseball centric, though. HBO is the same way. How many specials on this or that baseball story can they do?

See, I actually don't mind watching games that lack a special significance, as long as the game itself is entertaining. A lot of times, if the game does have an importance behind it, the audience usually knows about it, not to mention the game's outcome. I enjoy flipping on these old school, regular season NBA games from the 70's, not knowing how the game will turn out, learning more about players from the league's rich history. ESPN Classic has single-handedly introduced me to the greatness that is Bernard King.

Well you would have a watch a whole lot of games of no importance to learn the greatness of Bernard King.

Well, unless one game of importance defines a career, I suppose that would be correct.

Damn, ESPN Classic seems well on their way to becoming All Poker, All the Time.

""Yeah, poker, boxing & bowling. That is about all you see anymore.

they do play a college football game everyday, they used to play old baseball games. I think they only have the rights to certain things, but geez you would think with the ESPN library they could show a different sporting event every day for years, but they seem to show the same old things.

Boxing does seem to be the #1 sport though, which I guess is fitting since boxing is a truly 'classic' sport in that it is now fairly dead since its moved to PPV 20 years ago.

They used to play 2-Minute Drill at 2 everyday, but they stopped for some reason and started playing college football. That angers me, as I love[d] 2MD. Kenny Mayne was sweet on it.

ESPN Classic is re-airing the Marshall plane crash special on Nov. 14, the 36th anniversary. If you haven't seen it, it's really worth watching.

<-- biased Marshall alumna

Probably a tie in to the movie We are Marshall, which looks kind of awesome.

It originally aired for the 30th anniversary on Nov. 14, 2000. I don't know if they air it every year on the anniversary or if this is the first time as a tie-in with "WAM."

"We Are Marshall" looks mighty awesome, IMO. Most of the campus/town scenes were filmed at Marshall/Huntington, so it's going to be so cool to see my old dorm, student center, etc. on the big screen. The trailer made me cry ... the first six times I watched it on my computer. It's difficult to explain to other people what this means to the Marshall family.

Wow, what an amazing day for ESPN classic yesterday. The Ralph Wiley retrospective, all of the Ali stuff, the brilliant documentary about the history of black quarterbacks in the NFL.

Seriously some of the best television I've seen in quite some time.