Baseball Announcers


August 4, 2001

[SONG ABOUT BASEBALL PLAYS]
BOB GARFIELD: 80 years ago this weekend the first big league game ever broadcast was carried by radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh. Wes Westrum, the light-hitting catcher for the old New York Giants once said: Baseball is like a church -- many attend, few understand. And some of the crankier longtime fans recoil at what they see as the superficial coverage provided by television where they say gimmicks overshadow the action on the field. On the Media's Rex Doane calls the contest between TV and radio play by play.
ANNOUNCER: Hi, neighbors! The Brewer's, a famous Naragansett ale and lager beer, present big league baseball. Today's game at Briggs Stadium in Detroit between the Detroit Tigers and the Chicago White Sox will come to you by telegraphic re-creation.
REX DOANE: Re-creations of baseball games on radio like this one from 1950 may today seem like a charming if somewhat naive antiquity. What is truly remarkable, however, are the similarities in play by play style over the past several decades. Back when professional football and basketball were in their infancy, major league baseball was broadcast to millions of faithful listeners, then as now. For Hall of Fame announcer Ernie Harwell, little has changed.
ERNIE HARWELL: I think the style of radio broadcasts is, is pretty much the same as it was when I began back in the mid-40s. TV of course is a lot different because of the progress of technology. When we first started on TV, it was very basic and, and most of the TV announcers or radio announcers are, are talking behind a picture. Now you've got replays and so many gimmicks that are, are technic--technical advances that it's changed the technique.
REX DOANE: For Sports Illustrated senior writer Steve Rushin, it's the continuity that play by play on radio has with its past that is a large part of its appeal.
STEVE RUSHIN: It's not simply vivid description from the, the better play by play people but oftentimes much more so than they do on TV, they let the action or in the case of baseball often the inaction speak for itself! I'd like nothing more than the pauses they have on the radio where you just hear the crowd noise in the background - maybe the sound, the crack of the bat or the pop of a catcher's mitt. [AMBIENT SOUND FROM BASEBALL GAME]
ANNOUNCER: That is low inside; ball 2. [AMBIENT SOUND CONTINUING] Two in all!
REX DOANE: For baseball purists like Rushin, the unfettered presentation of the game is a premium.
STEVE RUSHIN:I think it's interesting that, that the first broadcast was in 1921 and there have been 80 years of technology since then. In television you went from basically the invention of television to today's flat-screen, [plasma ?] projection, you know, stereophonic surround sound TVs tricked out with all of the graphics you see on a Fox broadcast -- the catcher-cam and the quick cuts and the score constantly running at the bottom of the screen. Seems to have not so much added anything as, as it has-- detracted or distracted the viewers from seeing the game, and I think that-- radio, which has changed hardly at all in many ways since 1921 is still the best way to quote "see" a baseball game.
REX DOANE: But not everyone is ready to toss out their TV remote. For Charlie Pierce, a writer at large for Esquire Magazine and a frequent contributor to NPR's Only a Game, baseball on TV is not inherently evil.
CHARLIE PIERCE: You know there's a great line from, from the play A Man for All Seasons where somebody says something in Latin and another person says how long will we hear those sac--this sacred language, and Thomas More very mildly turns to him and says it isn't sacred; it's just old. And I think that baseball has never quite gotten the distinction bek--between those things that are sacred and those things that are just old. And I think that people who watch baseball on TV now are much better served in, in their enjoyment of the game.
REX DOANE: Rich Sandomir who covers sports broadcasting for the New York Times can appreciate the living history of radio play by play, but he also sees the merits of the televised games as well.
RICH SANDOMIR: On television you can use the tools, the best tools, and the best graphics to analyze where, you know, the strike zone - ESPN's strike zone's graphic is a good example of something you can't do in radio. Is it a departure from traditional play by play? Yeah, sure it is! But I think done well it's an enhancement!
REX DOANE: But as Charlie Pierce suggests, whether listening to baseball play by play on the radio is the best way to appreciate the game isn't the important issue here. Having survived 80 years in a fickle and increasingly restrictive commercial broadcast environment, baseball play by play may now in fact be the best way to appreciate radio. A savior of the medium, and not just a sport.
MAN: When it comes right down to it, baseball play by play is really the only place for original broadcasting left on the AM dial! The music is, what music there is, is all programmed. The talk radio is largely all syndication. Baseball play by play is still the only place where you have any freedom to run at all!--basically because you are doing essentially live drama. [AMBIENT SOUND AT BASEBALL GAME]
ANNOUNCER:New baseball thrown into play. Kenny Boyo [sp?] would be next. [???] One ball, no strikes. Musial the hitter. There's Padres [sp?] getting ready. Now the pitch-- [SOUND OF BAT TO BALL] [SHOUTING] There she goes! [CROWD ROARS] [...?...] back! [...?...]! It could be--! It iiis!!! A foul ball!!! [...?...]! Holy cow!!!
REX DOANE: For On the Media in New York, I'm Rex Doane. [AMBIENT SOUND FROM BASEBALL GAME FADES]