USA Thursday Game of the Week

The USA Thursday Game of the Week is a former television program that broadcast Major League Baseball games on the USA Network. The network no longer airs sporting events. Sister network NBC Sports Network is the primary cable outlet of NBC Sports.

Background

In 1979, 22 teams (all but the Atlanta Braves, Houston Astros, New York Mets, and St. Louis Cardinals) took part in a one-year cable deal with UA-Columbia^[2] (then owners of the USA Network). The deal involved the airing of a Thursday night Game of the Week^[3] in markets at least 50 miles (80 km) from a major league park.^[4] The deal earned Major League Baseball less than $500,000, but led to a new two-year contract for 40–45 games^[5] per season.^[6] The program ran through the 1983 season.^[7][8]

With USA's Thursday night coverage, it eliminated ABC (who was broadcasting Monday night games at the time) as the exclusive national, prime time television franchise for Major League Baseball.^[9]

Coverage history

The series began April 26, 1979^[10] with a doubleheader: Cleveland at Kansas City^[11] (Jim Woods and Bud Harrelson announcing) followed by Baltimore at California^[12] (Monte Moore and Maury Wills announcing^[13]). The second game of the night was typically, based out of the West Coast. The games were usually blacked out^[14][15] in the competing teams' cities.^[16] Once in a while, when USA did a repeat^[17] of the telecast late at night, local cities were allowed to show the rerun.

From 1980–1981, Jim Woods^[18] and Nelson Briles (replacing Bud Harrelson) did the early games (except for a game at Montreal on October 2, 1980, which reunited Jim Woods and Ned Martin, with whom Woods had paired on Boston Red Sox radio broadcasts in the 1970s), while Monte Moore and Wes Parker (replacing Maury Wills) called the late game.^[19]

With USA's coverage of the 1981 Stanley Cup Playoffs, it marked the first time that there was "blanket" American television coverage of the NHL playoffs. In other words, more often than not that, whenever a game was played it was televised on a national outlet (whether it was broadcast or cable). USA however, didn't televise Game 1 of the playoff series between Philadelphia Flyers and Calgary Flames (April 16) because they were instead, broadcasting a baseball game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Philadelphia Phillies. Meanwhile, they also skipped Games 2 through 6 (on April 17, 22 and 24) of the Philadelphia–Calgary series because of their coverage of the NBA playoffs. USA also didn't televise Games 2 and 5 of the playoff series between the Calgary Flames and Minnesota North Stars (April 30 and May 7 respectively) because of baseball games involving the Minnesota Twins vs. the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers vs. the Philadelphia Phillies respectively.

In 1982, doubleheaders^[20] did not start until June 17. Prior to the doubleheaders starting, Monte Moore and Wes Parker did the individual game until then. When the doubleheaders finally began,^[21] Moore and Parker moved over to the late game for the rest of the year. Meanwhile, Eddie Doucette (replacing Jim Woods) and Nelson Briles^[22] were assigned to call the early game.

USA continued with the plan of not starting doubleheaders until June in the final year of the package in 1983. Steve Zabriskie and Al Albert filled in for Eddie Doucette in September 1982 (Steve Grad also occasionally substituted) while Albert replaced Doucette for a game or more in 1983.

USA's coverage became a casualty of the new $1.2 billion TV contract between Major League Baseball, ABC and NBC beginning in 1984 and lasting through 1989. One of the provisions to the new deal was that local telecasts opposite network games had to be eliminated.^[23]

Memorable moments

One particular game of note was a Los Angeles Dodgers/St. Louis Cardinals game in 1981 (the last game before the strike^[24]).^[25] The game in question featured Fernando Valenzuela picking up his eighth consecutive win to start the season. Valenzuela gave up a home run in the ninth to tie the game 1–1, but Pedro Guerrero hit one himself in the bottom of the ninth for the win.

One year later, during a September 16 game between the San Diego Padres and the San Francisco Giants,^[26] Darrell Evans went 3-for-5 with four RBI in Giants' 9–3 victory.

Announcers

• Al Albert (1982–1983)
• Nelson Briles (1980–1983)
• Eddie Doucette^[27] (1982–1983)
• Steve Grad (1982)
• Bud Harrelson (1979)
• Ned Martin (1980)
• Monte Moore (1979–1983)
• Wes Parker (1980–1983)
• Maury Wills (1979)
• Jim Woods (1979–1981)
• Steve Zabriskie^[28] (1982–1983)

See also

• Major League Baseball on cable television
• Thursday Night Baseball

References