Category: General Nonsense, Pointless Digressions, Wild World of Sports, Radio Geekery || By

ABC Photo Lab just processed several rolls of film from my trip to Dayton last month (yes, I am a relic), which reminds me that while I was in Ohio, I got to see a baseball game at Cincinnati's Great American Ball Park.

That's right: I have yet to set foot in PNC Park, but I have seen Cinci's. You may recall that I've also seen the Slippery Rock Sliders and I've seen the Washington Wild Things at least three times. Good Lord willing, I'll get to see the Altoona Curve this summer.

It's not that I don't like professional baseball. I love baseball. (Can't play it worth a darn. My lifetime batting average in the Liberty Borough Athletic Association was something like .002, and that's only because they don't assign negative numbers.)

But I'll be damned before I'll shell out $30, including parking and tickets, to watch the Pirates slide to the bottom of the standings every year. So I haven't seen a Pirates game in person since Three Rivers Stadium was torn down, and I haven't bought a single item of Pirates merchandise.

C'mon, they blew a six-run lead yesterday. They lost by double digits on Tuesday.

There's such a thing as rooting for your home team even when they're losing. After all, I'm a Serra High graduate. The whole concept of "winning games," let alone competing in playoffs, is still a novelty to most of our alumni.

Frankly, you should root for your home team when they're trying their best, but failing. But the Pirates aren't trying. Or, more specifically, the Pirates' ownership isn't trying.

You may wonder how the Nutting family sleeps at night. I say, "On a big pile of money."

They're pocketing money from the fans and the taxpayers, paying lip service to the idea of being competitive, and laughing all the way back to West Virginia, where they invest the profits in a chain of mediocre newspapers and contribute money to things like the "Oliver North for U.S. Senate Committee."

It's been 15 consecutive losing seasons, and they're working hard on No. 16, which would tie the all-time record by any professional sports team ... if you still consider what the Pirates are playing "professional" baseball.

The "P" on the caps doesn't stand for "Pittsburgh." It stands for "Painful," "Pitiful," or maybe just "Pathetic."

Give your money to the Nuttings. As for me, I'll drive to Altoona to see a baseball game, even with gas at four bucks a gallon.

Yeah, I'd almost rather see the sheiks of Saudi Arabia profit than the owners of the Pirates.

. . .

'This is Real ... This is 'Night Watch'': Last night, I was listening to a 1950s police detective interrogate a suspect caught with marijuana seeds and stems.

"How many roaches did you smoke?" he says. "Where do you usually go to get a blast?"

The dialogue could have come straight from Jack Webb and Dragnet, but this was a real detective in the Culver City, Calif., police department, who was recorded as part of a short-lived CBS Radio documentary series called "Night Watch."

The folks at First Generation Radio Archives have unearthed 20 rare episodes of the show and restored the audio.

Beginning in 1954, the Culver City police allowed a sound technician to ride along with an unmarked squad car and record their cases for later broadcast. If that sounds a little bit like the 1950s equivalent of "Cops," you're right.

But consider the difficulty of doing a show like this in the 1950s. The smallest portable tape recorders were the size of a suitcase; the engineer on "Night Watch," "police recorder" Don Reed, hid the microphone inside a flashlight casing.

I've uploaded the July 31, 1954 episode, "Boy, Go Home." It's 4.5 MB, even as an 8KHz MP3. I hope FGRA will forgive me; I wanted you to hear this thing as an enticement to buy the CDs.

It's not slam-bang exciting, but it is compelling.

It's also a little bit depressing. The calls you hear will be familiar to anyone who's a police officer today. There's a child neglect case, a battered woman who refuses to press charges against her spouse, and another battered woman who sets fire to her home to punish her husband.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

"Boy Go Home," from "Night Watch," CBS Radio, July 31, 1954
(4.5 MB, MP3)

. . .

A Little Decorum: My old cow-orker Scott Beveridge notes the newest trend in prom attire ... wearing a baseball cap with your tuxedo.

Egad. There was a time when people were proud to get a little bit dressed up. Even if your parents were poor mill hunkies, you tried to pretend that you had class.

At a funeral home the other night, I was fairly astonished to see someone in jeans and an untucked T-shirt ... and the jeans weren't even clean.

I don't want to go back to the days when women wore gloves and men wore a fedora to the beach, but "dressing up" for special occasions should be the rule, not the exception.

Baseball caps and tuxedos. Sweet sainted mother of Henry B. Klein!

. . .

To Do This Weekend: McKeesport City Fair continues tonight and Saturday from 6 to 11 p.m., with fireworks tomorrow at Helen Richey Field ... McKeesport Little Theater, 1614 Coursin St., presents two plays for children, "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp" and "Amy's Attic," at 7:30 p.m. today and tomorrow, and 2 p.m. on Sunday. Call (412) 673-1100 or visit the MLT website ... the U.S. Army Band performs in a free concert tonight at the bandshell at Renzie Park. Bring a blanket; the music starts at 7 p.m. ... Members of Firefighters Union Local 10 will be collecting money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association tomorrow at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Hartman Street in the East End. They need to raise $6,000, so bring some change!