Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball's 101 All-Time Best Announcers (23 page)

That winter he resumed St. Louis Hawks basketball even as honor cost,
"bluntly, the world's best baseball broadcast job." In Syracuse, a referee called
a charging foul. "They [officials] are walking the wrong way," Bud said,
coining a trademark. He never doubted that his way was right.

Blattner returned to 1960-61 Redbirds TV, began the "Buddy Fund" local
charity, then moved to Dodger Stadium. "Talk about a challenge!" he termed
the expansion Angels. The same-park Dodgers had tradition, skill, and cash.

Don't peak too soon: the '62ers almost won the flag. In 1965, the Halos
drew 476 one game. Next season they moved to Anaheim Stadium, two
miles from Disneyland. The 1967 All-Star Game gave America its first
extended look. Bud and Curt Gowdy shared NBC TV: a record 30 K'd.
"[Wife] Babs and our daughters missed me. It wasn't home." In 1969, he
retrieved what was.

"It took two seconds to say yes," Blattner said of the rookie Royals. He
wiled the banal and giant, self-assured and unself-confident, shy and strutting
people of the Midwest. "People grew up on him-to millions, a professor," said sidekick Denny Matthews. "I'd like to have a nickel for every fine point
that he taught."

BUD BLATTNER

In 1975, the mentor, 65, was axed. "Denny was getting restless," said a
friend. The Bucs offered Bob Prince's job. "I felt burned out. I didn't want
somebody leaning over a bar saying, `I can remember when he was good.' "
Blattner retired to Lake Ozark, Missouri. "We're building a tennis complex
[among the U.S. best]. It's maybe the most satisfying thing I've done."

In 1998, doctors diagnosed prostate cancer. Beating it, Bud won the Senior
National Olympics tennis title. "To an extent, staying active may have saved my
life."Absent were pity and hostility. "I don't have a dime, but live like a king." Listening, you recalled 1959: "Pod-nuh" was still a gentleman.

In 1937, an A.L. Boston scout discovered a 130-pound, marble-shooting,
shortstop-playing cable telephone splicer in a church league game. Pee Wee
Reese, 19, the son of a railroad detective, looked 12. In 1940, Brooklyn
bought him from the Red Sox. "I was a country kid," he said, born near
Louisville. "I get to the city, it's another planet"-a.k.a. Ebbets Field.

Presently an employee mistook the 5-foot-9, 140-pound Reese for the
bat boy. Thereafter he became a borough's glove and glue. "Every year we
were in it," said the Kentucky Colonel. "Lose a playoff [ 1946 and '5 1 ], win
pennants [seven from 1941 to 19561. Lose a Series [six] to the Yankees." No
one hated losing more than Jack Roosevelt Robinson.

In 1946, Reese left the Navy. Next year, Robinson arrived in Flatbush. "I
hadn't known many black people," said Pee Wee. "I just knew I had to play."
Reese spurned a petition for Jackie's return toTriple-A Montreal. One crank
threatened to shoot No. 42 if he played. Robinson sidled over in warmup.
"Don't stand so damn close to me," said the Captain. Each laughed.

In 1955, both ran into luck. Games One through Six of the Series split.
Brooklyn led, 2-0: sixth inning, Stripes on first and second. Yogi Berra hit to
left field, Sandy Amoros bolting for the pole. "If he'd been a righty, the ball
might have dropped," said Johnny Podres. Instead-the Sphinxes crumbled;
the Sahara froze-Sandy caught the ball. Reese relayed to Gil Hodges:
double play.

In the ninth, Elston Howard grounded out, Captain to Quiet Man. "Far
into the night rang shouts of revelry in Flatbush," wrote the Times's John Drebinger. "Brooklyn at long last has won the World Series and now let
someone suggest moving the Dodgers elsewhere." In two years, someone did.

"Just being there was amazing," said Reese, "like entering a bar and
saying, `Hi ya, Ben,' or `How you doing, Joe?' "The faithful, "you joked with
'em on a first-name basis." Enduring is a Flatbush of the mind.

Later Pee Wee felt that Walter O'Malley always meant to leave. He did not
think so at the time. "I bet a couple guys that we'd stay. They said, `We're moving.'
I said, `What are you talking about?'Those people would have done anything to
keep them. [1945-57 attendance topped each N.L. team's.]" He hesitated.
"There'll never be another like Ebbets Field. No sir, no way."

Reese had 2,170 hits, led the league in runs and walks, and made the
1942 and 1946-1954 All-Star teams. In L.A., he became a coach. "I was like
an old fire horse watching the rest of 'em gallop past." Roy Campanella could
not even walk, having broken his neck in a car accident that left him paralyzed in both arms and legs.

On May 3, 1959, the bigs' largest-ever crowd, 93,103, cheered Campy,
wheeled by Pee Wee from the tunnel. Lights paled at the Coliseum. Each
person lit a candle. "It looked like fireflies," said the Dodgers' owner, who
flamed for No. 1.

"Mr. O'Malley kept telling me, `One (lay you'll manage this club.'
Reese replied: no day, or way.

The Captain doubted that he was tough enough to manage. By late 1959,
CBSTV didn't doubt who Dizzy Dean's next partner should be. "Try it," jibed
Buzzie Bavasi. "More than likely you'll screw it up. Even if you do, you've got
a job with us." Reese yielded, having never called a pitch.

In early 1960, he bought a tape recorder, watched video, and worked
with Gene Kirby. In March, the greenhorn called a game: "an exhibition, and
I'm sweatin'!" Dean asked if he had a problem. "Boy, no kidding," Pee Wee
said. "Here's all you do," roared Diz, belting "The Wabash Cannonball."

For a while, a peaceful easy feeling eluded Reese like a bad-hop ball. He
breakfasted with Kirby. "Oh, by the way, Diz is on vacation this week. You're
doing play-by-play."

Reese feigned calm. "You okay?" said Gene.

"Sure."

"So how come you're pouring coffee on your pancakes?"

Slowly, Dean steadied him; like the Colonel, Robinson. "I loved the big
oaf. He protected me," eased angst. "`Pod-nuh, why don't I take this over?' `Pod-nuh, here's all you need.! 'Podnuh, let me pick this up,' " after a commercial. "`You just lost some sales.' "

One week Diz left the booth in Philadelphia. "Pee Wee, I'm going out for
a hamburger. Want one?"

"Yeah."

"Pickles, lettuce, or mustard?"

"Onions," Reese said. A narrow ladder reached the booth. The next
camera shot showed 01' Diz, impaled.

In 1966, NBC, replacing CBS, traded a circus for a seminar. "Curt Gowdy was
its guy, and he didn't want Dean-too overpowering," said Pee Wee, becoming
proxy. "Curt was nice, but worried about mistakes. Diz and I just laughed."

Convenience lasted through 1968. Next March, Reese was dumped. "I
just wonder what went wrong. Did I talk too much? Didn't I talk enough?"
He drifted to Cincinnati and Montreal. "Other teams wanted me later. Who
needs the hassle?" Not the howling alley, grocery store, and storm window
business owner, also flacking for Hillerich and Bradsby Company. "What am
I gonna do?" he laughed. "Wash my storm windows ever' afternoon?"

PEE WEE REESE

In 1985, Pee Wee retired to Venice, Florida. A year earlier, he and Curt
made Cooperstown. At card shows, locals queued to meet No. 1. Few mentioned Brooklyn USA. "To this day, folks come up and say, `Baseball hasn't
been the same since you two left.' "

Had he missed the series? "Nah, not the exposure, not really," he said,
softly, before his death in 1999. "But those years were the greatest of my life.
I sure miss 01' Diz."

Try working for Charles O. Finley; airing the Milwaukee-headed-to-Atlanta
Braves; or replacing Dizzy Dean on network television. Merle Harmon did
each, remaining nature's nobleman. For a time, life mirrored the Twilight
Zone. "More like Alice in Wonderland," he amended. The curiouser and curiouser is how Merle prevailed.

His window on mid-America opened in southern Illinois. Then: Graceland College, the Navy, University of Denver, and radio in Colorado.
Harmon debuted on a 1949 Class C doubleheader. "It lasted eight hours, the
temperature was 104, and I had a headache," duly noted on the air. A listener
wrote: "Don't tell us your troubles. Broadcast the game."

Topeka's team bus carried 17 players. Often it stopped, had to be pushed
to a gas station, and maxed at 40 miles an hour-downhill. One rider,
pitcher Eddie Lubanski, bearded owner Joe Magoto: "I'm quitting baseball-my salary." Joe pulled a gun: "Pitch your next game." Lubanski packed, turned
pro bowler, and snubbed meal money: $1 a day.

"The bucks went to the big club," Harmon said. "Other things kept your
interest." One was Joplin's 1950 shortstop. "At 18, Mantle already hit balls
out of sight." Doing 1952 basketball, Merle improved his. "No more bad
passes," Kansas coach Phog Allen said. "You players gotta see things happen-skip movies--rest your eyes."

Allen mentioned Max Baer. Doctors told the boxer to visit California, lie
on the sand, and look at the stars. "Instead, Max went there," Phog said, "laid
the stars, and looked at the sand." Harmon never forget the vision.

In 1954, he did Kansas City's last Triple-A season. Next year the Athletics
relocated. Harry Truman threw out the first ball on Opening Day. Harmon
huzzahed illusion: A's 6, Tigers 2. "[Manager] Lou Boudreau, later an announcer, said, `If your team is good, you can criticize. If it's lousy, show
patience.' In Kansas City, I was the most patient man in the world."

The club never matched the 'S5ers' place (sixth) or gate (1,393,054).
Nine skippers left. The A.L. lost K.C.'s 1960 All-Star Game, 5-3, despite a
seven-Yanks roster. "[A's owner Arnold] Johnson gave 'em Art Ditmar, Ralph
Terry, Roger Mans," said Harmon. "How it goaded us-`Yankees cousins.' "
The A's once bashed New York for 27 hits. "We felt like the powerhouse.
'Course, the feeling didn't last long."

In December 1960, Chicago insurance broker Finley bought 52 percent
of the team. Then Merle snubbed his "Poison Pen Day" for Kansas City Star
sports editor Ernie Mehl. "Ernie got baseball here in '55-and Finley's
trashing him!" said Harmon. Deeming him a traitor, Charlie sacked Merle in
late 1961.

Nietzsche says, "That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger." What
happened next made Harmon feel like Charles Atlas. "Out of the frying pan,
into the fire."

By late 1963, baseball's ex-capital had become a lonely post, drawing 32 percent of 1957's attendance. Resigning, Earl Gillespie saw Milwaukee's writing
on the wall. Could Merle, replacing him, retrieve its past?Attendance rose.
Baseball yawned: only a temporary court order kept the Braves in town.
"What a mess. They had to play '65 in a city which knew it was losing them."
Mild and upright, Harmon became the loci of curse, slight, and hate.

"Hot? My seat burned! If I praised the Braves, people said, `Don't root for
traitors.' If I didn't, die-hards said, `Don't mess up another club.' " Upping
angst: an N.L. team record six players with 20 or more homers. "How could
you not get excited?" Milwaukee vied till September, "baseball afraid we'd
make the Series and County Stadium would be empty."

Curiouser: a) Wisconsin swore the Braves' 45-outlet network did games
gratis. "A bank and three breweries paid, but wouldn't say so guilt by association"; b) WSB Radio Atlanta aired 53 games, 26 from Milwaukee. "One
city doing every game even though its team is leaving. Atlanta doing a team
it doesn't even have"; c) The Voice, reemerged as ghost.

In 1955, Merle visitedYankee Stadium-"first time, I'm quaking." Entering
the booth, he thought, "My God, it's him." Smiling, Mel Allen said, "Anything you
need, let me know." Fired in 1964, he took the Atlanta job to avoid seeming yesterday's dessert. Said Harmon: "We'd have cookouts in my yard and Mel'd pour
his heart out about theYankees." Why?-he, like Milwaukee, asked.

In October 1965, the Braves marched toward Georgia. Merle's next mission: make Saukeville forget Dizzy Dean.

August 1961. Since 1955, CBS TV's "Game of the Week" had exteriorized
baseball. One morning the phone rang at the A's hotel in New York.