List of American League Championship Series broadcasters

The following is a list of the television and radio networks and announcers that have broadcast American League Championship Series games over the years.

Television

2010s

Notes

*The 1990 postseason started on a Thursday, while World Series started on a Tuesday due to the brief lockout.

*In 1991, CBS didn't come on the air for baseball for weeknight LCS telecasts until 8:30 p.m. ET. Instead, they opted to show programming such as "Rescue 911" at 8 p.m. rather than a baseball pregame show. Also in 1991, CBS used Lesley Visser (AL) and Andrea Joyce (NL) as LCS reporters.

*In 1992, CBS used Lesley Visser (AL) and Jim Gray (NL) as LCS reporters. CBS' coverage of the 1992 LCS led to conflicts with the presidential debates that year. CBS didn't cover one of the debates because Game 4 of the ALCS, went into extra innings. By the time it ended, the debate was almost over. Over the course of Game 2 of the 1992 ALCS, Jim Kaat was stricken with a bad case of laryngitis. As a result, Johnny Bench had to come over from the CBS Radio booth and finish the game with Dick Stockton as a "relief analyst." There was talk that if Kaat's laryngitis did not get better, Don Drysdale was going to replace Kaat on TV for Game 3 while Bench would continue to work on CBS Radio.

*The 1994 American League Championship Series was planned to air on NBC. However, those plans were scrapped when a strike caused the entire postseason to be cancelled.

*The rather messy 1995 arrangement was courtesy of "The Baseball Network", which was Major League Baseball's in-house production facilities. ABC and NBC shared the same on-air graphics and even the microphone “flags” had the "Baseball Network" logo on it with the respective network logo. In addition, the first four games of both of the 1995 League Championship Series were regionally televised.

1980s

Notes

*In the early years of the League Championship Series, NBC typically televised a doubleheader on Saturday, a single game on Sunday (because of football coverage). They then, covered the weekday games with a 1.5 hour overlap, joining the second game in progress when the first one ended. NBC usually swapped announcer crews after Game 2.

*The Major League Baseball television contract at the time allowed a local TV station in the market of each competing team to also carry the LCS games. So, for example, Mets fans in New York could choose to watch either the NBC telecast or Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy and Ralph Kiner on WOR-TV.

urviving telecasts

For all of the League Championship Series telecasts spanning from 1969-1975, only Game 2 of the 1972 American League Championship Series (Oakland vs. Detroit) is known to exist [ [http://www.dbsforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=78232 Surviving World Series Telecasts] ] . However, the copy on the trade circuit of Game 2 of the 1972 ALCS is missing the Bert Campaneris-Lerrin LaGrow brawl. There are some instances where the only brief glimpse of telecast footage of an early LCS game can be seen in a surviving newscast from that night. For instance, the last out of the 1973 National League Championship Series as described by Jim Simpson was played on that night's "NBC Nightly News", but other than that, the entire game is gone. On the day the New York Mets and Baltimore Orioles wrapped up their respective League Championship Series in 1969, a feature story on the "CBS Evening News" showed telecast clips of the ALCS game (there's no original sound, just voiceover narration). This is all that likely remains of anything from that third game of the Orioles-Twins series.

While all telecasts of World Series games starting with 1975 are accounted for and exist, the LCS is still a spotty situation through the late 1970s:
*1976 ALCS - Only Game 5 from the ABC vault is known to exist.

*1976 NLCS - An off-air recording of Game 3, taped in the Portland market is the only game that is known to exist. Apparently, this copy which makes the trade circuit is the only extant version because a second-hand story says that the ABC vault copy has no sound.

*1977 - Major League Baseball has in the vault, Game 3 of the NLCS (from the Philadelphia Phillies' local NBC affiliate) and apparently has all of Game 4 of the NLCS. Also, both the WPIX and NBC versions of Game 5 of the ALCS (both of which are also out there in terms of off-air recordings) are known to exist. Earlier games of the NLCS and ALCS have not surfaced and may not exist in the vault.

*1978 - Trade collectors have all four games of the ALCS (the ABC version) but only Game 4 of the NLCS (again, the source copies are those taped by those at home).

Radio

From 1969-1975, there was no official national radio network coverage of the League Championship Series. NBC only had the national radio rights to the All-Star Game and World Series during this period. Instead, national coverage was provided by local team radio broadcasts being syndicated nationally over ad hoc networks.

2000s

1970s

Notes

*1972, 1973 and 1975 were years in which the participants' local broadcasts were syndicated.

1960s

ee also

*Major League Baseball on CBS Radio broadcasters
*Major League Baseball on ESPN Radio broadcasters

References

ources

* [http://www.sportsbroadcasthistory.com/forums/index.php?topic=153.0 1969-1975 MLB postseason TV schedule/announcers]
* [http://www.sportsbroadcasthistory.com/forums/index.php?topic=154.0 1976-1984 MLB postseason TV schedule/announcers]
* [http://www.sportsbroadcasthistory.com/forums/index.php?topic=155.0 1985-1993 MLB postseason TV schedule/announcers]
* [http://www.sportsbroadcasthistory.com/forums/index.php?topic=156.0 1995-2000 MLB postseason TV schedule/announcers]
* [http://www.sportsbroadcasthistory.com/forums/index.php?topic=157.0 2001-2006 MLB postseason TV schedule/announcers]
* [http://www.sportsbroadcasthistory.com/forums/index.php?topic=44.0 2007 MLB Playoff Announcer Lists (TV and Radio)]

External links

* [http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/history/postseason/mlb_lcs.jsp?feature=video League Championship Series Video]