Every baseball fan has heard of and possibly seen This Week in Baseball, the goofy show before the Fox game of the week which is an 80% subsidiary of the Pepsi corporation.  Sometimes it actually shows highlights from the previous week, but for the most part it features ruminations of players mic-ed up watching others highlights, features on newer players that aren't interesting (aside from Tim Hudson jumping out of a closet to scare Eddie Perez), and reflections on the past (which is conveniently crammed down our throats by the powers at MLB Corporate).  Oh, and they sometimes expound on how the game keeps kids out of poverty in poor countries and shady parts of LA.  Ok.

Well, it used to be a good show.  In fact, it used to be the only way normal people could get highlights outside of their local teams if they didn't want to pay fledgling cable networks.  This is the 30th year of This Week in Baseball and ESPN Classic has been airing olde tyme episodes showing us what we all long for in a highlights program.

If you can get past the wandering puns and bad jokes from Mel Allen, there's actually a great amount of content and large amount of highlights.  It gives a great view into who the teams to beat were back in the day, who was up and coming, and, heaven forbid, a little character to the players we just know as a series of percentages and crooked numbers.

The program started in 1977 and I caught a few in that year as well as 1978, then they skipped ahead and went straight into 1982 (which they were on all last week and most of the prior week).  Unfortunately, it isn't airing this week, so I can't tell you what happened the rest of the 1982 season, but it's a nice look at the Brewers outside of the rose-tinted glasses we sometimes see them through here in Milwaukee.  

Watching these shows, it gave me a better appreciation for how good the Angels were back in the day ... they seriously had a vaunted offense and a very solid pitching staff.   The Red Sox and Dodgers were frequent features on the show, as were the up and coming Orioles, surprising Pirates, and the hard luck Expos.  I can't tell you how interesting it was to have a feeling as to what a team was like long before I was ever interested in baseball.

Of the individual players, each time someone would be make a play in the field, it was like a list of former Brewers coaches (Dauer, Foli, Garner, Lopes) and other middling coaches around the league.  It was almost as if you hit terrible, you were guaranteed a coaching job later in your career.  

The actual play on the field was really fast, and all the players looked like this year's Pirates and Nationals:  mostly thin guys who could move around quite well.  This was just before the weightlifting revolution, and aside from Rickey Henderson, there were very few players who looked like they worked out at all.  JJ Hardy would be considered a big guy back then.

Also, the nicknames of Greg "The Bull" Luzinski and Ron "The Penguin" Cey were not unfounded.  They were goofy looking guys.

So if you have free time and ESPN classic, set it up to record, it's an interesting look.  With a little luck they'll start airing them again and pick up in mid-September 1982 and show a few more Brewers highlights.