Baseball- Radio- and Jackie Robinson

It’s hard to remember a time when the World Series was important, when the World Series defined American life.

At one point, the World Series was an autumn standard, as routine as changing the clocks for daylight savings time.An appearance by a New York team was expected and there were two to chose from in the National League.

The National Football League was still fringe competition; the National Basketball Association only started in the 1940s; hockey maintained a limited impact.

It’s too cliché to refer to the 1950s as the last “golden era” of baseball, but there isn’t much else in the vernacular to describe it. This was the last time when families still gathered around the radio to hear their team play.

They would hear the voices of Vin Scully and Curt Gowdy, Red Barber and Mel Allen, Bob Elson and Jack Buck, and Russ Hodges and Ernie Harwell. And these voices became as big as the game and sometimes they became the game.

Television was just coming into use, but baseball was never meant to be a television sport. No, baseball was a radio sport and nothing could beat hearing a great announcer describe the action.

A picture tells a thousand words, but in baseball, that is way too much. It was meant to be a simple game played by simple folks, and only radio was able to correctly convey that.

As radio fell in the second half of the 20th century to a secondary status in American culture, so did baseball. With television, people did not need announcers to understand the game.

However, without capable announcers who knew how to describe and not just tell what was going on, the game seemed drawn out. People would be looking at the screen in between pitches, nothing happening, not really listening to whatever was being said.

Watching a baseball game became a chore, relegated to a weekly game each Saturday. Then people decided to only watch the World Series.

And eventually, even that was no longer essential.

But for one last fleeting era, baseball and radio hung on, as perfect a pair as Abbott and Costello. One could not strive without the other and the radio broadcast and the announcers became as big as the game.

Sometimes, they even seemed to be one.

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Baseball was never meant to be a television sport.

It was meant to be enjoyed passively, played by a bunch of flawed individuals. These people were not meant to be storybook heroes.

The two greatest players the game ever saw would have been considered disgusting individuals had they not worked on the baseball diamond.

Only a movie could make Babe Ruth seem so iconic. And Ty Cobb, the man who once attacked a heckler in the stands? Nothing needs to be said about him.

But on radio, through the Great Depression and Second World War, baseball boomed. It didn’t matter what the stars looked like on radio; all that mattered was what they did.

Ruth and Cobb were replaced by Gehrig and Hornsby, who were then followed by DiMaggio and Williams. The only constant was radio.

In 1935, the Chicago Cubs allowed their entire schedule to be broadcast to the city, becoming the first team to do so. Once it was seen that it did not adversely affect attendance, the other 15 teams followed suit.

And the announcers became as big as the team.

Graham McNamee was the first star. He had no background in baseball or any sport for that matter, but he had one heck of a voice. He wanted to be an opera singer, but on a whim decided to audition for a radio station. He got the job immediately.

And from 1924 until 1935, he called the World Series every year.

He was Babe Ruth’s called home run in 1932 as much as the Babe was, even though he did not even notice Ruth calling the home run. He was the World Series.

For more than a decade, Graham McNamee became as synonymous with the World Series as the New York Yankees.

Graham McNamee was autumn.

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As radio became more widespread and the broadcasting of games more frequent and more and more people trained to be announcers, McNamee faded towards the end of the 1930s and was almost forgotten by the time he died in 1942.

However, McNamee was only the first star.

When teams went to broadcasting every game on radio, they had to hire someone full time to do the call.

Bob Elson, Red Barber, and Mel Allen were among this first generation.

Elson announced for both the Cubs and White Sox before he served in World War II. He returned in 1946, taking over the post with the White Sox exclusively, a job he’d hold for 25 years.

Red Barber started with the Cincinnati Reds, but by the end of the 1930s, he had settled in as the radio announcer for the Brooklyn Dodgers, a post he’d hold until 1953 when he migrated north and took over  for the Yankees. While in the Bronx, he worked alongside Mel Allen.

Mel Allen became arguably the biggest legend of all. He left the Yankees in 1943 to serve in World War II, but came back and announced again for another 20 years. Allen was fired in 1964, but returned in 1976, announcing games on television for another nine years.

Mel Allen was the New York Yankees.

These guys were the best in their professions, coining catch phrases long before Chris Berman stole them for his own use.

Red Barber was the first to say “back, back, back” when a ball was hit deep, although he was referring to the steps the outfielder took in an attempt to make the play. Today, baseball is about the home runs, but in the days of radio, it was also about the defensive finesse of a great ballplayer.

“How about that” and “going, going, gone,” were probably the two most lasting said by Mel Allen. They’ve almost outsurvived his memory but are ignored as clichés when uttered today.

Vin Scully said “forget it;” Russ Hodges “bye bye baby!” And Ernie Harwell, in his descriptive simplicity, came up with “it’s long gone.”

Today, every play is a catch phrase, from a “ringing up” the batter to “punching out” to whatever else is the flavor of the day. But on radio, only the truly memorable plays earned one.

And then there was spontaneity.

Nobody can think of Bobby Thompson’s home run without also thinking “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! Bobby Thomson hits into the lower deck of the left-field stands! The Giants win the pennant! And they’re going crazy! They’re going crazy! Oh-ho!”

To believe otherwise is unholy.

It may not be a catchphrase, but that pure emotion has sure outlived Giants’ great Russ Hodges.

If someone were to ask 100 baseball fans “Who was Bobby Thompson?,” it would be a safe bet that about 90 knew he hit “The Shot Heard Round the World” and at least half could probably state the quote.

But almost no one could attribute it to the legendary Russ Hodges, who did the play-by-play for the Giants from 1949 until 1970, moving west with the team in 1958.

There was a time when every Giants fan idolized Hodges, dialing in at work during a day game or with their family if they played at night, listening as he painted the Polo Grounds much more accurately than any television could ever do.

His fame was big enough that he was put on What’s My Line?, making him what is now one of the least recognizable baseball icons to have appeared on the show.

Everyone, rich and poor, young and old, dying and healthy, for a few hours, could experience the world the same. There was no high definition television, sky box business suites, game updates via cell phone.

No, there was Russ Hodges and the New York Giants, Mel Allen and the New York Yankees, Curt Gowdy and the Boston Red Sox, and so on and so on.

There was no difference within each pair; Hodges was as much a part of the Giants as Willie Mays, The New York Giants could not possibly be enjoyed without Russ Hodges unless the person was actually at the game. And only several thousand could be there.

For the masses, there was radio.

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With radio, there became two ways to know if a player hit a home run.

First, there was the sound off the bat. It’s not describable really, but every fan who has ever listened during a game knows based on the sound of bat-to-ball if a home run just occurred. There is nothing as distinct.

Of course, occasionally, the ear is wrong; the wind might keep the ball in the park. Or maybe the ball was hit to deep center field with not enough distance to carry. Or the ball could just curve foul.

The announcer existed to clarify what the ears just couldn’t do.

Anyone who has seen a baseball diamond can understand everything that goes on from a few words, and with the picture on television, it required even fewer.

A 6-4-3 double play is shortstop to second to first. At least on television it is.

But on radio, it becomes an art. Each number becomes a name; if it’s the hometown team, a hero.

There were no puffed up boys on steroids to disturb the picture because there was no picture. No, there were nine grown men out there, each one up to the fan’s imagination as to what he looked like.

A kid could be listening to the game and imagine himself as Ted Williams, with Ted looking exactly like him, even if the child was black.

Had the kid been able to see Williams, he may have been more detached. But through his imagination, he became part of the game.

It’s almost every child’s fantasy to one day be a professional athlete, and that dream seemed even realer listening to the game. The game was in everyone’s living room, regardless of status, and only one man’s voice was there to convey it.

Every game was told by the announcer and everyone, regardless of status, heard the same interpretation, the same perspective. That announcer up in the booth told the exact same story to every person in the country, regardless of what each did for a living.

Baseball on radio was the equalizer.

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This year, baseball has been celebrating the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the race barrier. However, radio’s aid in this happening has gone completely unnoticed

By the 1940s, baseball had become an elitist game.

While most of the players came from modest backgrounds, with a fully developed minor league system, only the freshest and best cream could rise and play in the major leagues.

When the Detroit Tigers struck for a day in 1912, the team, fielding a bunch of replacements, lost 24-2, setting numerous bad records in the process. By the 1940s, such an occurrence would have probably result in a team losing by 50.

The owners were among the richest men in America, making fortunes in industry in order to purchase the teams and then even some more through the game.

In 1915, Jacob Ruppert, a former congressman who ran his own lucrative brewery, purchased the Yankees. He would own the team through his death in 1939.

Walter O’Malley, who bought a majority share in the Dodgers in 1945, was a highly successful lawyer.

While there were still family run teams such as the Philadelphia Athletics, owned by Connie Mack since their inception in 1901 and the Wrigley’s with the Cubs, these families were anything but poor thanks to decades owning successful baseball teams.

The Athletics did have some problems during the depression, but by selling off all of the good players, they were still able to make a profit almost every year.

The truly unwealthy owners were forced out with the depression in 1929.

But still, baseball was the equalizer, the thing that allowed anyone to dream. Even people who had the misfortune to be born black had hope.

So much has been made of Branch Rickey choosing Jackie Robinson to be the first black player, that only Robinson could handle it, and rightly so. But it’s gone forgotten just how big a role radio had in the decision.

Black people were almost never shown on television and it is likely that networks would have avoided televising regular season games involving the Dodgers if at the time, every game was televised.

A liberal individual thought segregation in public facilities was wrong; a radical wanted to actually spend time with “Negroes.”

Television was made for division from the start. There were two colors, black and white, the same two colors as the two prevailing skin colors.

But radio didn’t have colors. Jackie Robinson was just another hero on radio, another person for a little boy to idolize to one day become, regardless if he were black or white.

Dodgers’ announcer Red Barber, a simple man born in the heart of Dixie, became as much a part of the integration of baseball and the United States as anyone else, even if it was forgotten.

Although the Mississippian was hesitant at first to call baseball games with a black man on the field, he grew to accept it once he saw just how special Robinson was. He would eventually become one of Robinson’s biggest supporters and contribute to a book about Robinson’s time as a Dodger.

However, Barber’s impact has become forgotten, an erased footnote of history. It wasn’t just that Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson and history played its hand; Barber guided it along.

He let everyone know exactly what Robinson was doing.

On television, all anyone would see was black. But on radio, there was Barber, telling a story much more complex. Every hit he got, every base he stole, every runner he threw out was magic.

Only on radio could there be no color, could baseball truly equalize two people regardless of race.

Radio allowed a kid in Mississippi, maybe the son of one of Red Barber’s childhood friends, to close his eyes and for a moment dream to be Jackie Robinson. If he saw Robinson, he’d spit at him; if he heard him slap a single, he’d smile.

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It’s almost demeaning to simplify radio down to moments, to Bobby Thompson’s home run and Jackie Robinson’s breaking the color barrier.

Moments are a product of television, with instant replay and highlights. Radio has always been about the entire product.

With SportsCenter, nobody needs to watch a game anymore. Only diehard fans watch a game from start to finish, and never would it be to watch a team other than their own play. And even then, they are considered crazy for taking it so seriously.

Yet 50 years ago, everyone followed their team. And if there was no team nearby, they adopted a different city’s team.

According to reports, the St. Louis Cardinals’ broadcasts could be heard as far as New Jersey on a clear night, totaling more than 25 states. And people would listen to whatever they could find, hoping that the signal did not cut out and, if it did, that they found it again quickly.

They lived by every word for nine innings, and if needed, a 10th or 11th. Baseball was not an excuse to stay up late; it was the reason.

Families grew up tightly around the Cubs and Red Sox, the White Sox and Phillies, even if they could never seem to win.

Listening to baseball was a family event, an event where husband and wife, son and daughter, dog and cat, were all equal and one. Everyone was as focused when Bobby Thompson hit his home run in the ninth as they were in the first inning, even if they were fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

There is nothing like that that draws families together anymore, which could account for the increase in divorce rates. But when baseball was the American pastime, baseball did.

For those three hours, and every minute of it, Americans, black and white, male and female, young and old, rich and poor, were all one, were all together, hearing the same interpretation of the game by that man up in the booth. Their view on reality was shaped by him, whether it was Allen or Hodges or Gowdy or whomever, and whatever he said was the only fact.

If Red Barber said that Jackie Robinson was great, he was great. He was the eyes for families all over the country.

Families were made around the radio listening to baseball.

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The decline of radio was almost a given after the invention of the television.  Telegraph held on for some time after the telephone, but it couldn’t last forever.

During the 1950s, many of the top entertainers made the jump, from the already mentioned Abbott and Costello to Red Skelton to Jack Benny to Bob Hope. Their comedy only became more popular with people able to see the actions they did.

For comedy, that was needed.

Radio still had baseball, but it had to share it with television. And with a 154 game schedule, listening to every game became less important, especially if it interfered with watching Johnny Carson, who got his start on Skelton’s first television program.

Situational comedies began to sprout up, such as I Love Lucy and Father Knows Best. And there were lucrative game shows, the most popular of which was the scandal-ridden $64,000 question.

Television replaced radio in the living room and in bars, and important plays eventually were collected by “experts” to be shown to the casual fan the next morning.

Nobody had time for a full game anymore, especially a baseball game.

Each contest dragged on, with only a couple of pitches each minute, many of which only resulted in another pitch being thrown.

Additionally, it had become a secondary task.

Only devote fans decided that they would sit down and watch a game with just too many entertaining programs to go around. Nobody wanted the same thing every night.

And there was the rebirth of the automobile.

The baby boom after the war forced cities to expand and have suburbs, requiring that families again purchase cars, providing a final gasp for radio.

Car radios became popular in the 1930s, but they were still expensive and not available in all models. But after the war, it was almost impossible to find a car without it.

However, the car radio was almost never used to listen to baseball games. No, people wanted to hear Alan Freed and other disc jockeys play the latest music. Driving was for listening to music, not sports.

Plus, it wouldn’t be right to listen to baseball in the car; baseball was always a family sport to be enjoyed with loved ones.

Television became the wave of the future for comedy and sports as people ditched the living room radio. Radio became the wave of the future for music.

Radio had no choice but to grow away from baseball.

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But the death of baseball as America’s pastime is not entirely television’s fault. Even though baseball was never meant to be a television sport, it could have survived if not for other problems.

The 1950s were the last golden era for baseball, even though television was already replacing radio.

There was the last great run by the Yankees, at least until the 1990s, making the World Series 15 times in 18 years, a stretch that will doubtfully ever be matched again. And baseball spanned the continent for the first time, as the Dodgers and Giants drove west to Los Angeles and San Francisco respectively.

Plus, there was another generation of stars, with Jackie Robinson, Yogi Berra, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron.

But something happened.

After the glorious 1961 season which saw Babe Ruth’s single season home run record go down to Roger Maris, in addition to the first expansion in the modern era with the American League adding two new teams, baseball fell down.

It could have been the rise of the football, as the AFL challenging the NFL made both leagues improve their products and adapt to television to get the better ratings. The leagues provided much more thrill, as something happened on each play, and the sports needed television because it was too complex to be explained on radio. Football required the attention of the viewer, just like any situational comedy or game show.

Maybe it was the dominance of pitching due to the widening of the strike zone in 1963. By 1968, Bob Gibson maintained an ERA of 1.12 and Luis Tiant set a major league record holding batters to a .168 batting average. Nobody wanted to see a game that had lost its ever precious balance.

Or it could be as more and more teams were added, fewer and fewer star players were on each team. Who wants to watch a team that only has one or two legends when the 1950s Yankees had 15?

And with free agency in the 1970s, players began to switch teams so frequently that it became hard to call each one a team. No, Major League Baseball was 26 franchises, not teams. There was no longer the same attachment to players. People would only root for jerseys.

Then, thanks to David Stern correctly marketing his stars, basketball skyrocketed in the 1980s and by the end of the decade, Michael Jordan was the biggest sports star in the United States. Additionally, basketball games lasted only two hours and were almost non-stop action, so they were less of a time commitment and more entertaining.

Nobody can be sure why or when baseball fell down the radar, but somewhere it did. Definitely by the end of the 1970s, football had surpassed it as the top sport in America. By the time of the strike in 1994 that canceled the World Series, it was on par with basketball.

Many people would rarely watch baseball before the World Series.

After the strike, baseball was an afterthought. Even the fall classic was only watched by the devote.

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Somehow, for one fleeting moment, Major League Baseball survived in the 1950s, even as radio faded.

As the country was slowly integrated, with 2007 also being the 50th anniversary of the integration of Central High in Little Rock, baseball was there, still being the great equalizer.

People accepted Jackie Robinson on the diamond, even if they didn’t want to, even if they wouldn’t accept him in their stores. And by the end of the decade, many of the game’s best players, including Mays and Aaron, were black.

They were shown on television because it had become an accepted part of the sport, a part that became accepted when Red Barber agreed to call the games on radio.

It was a tough decision for him, being from Mississippi at the dawn of the 20th century, but he chose wisely. He called the games after seeing Robinson play, and people listened.

Had Robinson come in during the television era, Barber may not have called the games. It was hard enough at first for him to talk about a black man over the air, let alone show people his pictures.

By the time baseball made the switch over to television full time in the 1950s, there was no longer that hesitation.

Baseball had began to equalize the country through race, just like it had previously through status.

On radio, there was only one person to see the game, and he became everyone’s eyes. There was only one perspective, one truth, and black or white, male or female, rich or poor, young or old, that was the truth everyone received.

Only on radio could such a truth be possible.

The 1950s were played by a generation that grew up with radio and were made equal by it. Jackie Robinson could picture himself in the game because of radio, just like any other kid.

For one fleeting decade, baseball held on. But without radio, it would never again be the same.