Nice Post.
Now for a best announcer, I have a choice. I never liked the New York Football Giants, nor do I even like pro football, but was anybody ever better than Pat Summerall? He seemed to have the forgotten talent of getting out of the way and letting the game be THE THING, not him…and in this era of screaming, screeching, in your face ethos, he was as mild as a Berumuda zehpyr with a voice like a vanilla shake.
He got his first gig when Frank Gifford couldn’t make it for his fifteen minute gig for local radio in NYC in the fifties. I guess he juiced it excessively (too excessively, that is) and got into big physical trouble. I think he’s had a liver transplant and hope he’s doing well.
Roz

Leitch has let the buzz surrounding his Berman stories cloud his judgment. Sure, he sucks, but it’s not “the fact that you’re being paid to do this is enough to send me into a three-week depression” sucking like you get from Packer, Patrick or Morgan.

Ernie Harwell (Detroit Tigers) was the best ever. In that category also belong Vin Scully, Bob Prince, Waite Hoyt, & Red Barber. Mel Allen ws in a category by himself. Jimmy Dudley (Indians) was awfully smooth. Cawood was right up there with the best of them..
I think the guys I refer to as “My 3 Sons” Thom Brennaman, Joe Buck, and Chip (not Skip) Carey are even better than their dads.
I was impressed by this young guy, Sean Moth (PA guy for U of L football & basketball) who did some good baseball play-by-play for the Cards this year. Sounds a lot like Bob Costas.

Don’t think Stroh’s did the Tribe….but don’t forget Hudepohl 14K also did Redlegs Baseball. I thought Shaefer (when you’re having more than one) did the Yankees but I’m probably wrong on that.

You’ve got the best Beer/baseball memory ever known to man, Roz.. Do you remember Gene Shepherd’s famous PBS special in 1969 about beer art? It was about all the beer signs that should be in a museum (Shepherd wrote A Christmas Story about the Red Rider BB Gun} Your writing style reminds me a lot of his.

Onward!

...a good one, I remember it being advertised. Was there a Cincy announcer named Byrum Samm?....By the way, I believe that Wait Hoyt announced in past tense, even as he described it….”Vada Pinson hit a grounder to short….Roy MacMillan was retired on the force, but Blasingame’s throw to first was to late to get the speedy Pinson.”
And to say that I have “the best beer memory known to man’....gosh, you’re embarrassing me again. Thanks for the info about Strohs. Schaefer (ahem, I know from personal experience) never did the Yankee games.

Yeah, of course I know Jean Shepherd (“In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash”) and his Christmas classic about the bb gun. One of my closest friends (this guy was the type of guy who made everybody feel that THEY were his best friend, I think you know what I mean) gave it to me for a present. He was killed in an auto accident on a foggy Oct 18 morning just this past year. He gave me the video and the book. I know the video is on more incessantly than “It’s a Wonderful Life” around the holidays, and I have tried to avoid actually seeing it. Shepherd even had a weekly PBS spot about 25 years ago.

Get into that “Digital Ballparks” site. I know you love ballparks.

Roz

Saam did Philadephia A’s and Phiilles games for many years.When the A’s moved to KC he did Phillies only from about ‘55 to’75. Was replaced by Harry Kalas. Saam died in 2000 at the age of 85. I only got to hear him occasionally as a kid when I could pick him upon my crystal set. The guy was so good you could smell the popcorn, hot dogs and cigar smoke.

Some of these old vets were brilliant…even magical. TV can use a dozen cameras but they cannot create the the drama that these guys could for nine or more innings. Baseball on radio is the absolute supreme test of a play-by-play man’s ability. Catch phrases and lingo don’t have anything to do with it. The old guys like Harwell and Barber could get inside your head with simply the sounds of their voices and connect their immagination with yours. I feel sorry for the people who never got to experience them.

One more thing, Roz…you may not be a Brent Musburger fan but when he’s doing baseball on radio, he does have the magic.

Onward and Upward.

Thanks for setting me strait on Byrum Saam.
We failed to mention Chuck Thompson. Had the straw pork pie hat lying back on his head at an outrageous angle with a fancy band about a foot wide that could only have been silk. He did both the Colts and the Orioles in days when we were younger. He may also somehow have had the Maz call on the homer over Yogi and over the ivey at Forbes Field…this sticks in my head even though I know he had nothing to do with the Pirates.
Baseball on the radio is s o o o different, Mr Blunt, you are right. I think the cliche is that they put brush to palette and then to canvas and paint pictures for our mind. They fill any dead time with meaningfull nothingness just as Bela Fleck would fill the listener with beautiful meaningless banjo rolls as he waited to stress the next melody note. Football is complicated; but baseball is c o m p l e x.

I don’t know Brent on the radio. I like him on college football, and will always remember his call on the Nova-Georgetown upset, as Gary McClain, on his knees, cradled the ball
as time ran out.

Once, as my brother and I listened to KDKA in Pittsburg (might be the only radio station EAST of the Mississippi with call letters starting with “K”), Stargell took a mighty cut and popped the ball high, HIGH, HIGH, right above the plate…..Bob Prince simply said, “Home run in an elevator shaft.”

...Ned Martin was good for the BoSox, too. I did not like the way Bo treated Ernie Harwell.

By the way, Yankee PA announcer, Bob Sheperd has been at the helm since 1951. He announced Mantle’s first game. Yankee rookies of ‘51 were Gil MacDougald, Jackie Jensen, and Mantle. Last year for Dimag. Anyway, Sheperd is in failing health now, and a substitute has been called in to do most of the games. We all are praying that he can make it till next year and do the opening for the new Yankee Stadium accross the street.
...even though Bob is often not there these days, Jeter has his taped voice still announce him when it is his turn at bat.

Roz

There are so many reasons that these were three of the true masters of the art of baseball play-by-play in the early days of radio. One is that baseball, by it’s nature, has a lot of down time. Holding the ilisteners’ attention during the lulls was the most demanding part of the craft. That’s where these old vets really shined.

Some of today’s TV and radio guys have a tendency just to yammer to fill the audio void.

Radio’s legendary baseball broadcast men didn’t do that. And they would rarely editorialize.

Sitting on a porch, listening to these great masters of voice with nothing but the crictkets and fireflies or even traffic noise in the background… or tinkering in the garage or the basement on Summer night could be genuinely magical. These wonderful radio sportsmen of the past were a combination of reporter, actor, poet, dramatist, story teller and friend who created the most vivid pictures and experiences.

Now all ot them are gone, only to be found in the far places of our memories.

But here’s the part that I understand and I hope that you do, too. These wonderfully talented men and their brilliant performances belonged to a different time. They can never come back. And even if they could, the world will never again turn gently, slowly and quietly enough to hear their voices.

That’s my official name for it, Roz. As long as you tag up, you get credit for it. Rizzutto was Catholic enough to transfer the principle into Baseball.

It’s similar to the old days when the paper boy collected weekly and then punched your card when you paid him. As long as you get your “card punched” every week, you can do what you like the rest of the week and still get a shot at getting into heaven.

Rizzutto was an “ex-jock” announcer. and that reminds me of two of the greatest who made up the best TV team ever…Dizzzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese. It’s a shame that they don’t have a lot of those games on DVD…there will never be anything like them again.