WHDH-TV (defunct) - Sports Coverage

Sports Coverage

WHDH was television home of the Boston Red Sox baseball club from 1958 through 1971; with Curt Gowdy, Ned Martin, and later, Ken Coleman doing play-by-play, with analysis during the 1960s provided by former star Red Sox pitcher Mel Parnell, and starting in 1969, by former Sox star Johnny Pesky. Although these announcers worked on both TV and radio, the games were simulcast only through 1960; after that, the announcers would go back-and-forth between radio and TV.

For games on TV beginning in 1961, the analyst would do color on television for the entire game with Gowdy (through 1965) or Coleman (1966–71) doing the play-by-play of innings 1-3 and 7-9 on TV (and innings 4-6 on radio); while Martin called innings 1-3 and 7-9 on radio along with the middle innings on TV.

An average of 56 regular-season games were televised each year, equally split between home and away, with all but a handful being on weekends. The games were also fed to other TV stations (mainly CBS affiliates) in the New England region.

During the 1964-65 and 1965-66 seasons, WHDH also televised a few Boston Bruins hockey games. They were broadcast on Sundays, usually on tape, either Saturday night games shown on Sunday afternoons, or Sunday night games shown on tape after the 11 P.M. local news that evening. One game, on February 12, 1966, a Saturday matinee from the old Madison Square Garden in New York against the New York Rangers was carried live and in color back to Boston, using a color mobile unit owned by WOR-TV New York (which produced a videotaped broadcast of the game to air there that evening).

The station also broadcast a handful of Boston Celtics basketball games during the early-to-middle 1960s. These were usually weekend afternoon games not on national TV. WHDH broadcast away Celtics' playoff away games from 1962 through 1966, although WHDH did televise live coverage of the seventh and final game of the 1962 NBA Finals between the Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers from the old Boston Garden.

In 1965, Celtics' playoff away games were also shown on the newly-launched WIHS-TV. WIHS carried some regular-season Celtics' road games during the 1964-65 season, but team officials, worried about the low penetration of UHF receivers in the Boston area, arranged for WHDH to simulcast 1965 playoff games so they would reach a wider audience. WHDH alone was the TV home of the Celtics in the 1965-66 season, with coverage concentrated on away games during the playoffs.

Fred Cusick did the Bruins' games; Don Gillis called the Celtics' games.

In October 1958, WHDH launched a weekly candlepin bowling show broadcast Saturdays at Noon. Initially co-hosted by Jim Britt and Gillis, Gillis eventually became the solo host. The show was extremely successful and remained on Channel 5 (with Gillis still as host) until February 1996, long after WHDH had given way to WCVB.

In 1968, with the Harvard University football team about to host arch-rival Yale University in a showdown of unbeaten teams for the Ivy League football championship, WHDH made plans to cover the game. Due to ABC Sports' deal with the National Collegiate Athletic Association that precluded live telecasting of games not in the ABC/NCAA package, WHDH broadcast the game on tape the next day, with Gillis doing play-by-play.