Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball's 101 All-Time Best Announcers (30 page)

"I can't fight you," said Bob, "but I'll take you to the Athletic Club and
swim you.

Conn later asked, "What would have happened if we'd fought in the pool?"

"I'd have drowned you." Instead, Prince profited from a man immersed
in God.

In 1948, Bucs broadcaster Jack Craddock discovered the kindly light that
led. "He resigned," Bob said, "and began to preach at revival meetings.
[Rosey] Rowswell needs an aide." Owner and law school friend Tom Johnson
proposed the Gunner.

"I'd never heard anything like this guy. We were bad, and Rosey'd trip the
light fantastic, like a kid when he's tired." Prince asked why. "Sponsors
deserve fans, and fans deserve a show," said Rosey. "Don't forget that just
play-by-play gives 'em neither." Bob didn't.

Forbes Field had yawning turf, a right-field pavilion, and in-play batting cage.
A brick wall enclosed the outfield. Bleachers lay beyond third base. "This is
how we recall her," said 1955-76 G.M. Joe L. Brown. We recall Rowswell's
caddy as neither cliched nor Talmudic.

Prince was partisan: "Come on, we need a run." The infield became an
"alabaster plaster." "Give me the Hoover!" meant bases to be cleaned. Bob won a
bet by waltzing from center field to home plate in stockings, pumps, neon
jacket, bow tie, and red bermuda shorts. "I became controversial-controversial
on the air, and in my jackets. Anything to establish a reputation."

Ultimately, Rosey got ill, slept in the studio, and had Bob re-create by
ticker. Prince woke him if the Bucs took the lead. At Forbes, he pointed to a
base or position. "That way he had some idea of the ball."

The 1950-57 Pirates finished last or next-to-last. "Here's to the Rosey
Ramble," Bob said after Rowswell's death. His riposte: "Gunner's Gallop"-anything but the game.

Dale Long was an exception, homering in seven straight games. Next night
in 1956 he took Carl Erskine deep for a bigs record No. 8. "Forbes about
tumbled down," said Prince. "Long got such a standing ovation that he had to
come out of the dugout for a curtain call." A curtain fell May 26, 1959.

"The final out of the ninth inning was ... the eighth turned in by Haddix, and . . . he became the eighth pitcher in all the history of baseball to pitch a
perfect no-hit, no-run game. He then went on to get 'em in the tenth, and
the eleventh, and the twelfth," said Bob, "before a man got aboard, and then
only on an error. One out. Batter, Adcock ... There's a fly ball, deep rightcenter. It is gone! Absolutely fantastic!"-a term for the Bucs' annual percent
of radio/TV sets in use.

One reason was Jim Woods, joining Prince in 1958. A year later what he
called "the ugliest woman I ever saw" crashed the press box. "I want to see
fucking [Jack] Brickhouse!" she barked.

A writer fingered Bob: "There's Brickhouse."

"Are you fucking Brickhouse?"The network carried every word.

Convulsed, Woods watched her leave. "Gunner, if you think that one was
ugly, look at the broad she's sitting with!" Brown phoned: "You can't call
women broads on the air." Jim countered: "Broad is the only thing you could."

Next year Bob called the Bucs' first post-1927 pennant. Cy Younger
Vernon Law went 20-9. MVP shortstop Dick Groat hit a bigs-high .325. Bill
Mazeroski patented the double play. A war then ensued of shock and awe. The
Yanks won Games 2, 3, and 6 10-0, 16-3, and 12-0, respectively. Nova
merge: Don Hoak's diving stops; Bill Virdon's leaping catch off Yogi Berra;
Bobby Richardson's Series record 12 RBI.

Once Woods offered Gunner a drink. On the wagon, he demurred.
"Don't worry! I'm just as crazy sober!" Game Seven left you feeling like a
morning-after binge.

October 13 broke mild and bright. In the first inning, Rocky Nelson hit "a
drive! Deep into right field! Back she goes! You can kiss that one good-bye!"
Prince said on NBC TV. Pirates, 2-0. Low tide: Yanks rally, 7-4. High: Hal
Smith's three-run "electrifying [eighth-inning] homer," read the Pittsburgh
Press, "turned Forbes Field into a bedlam." Bucs, 9-7.

At 3:36 P.M., Mazeroski cleared the 406-foot mark: 10-9. The Stripes
outscored [55-27], outhit [.338-.256], and outhomered [10-4] Pittsburgh.
Bob didn't know-literally-how they lost. "In the ninth, I hear, `Do the
clubhouse celebration.' I get there, find the game tied 9-all," and refound the
booth. A din promptly shook the yard. "Get back downstairs!" an NBCer
yelled. "You win!"

Breathless, Bob interviewed manager Danny Murtaugh, N.L. head
Warren Giles, and the mayor of Pittsburgh. "Everyone except the one guy in
the world people wanted to see."

Finally Maz was maneuvered to the mike. "How does it feel," Bob asked,
"to be a member of the world champions?"

"Great."

"Congratulations," he said. End of interview. The hero is led away.

"By the way, how did we win?" Prince asked at dinner.

Betty eyed him like Cyclops. "You must be kidding. Maz hit a homer."
Bob suddenly felt less hungry than Rosanne after lunch.

Controversial on purpose: "I think it ridiculous," he told a dinner, "to honor
here a man [Stan Musial] who made more than 7,000 outs." Or accident:
Number 46, unlisted in the scorecard, pinch-hit. Intercom: "Will Rab Mungee
report to the press gate?" Gunner: "Rab Mungee is the Houston pinch-hitter."

One day Prince ribbed several Bucs about baseball's sedentary tilt.
Knocking his stick figure, Gene Freese said, "Here's $20 you can't dive into
this pool." Bob made for his third-floor hotel room. "If he doesn't clear it [ 12
feet of concrete]," said trainer Danny Whelan, "strictly a blotter job." He did.
"At least Freese paid. If I'd bet Dick Stuart I'd still be waiting."

A 1965 partier joked he couldn't wait to drop Prince from the 17th
floor. "Half the room would have been for it and half against," replied a
friend. On the bench a year later Whelan held a wiener painted green.
"There," jibed Bob, "is a [TV] picture of a grown man pointing a green weenie
at Lee May." May popped up. Trucks put the Weenie on their aerial. Serta
Mattress made a model to help it last a doubleheader. In Calcutta, an Indian
fakir played a pipe. The Weenie rose from his wicker basket. Controversial.

At Forbes, Pittsburgh faced the Dodgers. "Let's put the Green Weenie on
[Don] Drysdale!" Prince told transistors. A roar commenced. Big D stood,
sneering. Finally umpire Ed Vargo said to throw. "How can I pitch with these
nuts going crazy and that skinny bastard up in the booth?" Vargo: "I don't
know, but pitch."The batter tripled. Leaving, Drysdale shook his fist.

Bob flew to Dallas, changed for San Francisco, and began talking to an
attendant, inadvertently saying "bomb." A sleep-challenged Gunner was
released next day. The Black Maxers, a pack of Pirates fixated by World War
I flying gear, named him Official Bombardier.

Would Prince, 50, ever settle down? "I am, or at least my wife thinks it's
time I did."

Bob did NBC Radio's 1966 O's-Dodgers Series. Later he admitted to imagining
in the Classic the man with four batting titles, a dozen Gold Gloves, and 3,000 hits. Bob asked Spanish for "let's go." Roberto Clemente said arriba, whose word
he became, treating baseball, said Roger Angell, "like a form of punishment" on
the field.

SI had called Prince "shaped so distinctly in his mold that every listener feels he knows him"-or was that No. 21 or even Poss, parting in
1969 after "a pissing contest with the station," said Bob. "They were only
about $1,200 apart." Another friend left June 28, 1970, before 40,918,
the Bucs' largest crowd since 1956. "1 often come back," Prince later
mused. "I love what Forbes had"-haze and horizon, pleasant, almost
golden, with pews so near the field that, watching players, you could
sense what they were like.

However vague memory may be, it knows why Three Rivers Stadium
seemed K-Mart sans the charm. Gunner loathed its faux turf, concrete shell,
and top deck in West Virginia. Willie Stargell-to Bob, "Willie the Starge"-
hit it more than anyone. He owned a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise in
Pittsburgh's Hill District. Bob: "Let's spread some chicken on the Hill!" In
1971, Starge spread 48 dingers on the league. Pittsburgh took the L.C.S.
Prince then did his last World Series.

It began Orioles 5-3 and 11-3, reviving in Game Four, the first Classic
after dark. "Day games shut out working people," said Commissioner Bowie
Kuhn. Over 60 million watched: Bucs, 4-3. In Game Seven, "Here is Bobby
Clemente, who has had, if there has ever been a vendetta, this might be it,"
growled Bob. "And there's a ball hit very deep into right field! Going back
for it is Frank Robinson! He's at the wall! He can't get it! It's gone!"

Pirates win, 2-1. Arriba hits .414. "Bobby Clemente continues to totally
annihilate Baltimore pitching!"The question was how many wished to annihilate Gunner, too.

At Three Rivers, some bayed, "Shut up, Prince!" at the man in narrow tie and
gaudy coat or shorts, aT-shirt, socks, and shoes-"my game uniform." Once,
yapping "The hell with this. It's too hot," he worked in briefs. Most scent a
sweeter bottom line: "without question," said ex-Mayor Joe Barr, "[helping]
the underprivileged, sick, and disadvantaged more than any public entertainment figure in Pittsburgh."

Bob formed or chaired, said Poss, "more charities than a dog's got
fleas." At Allegheny Valley School, he counseled parents, spent Christmas
Day on campus, and got firms to donate wheelchairs. In Chicago, Gunner
stopped at Kraft Foods to record "Little Red Riding Hood." The public man barred publicity. "He'd come in, play with a child," said a Valley domo, "and
leave, saying, `That's what I needed.' " Prince needed a handkerchief July
28, 1972.

"[Any] doubt that Prince fans outnumbered Prince detractors ... was
proven last night," the Press's Bob Smizik wrote of "Bob Prince Night."
School students made two lamps from popsicle sticks. "No home run," said
Gunner, "hit me with such heroism." Another hero crowned September 30.
"Everybody standing. They want Bobby to get that hit 3,000. Bobby hits a
drive into the gap in left-center field! There she is! A double for Roberto!"
The Bucs blew a 2-1 game playoff lead. New Year's Eve's loss was worse:
Arriba, dead at 38, aiding victims of a Nicaraguan earthquake. "He was the
Pirates," a fan said, "and they were different without him." Few thought of
life without Prince.

In 1974, traveling secretary Art Routzong phoned from Atlanta. "We're
coming home and haven't sold many tickets." Putting on his thinking cap,
Gunner found a Slavic word. "We got Ladies' Night coming up. Why don't
you wave your"-he blanked on hanky"babushka?" Art steamed. "They
won't know what you mean." Enough did to pack Three Rivers. "`Ladies,
wave your babushkas,' and they go wild," he said. "We get a run. I say,
`That's what Babushka Power is all about.' "

The '74-'75ers were about taking the East, losing the L.C.S., and being
lucky to lure a million. "Five divisions in six years," said Prince, "and we can't
draw"-the park, football Steelers, or black stars in segregated Pittsburgh,
who could say?

The Pirates considered those whyfores, and insanely chose another.

In 1968, a KDKA owner Westinghouse Company lawyer told Poss and Prince
to sign "contracts so I can take them back to the office."

Bob: "Ready?"

Jim: "Whenever you are."

Each tore the paper. "There," Gunner said. "Take those back to your boss."

By the 1970s, Westinghouse accused Bob of putting show-biz above seminar:
"too big for his britches," an official said. It began shrinking him: less promotion,
less pre- and post-game time, more clients in the booth. Several turned up radios.
"They were bombed," Prince said. "You could hear ' em in Erie." He turned off the
mike, said, "Shut the hell up," was called a "mother-fucker," and slugged a thug.
"Then I sat down, opened the mike, and said Westinghouse was making it impossible to do my job."

Prince misread power. "He thought he had the sponsors and team
behind him," said partner Nellie King. On October 30, 1975, Westinghouse
misread his niche, sacking baseball's Tri-State heart. Radio raged. Bars
dumped sponsor Iron City Beer. "For many people," wrote Charlie Feeney,
"the baseball world yesterday came to an end."

On November 5, a parade packed downtown Pittsburgh. Bystanders
waved babushkas. Bob held a weenie. Stargell told a rally: "It's like the U.S.
Steel Building falling down." Prince rued dancing with a stripper. The Bucs
forgot to dance with their Astaire.

"There are people in the Tri-State area who think Prince is irreplaceable,"
said Feeney. He was.

The Astros quickly hired him. In early 1976, ABC added "Monday Night
Baseball." Driving back from dinner, Bob, 60, pulled off the road. "I
wouldn't say this to anyone else, but I'm worried," he told Woods, having
never called a network series. Said Poss: "You can't do on ABC what you've
done in Pittsburgh." A Rosey Ramble would get Prince busted to an affiliate in Nome.

"Bob knew he'd have trouble adjusting to network TV-promote this,
say that." On June 8, "Monday" aired from Pittsburgh. The board welcomed Prince, handclapping all around. He waved a babushka, began to
cry, and said, "I have to apologize ... and turn over my mike." The PostGazette read: "Ratings are low, negative reviews rampant," Gunner battered and confused.

Dethroned that fall ("I hated Houston, and ABC never let me be Bob
Prince"), he took a job with WEEP Pittsburgh ("How ironic"), did hockey
(sample: "We have it. They have it"), and returned to baseball in the early
eighties. "It's just cable, not as many homes. But you hang in there," more
upset that baseball might not fit again in the region's emotional luggage.

KDKA rehired Prince in 1985. "Other than my family, you're giving me
back the only thing I love." He had cancer surgery, did a game, reentered the
hospital, and got lung dehydration and pneumonia. "It is a sad morning,"Tom
McMillan wrote June 11. "We walk to work. We shuffle our feet. A piece of
us is missing. Bob Prince is dead."