TVSquad

Today's a sad day for any Yankee fan over the age of 30 or so, as Phil Rizzuto, a Hall of Fame shortstop for the team during the '40s and '50s, died today at 89. Of course, most Yankee fans remember "The Scooter" as a broadcaster; he did play-by-play on TV and radio from 1956 to 1996.

During that time, fans can fondly tell you chapter and and verse about how unconventional he was; he'd send out birthday wishes in the hopes that the Yanks would get a hit, he often talked about the great Italian meal he ate the night before with his wife Cora, and he'd joke around with his various broadcast partners, usually laughing and saying "you huckleberry!"

Anyone who lived in the New York area anytime over the last forty years knows that there was one show you were sure to see either on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day: The Yule Log, which started airing on WPIX, Ch. 11, in 1966. There really wasn't much to the show; it was a picture of a lit fireplace, and the warm and inviting fire in it burned away as easy-listening versions Christmas songs played in the background. At its longest, the show ran for three hours, though it had gotten trimmed down as time went on.

David Bauder of the AP has a pretty comprehensive article about the history of the Log. Included in the article is the story about how, after Ch. 11 resurrected the Log in 2001 after a 12-year absence, they found the fire footage used from 1970 to 1989 in a film can marked with the title of an episode of The Honeymooners.