From 1959 to 1961, this series has all the basics to be the best promotion for Baseball ever made. It's perfect for Television. It takes 24 minutes. It gets the biggest names in baseball head to head in a Home Run Hitting hitting contest. While 1 guy is batting, the opponent sits with the announcer doing an interview which gives each guy a chance to share a bit of themselves on television.
Shot in California in December, the rules are quite simple. A batting practice hurler pitches in over the plate. If the batter swings and hits it, it either goes out of the ball park or it is an out. If he does not swing, an umpire rules if the pitch is a strike. If it is a called strike, it is recorded as an out. If it is a ball, they keep going.
There are 9 innings and 3 outs for each batter. The one who hits the most homers wins. If tied at the end of 9, it can go extra innings. The concept is quite simple, and very effective. My understanding is things were going great with this. The winning player got $2,000 and the loser $1,000 which back in 1959 and 1960 was big money for players like Mickey Mantle who had to take a pay cut after he won the triple crown batting title 1 year because of the teams General Managers who were using the players who had no union back then. Had this show continued it would have been a great promotion for Baseball.
My understanding is this got canceled be the announcer died after the last season they filmed. Too bad, because there were a lot of baseball radio announcers back then who could have taken this over and done well with this concept. I wish I could have seen and heard Bob Prince of KDKA Pittsburgh if he had been chosen to take this over. Especially if he could have done an commercial for Iron City Beer.