WSNS Channel 44 - Chicago White Sox vs. Detroit Tigers - "Cowens' Suckerpunch" (Excerpt, 6/20/1980)

Here's an excerpt of a game during which a fight broke out between the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers at the old Comiskey Park, as covered on the Sox' station of the time, WSNS Channel 44. Harry Caray makes his pertinent observations about the whole mess as well as calling the game. This excerpt comes in during a slow-motion replay of the fight that ensued after the Tigers' Al Cowens charged at Sox relief pitcher Ed Farmer in the 11th inning (in retaliation for an incident last May when one of Farmer's pitches had shattered Cowens' jaw). The result was a bench-clearing brawl, among the participants being Tigers' manager Sparky Anderson and Sox' skipper Tony LaRussa (who had a dislocated shoulder at the time). At one point, Harry opines, "I will be amazed if there isn't a fine and a suspension for this cowardly attack by Al Cowens." As it turns out, there were - Cowens was suspended for seven games and fined an undisclosed amount by American League President Lee MacPhail, and Farmer called for assault and battery charges to be pressed against the "slugger", but in the end "Cowens the Coward" (who didn't even make an August trip to Chicago when the Tigers played against the Sox again, due to the outstanding warrant resulting from the June incident) and Farmer would bury the hatchet in September with a handshake and without charges being pressed. As the slo-mo replay goes on, Harry likens the whole fight to the recent Sugar Ray Leonard-Roberto Duran match, which took in 15 rounds what, in this incident, transpired in about 15 minutes. Technical Note: If you listen closely, you can hear during the slow motion replay of the fight footage that they left the audio on which you can also hear in slow motion, sounding like some sort of animal growling or moaning. By the time play resumes, with Lance Parrish at the bat, Cowens (by Harry's reckoning) was most likely ejected. At that point, the recording cuts out and resumes at the point of a shot of the Sox dugout where two umpires were speaking with the team, and Detroit's Richie Hebner is getting restless at third base (while the bases are loaded and Lou Whitaker is at the plate, facing Sox pitcher Steve Trout who replaced Farmer) and has to be calmed down by umpire Steve Palermo, when various Sox including Lamar Johnson descend onto the field before order is more or less restored once more. The recording cuts out again, and resumes with score on display in the lower-third as Tigers 5, Sox 3 in the 11th, and Harry promises Orlando Cepeda on the post-game show to be hosted by his then-colleague Jimmy Piersall. Oh, and the final out is recorded before the recording cuts out - again. When it resumes, the game is over, the field is empty and Harry's incomplete ending observations are heard - "...that would have been interesting..." The recording then switches to WGN Channel 9's coverage of the whole sorry episode on Night Beat, with Jack Taylor (on voiceover) duly reporting the trajectory of events accompanied by pertinent footage (courtesy WSNS, of course) and a brief graphic of the first of the American League box scores for the night. Oh, and for those keeping score, Detroit beat Chicago 5-3 in the end. "A fight is a fight - but not when the guy's got his back turned to you." This (the live game footage) aired on local Chicago TV on Friday, June 20th 1980 during the 10:00pm to 11:30pm timeframe. (we can assume the footage from Night Beat aired later that evening) About The Museum of Classic Chicago Television: The Museum of Classic Chicago Television's primary mission is the preservation and display of off-air, early home videotape recordings (70s and early 80s, primarily) recorded off of any and all Chicago TV channels; footage which would likely be lost if not sought out and preserved digitally. Even though (mostly) short clips are displayed here, we preserve the entire broadcasts in our archives - the complete programs with breaks (or however much is present on the tape), for historical purposes. For information on how to help in our mission, to donate or lend tapes to be converted to DVD, and to view more of the 4,700+ (and counting) video clips available for viewing in our online archive, please visit us at: http://www.fuzzymemories.tv/index.php...