Celebrating Baseball, Trying to Get the Ad Just Right, and Keeping in Touch

How ya doon?

Today marks the completion of the Scotch Tape Box History Series. Last time around, I shared the boring box that Scotch moved towards, during the period when the rest of the advertising world (and the Western World) was moving towards an explosion of color and imagery. Scotch then stayed with that box style, with minor modifications and variations, for at least 15 years, regardless of tape size or item number.

Following that - and I may have missed a design or two along the way, particularly after 1980, a period I don't generally look for tapes from, and during which I was not buying new tapes. But anyway, the next - and last - example I have is the starkest change of all, and even did away with the band of scotch plaid which had been present all the way back since 1948. In fact, it did away with just about everything, and featured a solid black box with the word "Scotch" in silver.

Ecch. What an ignominious end. The word "Scotch" barely appears anywhere else on the box (only in tiny legal type), replaced as a company name by "Magnetic Audio/Video Products Division of 3M".

<a bit of a plug - the tape housed in the box scanned above does happen to include some of the  recordings I made for my 1997 opus "The Many Moods of Bob", available free at that link.>

I'm thinking that now I might move towards sharing some of the other boxes which I consider to be particularly interesting/common/rare/whatever. Any thoughts on this?

And now...

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With baseball back in full swing, albeit with only 37% of the games scheduled and 0% of the fans present, I thought it might be perfect time to break out a really nice tape that I've owned for decades - it's actually part of the set of reels that I purchased that had belonged to the family of Merigail Moreland, although it has only a couple of moments which make it clear that it's part of that collection, and nothing of Merigail.

In fact, most of the tape is taken up by recordings of a key baseball game in Chicago history - the night the White Sox clinched the American League pennant, for what was then the first time in 40 years, in 1959.

(Now granted, this is not as special as, say, a Cubs pennant winning broadcast, or, say, a broadcast of a last place Cubs team losing a game. We are, after all, only talking the American League here. But it's nice, anyway.)

This is nowhere near the entire game, and due to sections of it having been erased with other material, it's not even a solid nonstop chunk of the game. However, the end of the game is here, and - perhaps the most interesting part - the last 24 minutes or so is the post-game coverage.

The lead broadcaster here is the immortal Jack Brickhouse, beloved among Chicagoans of at least age 50 or more, and this would have to have been on WGN. I don't think there's anything else I need to say!

Download: Jack Brickhouse, et al - White Sox vs. Cleveland - 9-22-59 - White Sox Win Pennant
Play:

Update, 8/23: Long time reader and Frequent commenter Eric Paddon has listened to this entire chunk of tape and has written three comments expanding on its contents. For one thing, it IS "a solid nonstop chunk of the game", despite what I wrote, but there are other bits of information, too. I admit to not re-listening to the whole thing when I captured it digitally, last month, and was going by memory. 

Anyway, I deeply appreciate ALL of his comments over the years, and encourage you to read them here to fill in a few more bits of information. 

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Next up, an audio letter. This 30 minute example is fairly pedestrian as these things go, but there's a certain fascination for some people, me included, in hearing the ramblings of someone - or in this case, two someones ("dad and sis") - talking to a loved one who is far away, plus, there is a sort of horrible moment during the tape, which I'll explain.

But first, I'll confirm that you really are listening to the correct item: this one starts in a unique fashion, with bird-tweeting sounds, followed by comments about birds.

Then there's the moment... well, a unique aspect of this tape that is actually fairly chilling. There is a mention at one point about the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, and I certainly assumed, at that moment, that this tape was recorded at some point soon after that tragic event. But NO. At another point on the tape, it becomes clear that the date is August 12, 1967, and listening back to the King mention, is also becomes clear that the speaker is - honest to God - simply making a prediction, more or less as fact and certainly without any rancor or emotion, that King will be assassinated at some point. He doesn't say, as I thought at first, "when they assassinated...", instead, he says "when they assassinate....".

Wow. What an unintended insight into the thoughts and views of some people during the mid 1960's.

Download: Audio Letter from Dad and Sis - 8-12-67
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Next up, here's something fun: It's some radio guy making multiple attempts to record an ad for an end-of-year closeout sale at a local Fresno car dealership, presumably in the summer of 1963. There are multiple different (but similar) ads attempted, and the reader makes several attempts to get them right, breaking down repeatedly along the way. There's a bit of fun in the copy - some understated humor and a sense of making fun of themselves. I find this highly enjoyable.

Download: Trying to Record End-of-Season Ads for Fresno Motor Sales, 1963
Play:

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For my "very short reels" sample this week, I again pulled one out at random, and it turned out to be an ad for a local watering hole in Toledo, known as "The Distillery", an ad to be aired on WJZE, which was then on 106.5 FM - it's since migrated to lower on the dial and changed formats. This ad is date 3-20-97.

Download: "The Distillery" Ad - WJZE - 3-20-97
Play: