I also feel it was an absolute joy to watch that game last night. It is amazing that a game of such magnitude, with 19 runs scoring and all manner of turning points, was played in 2 hours and 36 minutes. A game like that today would be passing the four hour mark and no matter how exciting would feel interminable. Everything about that broadcast was good, from the crisp play, the spare broadcasting, the absence of endless messages across the screen, even the lack of instant replay. Today a guy hits a grounder to shortstop and we have to watch it again from six different angles.
When I was a kid growing up all the other kids always talked about the ground ball that hit Tony Kubek in the throat, and I had never seen it. Last night was the first time, and it was a really wicked hop. And I always wondered about Mantle's dive back to first, and it sure was a split second play. It was just a game for the ages.
Did anyone notice that when Bob Prince interviewed nearly every player after the game, he never asked Roberto Clemente to come forward? I'm sure they were afraid to have an hispanic player who spoke broken English come to the microphone. It was a sign of the times.
And I too noticed around the sixth inning or so that nobody seemed to have struck out. Sure enough, the game went nine innings without even one strikeout. Simply an mazing game of baseball.
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