April 29, 1961: "ABC Wide World of Sports" Premieres

April 29, 1961: ABC Wide World of Sports premieres. The first events it covers are 2 of America's premier track & field meets: The Pennsylvania Relay Carnival, a.k.a. the Penn Relays, at Franklin Field on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia; and the Drake Relays, at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.

By the nature of its name, the show covers sports from not just all over America, but all over the world. This included sports often seen in the Olympic Games, like track & field, swimming, cycling, and Winter Olympic sports like ski racing, ski jumping, figure skating and speed skating. Lots of auto racing: The Indianapolis 500, NASCAR, and Grand Prix and Formula 1 events from Europe. Sometimes, there would be oddball competitions, like "The World Lumberjack Championships." (It's the kind of thing that can't really be explained: You have to see it to believe it.)

The traditional North American sports were usually not shown. Baseball? Only the annual Little League World Series and the College World Series. American football? No: ABC did show college games on Autumn Saturdays, often before WWOS, but as part of a separate broadcast package; and were the 1st network to broadcast the American Football League. Basketball? Only the Harlem Globetrotters. Hockey? Maybe the amateur World Championships, which the U.S. almost never got far in. (NBC was usually the network broadcasting the NHL in those days.)

Boxing? Yes, but usually on a delay of a few days. Horse racing? Yes, including the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing: The Kentucky Derby in Louisville, the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore, and the Belmont Stakes just outside New York City. And other major horse races, such as the Santa Anita Derby outside Los Angeles. Golf? Yes, as ABC, then as now, owned the rights to the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship.

From the beginning, the host was Jim McKay. He liked to say that the two best sports to cover were horse racing and golf, because they were the sports with the best stories. He was wrong that they were the two best sports -- after all, golf is not a sport -- but I loved his reasons.

The show's introduction was narrated by McKay, and written by Stanley Ralph Ross, who later wrote for the TV shows Batman and The Monkees, and co-created the 1975-79 Wonder Woman TV show:

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport: The thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat, the human drama of athletic competition! This is ABC's Wide World of Sports!

The show hosted a number of U.S. TV firsts:

* 1961: Wimbledon (which has been exclusively on NBC since 1969), the Little League World Series, the Indianapolis 500, the British Open, and the 1st sporting event behind the Iron Curtain televised in the U.S.: A U.S. vs. Soviet Union track meet.

* 1962: The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Final (on CBS since 1982), the Grey Cup (the Canadian Football League championship game), and the Daytona 500. That year, with no knowledge that the record would happen, the show also broadcast the Los Angeles Invitational track meet at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, at which Jim Beatty ran the 1st indoor sub-4-minute mile.

* 1967: The 1st color broadcast of the Monaco Grand Prix.

For many Americans, it was their first exposure to soccer beyond their local clubs and school teams. It would broadcast highlights from the World Cup, the European Championships, and England's FA Cup Final.

The show turned several figures into heroes in our country as well as in theirs. Boxers like Italy's Nino Benvenuti and Nigeria's Dick Tiger; gymnasts like the Soviets' Olga Korbut and Romania's Nadia Comăneci; auto racers like Scotland's Jackie Stewart, who became a commentator for WWOS; and tennis players like Australia's Rod Laver, Margaret Court and Evonne Goolagong.

And then there was Vinko Bogataj, the Slovenian whose failed ski jump at a meet in Germany in 1970 became the clip the show used in its opening montage when it wanted to illustrated "the agony of defeat."

When the show was preparing to celebrate its 20th Anniversary in 1981, they found him, and invited him to come to America -- not an easy thing to do, since Slovenia was then part of Yugoslavia, a Communist country. He was long retired from competition, a ski instructor, a forklift operator, and a painter, and had no idea that he was famous in America. When he was introduced at the anniversary dinner, he got the longest standing ovation of anyone -- even Muhammad Ali, who asked him for his autograph.

In 1979, ESPN went on the air, and began to cover the kind of events, every day, that Wide World covered on Saturdays and Sundays. ABC saw the writing on the wall, and bought ESPN in 1984. With this in mind, Wide World of Sports became more and more redundant, and it was canceled, its final edition airing on January 3, 1998. In 2006, ABC folded its ABC Sports Division, and made ESPN, effectively, that. Jim McKay died in 2008.

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April 29, 1961 was a Saturday. Football was out of season. The NBA and NHL seasons had ended a few days earlier. These Major League Baseball games were played that day, and, of course, none of them were broadcast on ABC Wide World of Sports:

* The New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Indians, 4-2 at Yankee Stadium. Yogi Berra hit a home run, while Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris each went 1-for-3, Maris adding an RBI, in support of Ralph Terry.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Washington Senators, 5-0 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Brooks Robinson went 3-for-5, and Milt Pappas pitched a 6-hit shutout.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds, 6-3 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Roberto Clemente went 1-for-4 with a 2-RBI double, and Frank Robinson went 1-for-4 with a 2-run home run.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Boston Red Sox, 9-5 at Tiger Stadium. Carl Yastrzemski went 3-for-5 with 3 RBIs, and Al Kaline went 1-for-4.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Chicago Cubs, 9-4 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Ernie Banks went 1-for-4 with a solo home run.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Milwaukee Braves, 7-3 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Willie Mays went 0-for-4, but Willie McCovey went 3-for-5 with 2 home runs and 4 RBIs, and Orlando Cepeda went 2-for-5 with a solo home run. Hank Aaron went 0-for-4.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-2 at Busch Stadium (formerly Sportsman's Park) in St. Louis. Stan Musial did not play for the Cardinals in this game.

* The Kansas City Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 13-9 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium.

* And the Los Angeles Angels beat the Minnesota Twins, 4-1 at the West Coast version of Wrigley Field. The American League's version of the Angels replaced the Pacific Coast League's version, which were a Cubs farm team, and 1920s Cubs owner William Wrigley Jr. built their ballpark to look like the one in Chicago, and named the L.A. park Wrigley Field before he gave that name to the Chicago park.

Also, Arsenal lost to Everton, 4-1 at Goodison Park in Liverpool.