1992 ISC World Tournament title game on YouTube

Prime Sports televised broadcast of ISC World Tournament title game – NHCD, Sioux City, IA vs. Victoria Payless, British Columbia, August 23, 1992

We are pleased to be able to share this vintage fastball classic with our readers, courtesy of Dave Birnie of Ontario Canada who taped it off of his satellite dish back in 1992 when it was broadcast. (Dave has been a prominent organizer of Masters Fastball in Ontario, Canada, and is also a champion javelin thrower.)

“I taped it back in the day of the 10 foot satellite dishes, remember those big ugly things ? I don’t recall much about Prime Network other then it was one of many sports channels available on satellite. I noticed the game was on and decided to tape it on my VHS. For some reason I never threw it out and I’m glad I didn’t, after all these years it must have value even if it’s just sentimental value to those that actually played in the game and to those of us who love the history of the game. Even the 20 year old commercials are interesting!”

Editor’s notes:

Fastball fans, myself included, are grateful that he pressed the “record” button on that VHS machine, nearly 20 years ago, and managed to preserve the tape. To my knowledge, it is the earliest televised broadcast of an ISC World Tournament title game in existence — pre-dating Dave Blackburn’s streaming video productions by more than a decade. Like Dave Blackburn, I attended the game in person, sitting with my good friend Allan Ruegsegger and his wife Merry Ann. (Our respective teams, the Vista Bombers and Long Beach Painters had been eliminated earlier in the tournament).

I won’t tell you how long it took for me to get the VHS tape digitized (Dave Birnie might!) but suffice to say, it was a while but with good reason — I wasn’t going to send this tape out to a service and hope that it came back. I finally found a company here in Southern California that would let me wait while he recorded it onto a DVD. “It’s like finding a Rembrandt in the attic. “

Dave Blackburn and I talked about the broadcast when re-tracing the history of ISC broadcasts for the “Game Changer” story about Dave that ran earlier this summer. (See Dave Blackburn’s recollections below)

The broadcast features at least four ISC Hall of Famers, including the two starting pitchers, Michael White and Mike Piechnik, along with Mark Sorenson and Jody Hennigar. Michael White is, of course, one of coaches for the USA Women’s team that just returned from the Pan American games in Guadalajara, Mexico with gold medals. Now, his players on that team — who were born about the time the game was played can see him pitch. One can almost hear their comments “….”Hey coach….you really did pitch….and pretty well!”

As Dave Blackburn notes in his comments shared below, both this 1992 broadcast, and his first streaming broadcasts (audio) took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, and bear the fingerprints and support of ISC Executive Director Ken Hackmeister, who hosted one of the premier fastpitch tournaments in the 1980’s and 1990’s (Pioneer Days), and connected with (former Utah Jazz owner), the late Larry Miller, who played and supported men’s and youth fastpitch in the Salt Lake City area.

ISC Commissioner and Streaming Media and Broadcast Executive Producer Dave Blackburn shares his recollections about the 1992 broadcast:

The 1992 ISC World Tournament championship game did not air live, and was delayed about a week until after the game was played.

Larry Miller was the owner of a regional cable company, that among other things, broadcast Jazz NBA games. I found out about the Championship Game broadcast details on the specific satellite that was going to later carry the game, and the broadcast time, when I attended the 1992 ISC World Tournament in Salt Lake City.

We would normally not be able to pick up on that obscure sports network on local commercial cable TV services in LA. Paul Rubin happened to be in LA on business on the evening of the air date, so we walked one block from where I lived in Manhattan Beach, to Sunset Bar and Grill located at the foot of the Manhattan Beach Pier. With much wrangling and begging, we were able to convince the Bar Manager to tweak the Satellite settings so that Paul and I could watch two future ISC Hall of Famers: Whitey & Peaches, hurl for Sioux City & Victoria, for all the marbles. I had seen the game in the park, live as it happened, but I was still excited about later seeing what it looked like on television.

There were a few ironies of my recollections of watching that specific game via satellite. The SLC Cottonwood Complex was the site of the ’92 ISC Championship, and also the site of the ISC’s first experimental streaming media telecast 9 years later.

Ron Chambers was the Color Commentator for that 92 TV broadcast, and because of hearing him in that game, he became my choice to offer the ISC streaming play-by-play role to in 2001.

Ron Chamber’s broadcast partner for that 92 TV game, was Steve Klauke. I had heard Steve announce lots of fastpitch games as I was growing up, since he was the voice of the Aurora, Illinois Home Savings and Loan fastpitch team. I lived just far enough / close enough to Aurora to make hearing the radio broadcasts acceptable when the wind blowing in the right direction.

The final irony was that Paul Rubin, who joined me to watch that game, was who I chose to introduce me, when I joined Whitey and Peaches in the ISC Hall of Fame in the summer of 2011.

So that game and the decision to broadcast it by Larry Miller, was an inspiration to my conceptual framework that spawned what is now ISC TV.

As so, without further adieu, here is the game:

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