Went to Wrigley today. Does Yogi Berra write the script for the announcer? " Take out your pencils & scorecards as I give the CORRECT starting line-ups." Huh?.. Well thanks, most annoucers give the incorrect line-ups, I forgot.
Well, were the lineups as printed on the scorecards incorrect?
Actually, 3waygeek, I haven’t seen a lineup preprinted onto a scorecard since FDR was on the ballot. That custom is, nevertheless, at the root of this quaint expression. The Cubs used to have a P.A. announcer named Pat Peiper who started work back in the Twenties or Thirties. At that time they would preprint the lineups onto each day’s scorecard, but they were usually wrong. So when Peiper announced the lineups, he would emphasize that his were the correct lineups even if they differed from those on the scorecard. He stayed on the job until he was about 90 years old, and kept announcing that way long after they had stopped preprinting. And the Cubs, apparently in homage, retain the phrase to this day.
Come on, there are so many better things to rant at the Cubs about. Like the way they hijack the seventh inning of every broadcast so some over-the-hill “celebrity” can plug her latest album or some football coach can make a recruiting pitch. Or the way everybody thought Harry Caray was a drunken dirty old man when he worked for the White Sox but he instantly became an icon when he moved across town. God, I hate the Cubs.
This would have made a great and interesting GQ, though I’m not sure what the rant is here. Anyways, thanks jklann for the interesting bit of baseball history.
No rant from me. See,I learned something. It is homage to Pat Peiper. Saw no line-up on my program, & the scoreboard is too old to show line-ups. Of course much more to bitch about -shit the lowly Pirates kicked their ass 10-0. BTW, the performer(s) needing a career boost today were the Oak Ridge Boys… ah… who?