Payphone Time Machine

Gather round children, gather round. Did you know that there was once a time before the Internet, a time before each team had a TV deal and all their games were televised, a time before “Two Princes” was released. This time was the early 90s. One man, other than the band members in The Spin Doctors that is, sought to change all that.

His name was Pepper Hastings and he worked for Beckett Baseball Card Monthly. His mission as he wrote in the magazine: 

“Our Mission: To obtain the number of a pay phone in each of the 26 major league stadiums.

The Ground Rules: The pay phone location *must* have a clear view of the stadium scoreboard. That way, the person answering can relay the current score and situation of the game to the caller.

Our Goal: To publish - before the beginning of the pennant races - a complete list of stadium pay phone numbers where up-to-the-second game information can be obtained from on-the-scene game correspondents (a guy on his way back from the snackbar, a conscientious usher, a kid on his way to the souvenir stand).

Our Rewards: Instantaneous scores during heated pennant races. Verbal interaction with real fans at stadia across the continent, not pre-recorded 1-900 number yakity-yak…”

Rather than leave the historical record at that, Larry Granillo dug ever deeper for answers. Click through to check out his piece and thank the heavens that we never need return to this period of darkness and chaos.  
  1. oldtimefamilybaseball posted this
Theme created by David Summerton.
blog comments powered by Disqus