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O'Donnell: Brickhouse, Boudreau, Kingman and 'Smitt' - with a touch of Costas

IF THE MLB NETWORK wanted to offer a fleeting field of relief from the global disruptions this week, it succeeded.

The diamond web replayed the WGN-Channel 9 telecast of the 1979 work of the wind that resulted in a 23-22 win by the Philadelphia Phillies over the Cubs at Wrigley Field.

"Still a candidate for the most memorable MLB regular-season game ever played," Bob Costas told The Daily Herald Friday.

"About 10 years ago, Tom Verducci and I did a series for 'The MLB' of 'The Twenty Greatest Games' ever played.

"We didn't choose them, but that game was No. 20 and the only regular-season game on the list. Larry Bowa was the only guest on that show.

" 'The (Ryne) Sandberg Game' didn't make it, which kind of surprised me. No. 1 was Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, the Carlton Fisk home run game."

Long balls short, on a Thursday afternoon at Wrigley, with a lofty breeze gusting to 30 mph and Peaches and Herb's "Reunited" the No. 1 song in the nation, Danny Ozark's Phillies and the Cubs of Herman Franks combined for 127 at-bats, 50 hits and 11 home runs.

Philadelphia led 21-9 at one point.

In the top of the 10th with the game at 22-22, Bruce Sutter let a 3-and-2 split-finger linger a split too long.

Mike Schmidt planted the game-winner somewhere north.

Schmidt finished with two home runs.

Dave Kingman - the Mount Prospect-spawned son of longtime United Airlines executive Art Kingman - had three.

Jack Brickhouse worked innings 1 through 3 and 7 to 10 solo on Channel 9.

Lou Boudreau was alone for 4 through 6.

A late at-bat by Kingman was lost to the video gremlins. (He flew out to center with two on in the eighth.)

Conclusions:

• Brickhouse remains the greatest radio-TV sportscaster in the history of Chicago broadcasting. Like any icon of improv, the man recognized rhythm, variance and moment;

• On any TV baseball production - hello 2020 - simpler is better. The art can reside in the silence between the pitches, the clarity of the frame;

• Kingman, like Dick Allen, could have owned Chicago. If only both hadn't marched to the beat of such self-sabotaging drummers - or at least had more effective imaging consultants;

• Pete Rose not in Cooperstown greatly undermines the credibility of Baseball's Hall of Fame. With legalized gambling coming to a box seat near you, the demi-moralists guarding the doors are so hypocritical. The man was a star;

• Boudreau, in his broadcast prime, was magnificent. His knowledge of the game was always unquestioned; history has forgotten how pleasantly conversational his voice could be.

Even if, to his last WGN breath, 'The Good Kid" always pronounced the last name of the Philadelphia slugger, "Smitt."

Or as he might say, "I mean, 'Smitt.'"

COSTAS, INCIDENTALLY, WAS SET to begin his 2020 MLB Network assignments with Joe Maddon's Angels at Texas's new Globe Life Field March 31.

Now that's not going to happen.

This spring also marks the 40th anniversary of the end of his 20-game stint as Channel 9's Bulls play-by-play man alongside the great Johnny Kerr.

"My career was in motion from KMOX in St. Louis to NBC when Rod Thorn helped me get the Bulls job," Costas said.

"We'd met a few years before when he was head coach of the ABA's Spirits of St. Louis and I was working play-by-play.

"I think the Bulls went 3-17 in the road games I did.

"So I wasn't exactly 'the answer' for the franchise."

STREET-BEATIN': With cable sports a vast wasteland, Comcast and other carriers are certain to offer future rebates over those $20 monthly extra charges, correct? (And Mike Pence will shelter in place with Kamala Harris.) ...

Anthony Rizzo and his Family Foundation cannot receive enough praise for the crisis support they have been providing to staff and patients at Chicago's Lurie Children's Hospital. (Wouldn't it be nice if other sports zillionaires and team owners "adopted" front-line personnel at hospitals and medical centers as America battles COVID-19?) ...

Neil Funk deserves a dignified and appropriate farewell at the United Center whenever the Bulls resume play. (He didn't cause the franchise's outrageous disconnect with Jim Durham back in 1991.) ...

Are all of the recalled visions and boundless chatter about Michael Jordan merely a suppressed wish that the nation had a superhero who conquers all to believe in once again? (Harry S. Truman once fit the bill - years after the reality of his faltered presidency.) ...

Caton Bredar (Barrington High, Class of '83) will be moving back to the national spotlight as NBC Sports picks up increased coverage of live thoroughbred racing from TVG. (She was once a pony girl at Arlington Park; grandfather Ted Atkinson was a Hall of Fame jockey and later senior steward for the state of Illinois.) ...

And one of Tim Weigel's favorite reads for shut-ins was Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Márquez's "Love in the Time of Cholera." A main theme is whether the passion of romance can end in a truly enduring love - so it's kind of a Ryan Pace-Mitch Trubisky thing.

• Jim O'Donnell's Sports & Media column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.

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