Those sounds might not read well on the printed page, but if you grew up in the 70s and 80s and were a baseball fan, I'm willing to bet that you could name that tune in two notes.
The instrumental known as "Jet Set" was just the theme to a game show named "Jackpot" that lasted less than two years on NBC before April of 1977.
And then that theme became a part of the sports fans culture with the start of "This Week in Baseball".
Major League Baseball's film department never approached what Steve Sabol built with NFL Films in the 1970s and I'll always believe that Sabol's work with the NFL was a key reason in football passing baseball as America's most popular sport, but they did make one solid contribution with "This Week in Baseball".
The syndicated show could be bought by any station but was usually purchased by NBC affiliates and placed in front on NBC's baseball "Game of the Week", which at that time was the only national telecast of MLB as ABC's Monday Night Baseball generally televised one of a few regional games.
One couldn't have a better "pre-game" show than highlights that you haven't seen unless it involved your local team that then would happen to have televised that game.
Unless you lived in those days, you cannot understand just how little baseball that fans actually watched live.
You had some road games of your local team, maybe the home opener, the NBC game on Saturday afternoon (and the Monday game in later years) and that was the ball game, so to speak for the available games to see.
The smartest decision that the show made was installing veteran Mel Allen as the voice of the show.
The folksy Allen was known as the "Voice of the Yankees" and between the location of the largest city in the country and in the days when the two participating teams announcers were used for the postseason, the Yankees dynasty meant Allen was extremely well-known by the national audience.
After Allen's surprising firing by the team following the 1964 season (the Yankees would not return to the postseason until 1976 when they had hired Allen back as pregame host), Allen hadn't been seen on the national stage with baseball since.
Scooping the veteran up for the premiere of the show gave the show a veteran presence to older fans, yet his lack of recent exposure allowed Allen to be more of a fresh voice to younger fans than he might have been otherwise.
A comparable example would be Ray Scott, who was the longtime voice for the NFL through the 50s and 60s, but by the mid-70s was considered past his prime and would never have the same exposure even on NFL Films, where he once did their "NFL GOW" in syndication.
Had Allen continued on Yankee broadcasts, he might have never gotten the TWIB position because he might not have been "cool enough" to the younger fans on a Saturday afternoon watching in between cartoons and the game of the week.
From the highlights from teams playing well from around the league to the spectacular plays, all the teams were well represented, which isn't always the case today, let alone in the time of TWIB.
Allen's catchphrases "How 'bout that?" "Hello, there everybody, this is Mel Allen" and of course "This week in BASEball!" became everyday lingo among baseball fans and kids playing pickup games and Allen's narration added so much to the show.
Mel Allen was the key to the show's success as it really suffered after his passing as replacement Warner Fussell, while not doing a terrible job by any means, was never going to be Mel Allen and
Allen may very well have been irreplaceable in the position.
Much like NFL Films, TWIB did an excellent job of pairing music to their highlights with big brassy sounds booming out of the speaker along with Rod Carew slapping a ball into the gap, Mike Schmidt driving a ball into the seats, or George Brett diving into the seats in an attempt to catch a popup.
Half of putting together a highlight video is matching the perfect music to what highlight is being shown and while the NFL version often has to match good and bad results, TWIB usually, with the exception of the blooper segments, were advertising the best in the game and matching spirited, upbeat backgrounds to what is happening on the screen.
Music in these situations set the tone and the right music just makes the viewer feel the anticipation and emotion of the moment.
MLB didn't master the total emotional peaks and valleys with TWIB as the NFL counterpart did, but they were doing a different type of program and what they did the music matched perfectly.
TWIB ran from 1977-1998, but its heyday was from 1977-1989 when NBC held the rights to MLB.
CBS would pay a record amount to move baseball to their network for the 1990 season and then made a ridiculous decision to limit their telecasts to the postseason with the elimination of the game of the week.
Without TWIB being able to slot in as the natural lead-in to the game of the week, the ratings for the show dropped and with exposure dwindling the demise of the show was a matter of time and the 1996 death of Allen (his participation had begun to decrease anyway due to declining health) saw that the end was coming and in 1998 it did so.
Fox revived it in 2000 for an eleven-year run, but times and viewing habits had changed and it never seemed to find its audience as much of its content was old news in an era of cable television and internet.
Still, I have such a fondness for that show which was such a part of my baseball fandom as a fan that didn't root for the local team and between pro wrestling from 11-12, TWIB 12;30-1, the game of the week after and then the various network boxing shows, Saturday's were loaded with things to watch for me and I'm not sure I'll ever have that level of excitement for that type of lineup again.
Whether it was nostalgia for times gone by or it really was fun to enjoy the weekend, TWIB was a big part of those days and it'll always be special to hear that opening blast of brass!
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