Stadium. Two days before he was assigned to call 1973's regular-season finale between the Houston Oilers and Cincinnati Bengals, Bill Enis died from a heart attack at the age of 39. Al Michaels was brought in to replace Enis in the booth with Dave Kocourek. 1974 would mark the final season for what would be Al Michaels' first stint with NBC. That season, Michaels called six-tier games with Mike Haffner. Also in 1974, Don Meredith would come over to NBC from ABC's Monday Night Football. He would join Curt Gowdy and Al DeRogatis for the playoffs and Super Bowl IX. He also worked that year's Thanksgiving game between Denver and Detroit. In Week 13, he joined Jim Simpson and John Brodie to call the Cleveland-Dallas game. In 1975, because of NBC's coverage of Game 2 of the World Series between the Cincinnati Reds and Boston Red Sox, NBC's 1:00 p.m. NFL telecasts were canceled. All games except for the New England Patriots–Cincinnati Bengals match were picked up by local stations in the markets of the visiting team. Meanwhile, at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time, NBC aired a game between the Oakland Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs nationally. As the 1975 World Series progressed, NBC would advertise its upcoming weekend schedule during the breaks: As it turned out, no baseball was played that Sunday. Three days of rain in Boston forced Game 6 to be postponed until the following Tuesday, October 21, followed by Game 7 the next night. 1975 was also the final season for Al DeRogatis at NBC. He would return briefly in 1988 as a fill-in color commentator during the Summer Olympics. The following year, Curt Gowdy split double-duty with John Brodie and Don Meredith in Weeks 12 and 14. In Week 12, Gowdy and Brodie worked the Thanksgiving Day game (Buffalo-Detroit), while Gowdy and Meredith worked the Pittsburgh-Cincinnati game. In Week 14, Gowdy and Brodie called the Pittsburgh-Houston game on Saturday, then the following day Gowdy and Meredith called the Cincinnati-New York Jets game. Don Meredith would return to ABC's Monday Night Football at the end of the season. After Meredith left NBC, John Brodie would be the top color commentator alongside Curt Gowdy in 1977 and 1978. Meanwhile, after this season, Tim Ryan, who was on the fifth-tier announcing team with Lionel Aldridge, left NBC to join CBS Sports. On January 9, 1977, 81.9 million people (the