ThirdGen Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 1 hour ago, southsider2k5 said: It wasn't 40 years into the future though. I know people are still salty about it, but they were/and are wrong. The other thing people conveniently forget in their desire to bash Reinsdorf is that it wasn't a choice between pay TV and free TV at the time. It was a choice between pay TV and virtually no TV. The Sox weren't on shitty TV 44 because they wanted to be as far down the UHF dial as they could be, they were there because no one else wanted to broadcast Sox games. When 44 went scrambled Pay TV movies, the Sox were screwed. Veeck talked about it constantly his last year of ownership, and even signed a deal to move many Sox games to cable during the Debartolo courtship. The Blackhawks were in the same boat for their road games and made the same move. And of course the Tribune buying the Cubs for programming during the first year of the new Sox ownership sealed their relationship. The real mistake was dumping channel 9 for 32 in the late sixties and ceding 9 to the Cubs full time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Mighty Mite Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 2 hours ago, South Side Fireworks Man said: It was a dumb move at the time. Nobody wanted to pay for a product that everyone else was offering free. Plus, while WGN was a superstation and had a strong clear vhf signal in the Chicago area, Sportsvision required a special box with a separate antenna installed on your roof just to watch one station that only offered Sox games. It would be like owning a gas station in 1982 and replacing all your pumps with charging stations because in 40 years people will have electric cars. I guess that would be considered "ahead of it's time. " Excellent analogy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lip Man 1 Posted November 13, 2022 Author Share Posted November 13, 2022 By the way the driving force behind SportsVision wasn't JR...it was Eddie Einhorn. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Mighty Mite Posted November 13, 2022 Share Posted November 13, 2022 (edited) 20 hours ago, ThirdGen said: The other thing people conveniently forget in their desire to bash Reinsdorf is that it wasn't a choice between pay TV and free TV at the time. It was a choice between pay TV and virtually no TV. The Sox weren't on shitty TV 44 because they wanted to be as far down the UHF dial as they could be, they were there because no one else wanted to broadcast Sox games. When 44 went scrambled Pay TV movies, the Sox were screwed. Veeck talked about it constantly his last year of ownership, and even signed a deal hat to move many Sox games to cable during the Debartolo courtship. The Blackhawks were in the same boat for their road games and made the same move. And of course the Tribune buying the Cubs for programming during the first year of the new Sox ownership sealed their relationship. The real mistake was dumping channel 9 for 32 in the late sixties and ceding 9 to the Cubs full time. That move to UHF32 in 1968 was another move that led to Chicago eventually becoming a Cubs town. Very few homes and families had TVs that had UHF and here go the White Sox leaving WGN for a UHF station that no one could watch. Can't blame JR for that one but if he was the owner at the time, he probably would have made the same move. I've read that Jack Brickhouse just about begged the Sox to stay with WGN but to no avail. Edited November 13, 2022 by The Mighty Mite Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WBWSF Posted November 13, 2022 Share Posted November 13, 2022 4 hours ago, The Mighty Mite said: That move to UHF32 in 1968 was another move that led to Chicago eventually becoming a Cubs town. Very few homes and families had TVs that had UHF and here go the White Sox leaving WGN for a UHF station that no one could watch. Can't blame JR for that one but if he was the owner at the time, he probably would have made the same move. I've read that Jack Brickhouse just about begged the Sox to stay with WGN but to no avail. Most owners would have gone to Channel 32 in 1968. Channel 32 gave the White Sox $1 million dollars a year. Channel 9 wanted to keep the White Sox but only offered $350,000 a year. There were other factors involved also. The move to Channel 32 came at a bad time in White Sox history. The teams of 1968-1970 were 3 of the worse teams in franchise history. Also, not too many White Sox fans liked TV announcer Jack Drees. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Mighty Mite Posted November 13, 2022 Share Posted November 13, 2022 24 minutes ago, WBWSF said: Most owners would have gone to Channel 32 in 1968. Channel 32 gave the White Sox $1 million dollars a year. Channel 9 wanted to keep the White Sox but only offered $350,000 a year. There were other factors involved also. The move to Channel 32 came at a bad time in White Sox history. The teams of 1968-1970 were 3 of the worse teams in franchise history. Also, not too many White Sox fans liked TV announcer Jack Drees. I was going to mention those 3 years which was painful for me as I became a fan in 1952 and never experienced a losing season by a White Sox team. The funny thing about it is that I was in Vietnam all of 1968 but still followed the Sox in the daily Stars and Stripes Newspaper. I remember one day when the Sox made the front page as they had a photo and caption of Hoyt Wilhelm breaking the record for most appearances by a pitcher. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonofaRoache Posted November 13, 2022 Share Posted November 13, 2022 After this free agency the Cubs are probably gonna pass us. Let that sink in. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lip Man 1 Posted November 14, 2022 Author Share Posted November 14, 2022 9 hours ago, The Mighty Mite said: That move to UHF32 in 1968 was another move that led to Chicago eventually becoming a Cubs town. Very few homes and families had TVs that had UHF and here go the White Sox leaving WGN for a UHF station that no one could watch. Can't blame JR for that one but if he was the owner at the time, he probably would have made the same move. I've read that Jack Brickhouse just about begged the Sox to stay with WGN but to no avail. Brickhouse had a meeting with Sox owner Art Allyn and one of the things he told him was he felt that at some point in time WGN's signal would be available not just in the Chicago area but across the Midwest. In that regard Jack was a visionary. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThirdGen Posted November 14, 2022 Share Posted November 14, 2022 19 hours ago, The Mighty Mite said: That move to UHF32 in 1968 was another move that led to Chicago eventually becoming a Cubs town. Very few homes and families had TVs that had UHF and here go the White Sox leaving WGN for a UHF station that no one could watch. Can't blame JR for that one but if he was the owner at the time, he probably would have made the same move. I've read that Jack Brickhouse just about begged the Sox to stay with WGN but to no avail. We had one TV in the house that could get UHF, and it was the best and newest (color and everything!). If someone else was using it, no Sox for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThirdGen Posted November 14, 2022 Share Posted November 14, 2022 10 hours ago, Lip Man 1 said: Brickhouse had a meeting with Sox owner Art Allyn and one of the things he told him was he felt that at some point in time WGN's signal would be available not just in the Chicago area but across the Midwest. In that regard Jack was a visionary. I met Jack once and asked him for an autograph and he spent thirty minutes talking Sox baseball with me (he was exclusively Cubs at that point). Wonderful man and he clearly never lost his love of the Sox. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WBWSF Posted November 14, 2022 Share Posted November 14, 2022 20 minutes ago, ThirdGen said: I met Jack once and asked him for an autograph and he spent thirty minutes talking Sox baseball with me (he was exclusively Cubs at that point). Wonderful man and he clearly never lost his love of the Sox. Brickhouse was the man who made sure Veeck had enough money to buy the White Sox the second time. Brickhouse introduced Veeck to a Chicago Business man who provided the extra money for Veeck to buy the White Sox. Brickhouse didn't want the White Sox to leave Chicago. Brickhouse always thought it was wrong that the Chicago Cardinals left Chicago for St. Louis. He didn't want the White Sox to leave also. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThirdGen Posted November 14, 2022 Share Posted November 14, 2022 23 hours ago, Lip Man 1 said: By the way the driving force behind SportsVision wasn't JR...it was Eddie Einhorn. Everybody seems to include the move to pay TV on their "reasons I hate JR" list, but yes, Einhorn was running the show when it came down to media rights as that was his strong background. I assume the move was also supported by JR. EE was way more visible than JR the first 5 years or so of their ownership IIRC. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Mighty Mite Posted November 14, 2022 Share Posted November 14, 2022 (edited) 6 hours ago, ThirdGen said: We had one TV in the house that could get UHF, and it was the best and newest (color and everything!). If someone else was using it, no Sox for me. We were also one of the first homes on our block to have a UHF TV, I want to say it was 1965 right before I enlisted in the USAF. My Dad wasn't a baseball fan and no one knew the Sox would be on UHF in 1968, we just needed a new TV and my Dad was always up on the latest in electronics so our new 19 inch TV had UHF. Edited November 14, 2022 by The Mighty Mite 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
South Side Fireworks Man Posted November 14, 2022 Share Posted November 14, 2022 7 minutes ago, The Mighty Mite said: We were also one of the first homes on our block to have a UHF TV, I want to say it was 1965 right before I enlisted in the USAF. My Dad wasn't a baseball fan and no one knew the Sox would be on UHF in 1968, we just needed a new TV and my Dad was always up on the latest in electronics so our new 19 inch TV had UHF. The only UHF station in Chicago at the time was Ch. 26, where you could watch Bullfights and Professional Wrestling! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Grinder Posted November 14, 2022 Share Posted November 14, 2022 An;other thing JR did to piss off Bill Veeck was saying "We are going to run a class organization" implying that Veeck didnt. IIRC Bill then went to cub games. I swear JR is a one big PR gaffe 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saufley Posted November 14, 2022 Share Posted November 14, 2022 6 minutes ago, The Grinder said: An;other thing JR did to piss off Bill Veeck was saying "We are going to run a class organization" implying that Veeck didnt. IIRC Bill then went to cub games. I swear JR is a one big PR gaffe JR could have learned from Bill Veeck! His loss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Grinder Posted November 14, 2022 Share Posted November 14, 2022 37 minutes ago, Saufley said: JR could have learned from Bill Veeck! His loss. It makes you wonder the What Ifs, as in what if Ed Debartolo would have bought our Sox? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
35thstreetswarm Posted November 14, 2022 Share Posted November 14, 2022 On 11/13/2022 at 4:41 PM, SonofaRoache said: After this free agency the Cubs are probably gonna pass us. Let that sink in. That would be crazy if it was true, but it almost certainly isn't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pcq Posted November 15, 2022 Share Posted November 15, 2022 On 11/13/2022 at 11:49 AM, The Mighty Mite said: That move to UHF32 in 1968 was another move that led to Chicago eventually becoming a Cubs town. Very few homes and families had TVs that had UHF and here go the White Sox leaving WGN for a UHF station that no one could watch. Can't blame JR for that one but if he was the owner at the time, he probably would have made the same move. I've read that Jack Brickhouse just about begged the Sox to stay with WGN but to no avail. People had uhf but the reception was like watching from Mars. That's why Sox fans started wearing tin foil hats. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonofaRoache Posted November 15, 2022 Share Posted November 15, 2022 2 hours ago, 35thstreetswarm said: That would be crazy if it was true, but it almost certainly isn't. On paper it will be a lot closer than people realize. Especially if they get Abreu, Correa, and a good OF with that money. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fathom Posted November 15, 2022 Share Posted November 15, 2022 27 minutes ago, SonofaRoache said: On paper it will be a lot closer than people realize. Especially if they get Abreu, Correa, and a good OF with that money. And two starting pitchers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonofaRoache Posted November 15, 2022 Share Posted November 15, 2022 11 minutes ago, fathom said: And two starting pitchers I am confident in only one of our starting pitchers going into next season and that is Cease. I'm not sure what we are getting from Gio or Kopech. Not sure if Lynn is gonna bounce back or be another DK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lip Man 1 Posted November 15, 2022 Author Share Posted November 15, 2022 5 hours ago, The Grinder said: An;other thing JR did to piss off Bill Veeck was saying "We are going to run a class organization" implying that Veeck didnt. IIRC Bill then went to cub games. I swear JR is a one big PR gaffe JR never said that, Eddie Einhorn did. And when I interviewed Mike Veeck he said JR actually apologized to the Veeck family for that comment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flash Posted November 15, 2022 Share Posted November 15, 2022 On 11/13/2022 at 5:41 PM, SonofaRoache said: After this free agency the Cubs are probably gonna pass us. Let that sink in. Couldn't agree more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Parkman Posted November 15, 2022 Share Posted November 15, 2022 (edited) I still wonder if the Sox will be in Chicago past this decade. Even though I think Grandpa Ricketts is a turd, the Cubs are actually run like a competent, large market team. The Sox are going to start bleeding fans whether to apathy or jumping ship. If I had a kid I wouldn't want them to be a Sox fan. Edited November 15, 2022 by Jack Parkman 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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