Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball's 101 All-Time Best Announcers (33 page)

Before 1966, local-teamers called the Series. "NBC's contract changed
that," said director Harry Coyle. "We intended to showcase our boy." Curt
aired half of each set-to. In L.A. and Baltimore, Vin Scully and Chuck
Thompson, respectively, did the rest.

Scully was incensed. "What about the road? My fans won't be able to
hear me."

Game One evoked tit for tat. Vin did the first 4 1/2 innings. Gowdy
then inherited a clunker made duller by Scully's refusal to say another
word. Four years later, emceeing a dinner, "They'd'a killed each other," said
Lindemann, "if we hadn't kept them apart." At Boston, Curt would have
killed for a pennant. 1967: He called its Series. 1968: Detroit, in seven. A
year later: Linguists still grope to explain how, and why.

"Until '69, `Game' had ignored the Mets," said Gowdy, airing them
weekly that September. Next he beamed their L.C.S. and Series. The Chinese discovered the 365 1/4 day solar year in 2300 B.C. The Mets discovered
Canaan October 16, 1969. "There's a fly ball hit out to left!" Curt said.
"Waiting is Jones! The Mets are the world champions! Jerry Koosman is
being mobbed! Look at this scene!"

Suddenly the Mets seemed more Amazin' than even Cheyenne's hills,
ravines, and ponds.

Later, Gowdy rued ubiquity. Then, a brigade at Utah Beach could not have
persuaded him to recede. 1970 Series: Brooks Robinson augurs A&E's Biography. "Look at that grab! He's playing in another world!" 1971 Mid-Summer
Classic: "That one is going-way up! It is-off the roof! That hit the transformer up there! A tremendous smash! [by Reggie Jackson, in Detroit]"
1974: "Von Joshua is up ... Here, it could be-he [Gene Tenacel caught it.
... The Oakland A's are the first team since the New York Yankees to win
three world championships in a row!"

About this time, Jerry Lister termed "a week in Gowdy's life like a chapter
in Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days." He read 22 papers, traveled
350,000 miles a year, and spent them memorizing. Each January 1 he did the
Rose Bowl; fall, NFL; winter, 1964-84 "Sportsman." Like Williams, the
Cowboy thought outside inviolate. On March 27, 1972-"my greatest day"Wyoming opened the Curt Gowdy State Park. Other days weren't bad:

November 17, 1968: NBC showed a movie instead of the Jets-Raiders' final
minute. Only the West Coast saw Oakland, scoring twice, win. "I'm leaving
when our assistant starts yelling, `Gowdy! Here are earphones to the truck.' It
says, `Uh, uh, phone calls are blowing lines up.' I have to re-create the last-second
scores" for the next-day "Today Show." The Heidi Game burnished football's rise.

January 12, 1969. "I guarantee a [Super Bowl III] victory," said Namath.
The Colts were a 19-point lock. Jets, 16-7. Christmas 1971: Miami's
second-overtime field goal beat K.C., 27-24. Curt renamed sudden death
"sudden victory." December 23, 1972: Oakland, 7-6, with 22 seconds left.
"I'd better congratulate the boys," says Steelers owner Art Rooney, leaving for
the locker room.

Pittsburgh wins, 13-7, on a deflected pass. Pick 'em: "The Immaculate
Reception" or The Kid's Last Swing as Curt's abiding call.

Each week Gowdy and Reese's successor, Tony Kubek, attended a pre"Game" meeting in New York. On cue, the producer, director, and cameramen haggled. The star then raised a hand. "Yes, Gowdy," they sighed.

"What about the ball game?"

"Hell with the ball game. We have to have the opening and the close."

"Yes," said Curt, "but, fellas, we're here because of the game." Do your
homework. Tell the score.

In 1972, hoping that "Monday will take off like football," wrote Broadcasting magazine, NBC began a 10-game prime-time schedule. Next year it
beamed 15 straight. For a man who lived on numbers, the Cowboy's stalled:
Saturday down; Monday barely up. Even crown jewels-L.C.S., All-Star
Game, Series-seemed on autopilot. Another NBCer saw his chance.

Joe Garagiola did the pre-"Game" show. Baseball's angel was his boss.
"He did Chrysler ads," said Lindemann, "and now wanted play-by-play."
Meanwhile, baseball wanted cash. "Ratings couldn't get more from one network," said bigs media director John Lazarus, "so we approached another."
Upshot: 1976-79 format of NBC, Saturday; ABC, Monday; and shared postseason/All-Star Game.

NBC added Garagiola to its last-year Monday coverage. "Looking back,"
said Lindemann, "this was the first shot in a campaign to get Curt off baseball altogether." He soon took one between the eyes.

By 1975, Gowdy had aired seven of sport's all-time 10 most-watched events.
The year became a kind of The Last Picture Show, though he did not see it
clearly. "Joe's great at throwing elbows," said Coyle. "For all his success [three
homes and seven radio stations], Curt was a small-town kid."

Poignantly the Towne Team won the pennant. In the Series, Cincinnati
led Game Six, 6-3. Two eighth-inning Sox reached base. "The pitch," said
Gowdy on NBC Radio. "[Pinch-hitter Bernie] Carbo hits a high drive!
Deep center! Home run! . . . Bernie Carbo has hit his second pinch-hit
home run of the Series! ... It came with two out. And the Red Sox have
tied it, 6 to 6!"

Next inning Fred Lynn arced a bases-full pop. Third-base coach Don
Zimmer screamed, "No, no!" Runner Denny Doyle misheard "Go, go!" Curt:
"It is caught by Foster. Here's the tag. Here's the throw! He's out! A double
play! Foster throws him out!" Cincy's Joe Morgan batted in the 1 1 th. "There's
a long shot! Back goes Evans-back, back! And what a grab! Evans made a
grab and saved a home run on that one!"

At 12:34 A.M., Carlton Fisk hit his memorable, implausible, epochal
blast. Ned Martin called it fair. Added Gowdy: "They're jamming out on the
field! His teammates are waiting for him! And the Red Sox send the World Series into Game Seven with a dramatic 7 to 6 victory. What a game! This is
one of the greatest World Series games of all time!"

NBC plainly felt there was nothing else to say.

Memory, said Alexander Chase, is the thing we forget with. A decade
later, Lindemann wanted to forget being odd man out. "Chrysler kept
pushing. I was the only guy behind the Cowboy." That November, Gowdy
filmed "Sportsman" in Maine. Carl flew to tell him-"Curt was
shocked"-that he was through.

In 1978, Gowdy became a "roving [Series] reporter"-to Coyle, "humiliating, such a minor role." He did a final Rose and Super Bowl. One hoops Saturday, the spotter misidentified each starter: Curt, barely 60, soon put out toTV
pasture, got the blame. CBS TV offered a three-year pact, dropping him in 1981.

CURT GOWOY

"It was an ugly, abrupt end," said Lindemann. "Neither Curt nor I know
why." I first met Gowdy on 1960 Sox-Stripes wireless. Allen guided me until
Albany: Eastward Cowboy-ho. In the 1980s, he spoke again on CBS Radio:
the game, still the important thing; the voice, still as sturdy as a post.

"You look at McNamee, Husing, Allen," said Lindemann. "With networks dividing sports, nobody ever did what Gowdy did." It is a safe bet that
nobody will.

"Kennedy was, whether for good or bad, an enormously large figure,"
Theodore H. White wrote of America's first Catholic president. "Historically,
he was a gate-keeper. He unlatched the gate and through the door marched
Catholics, blacks, and Jews, and ethnics, women, youth, academics,
newspersons, and an entirely new breed of politician." Joe Garagiola, a large
baseball figure, unlatched a gate for nonrural, -cornpone, and -native stock
announcers. He was urban, ethnic, and as barbed as wire.

We learn to take our craft, not selves, seriously. Garagiola took himself,
not his game. Caray tutored, then loathed, him. Nelson called Joe "the single
most ambitious man I ever met," not necessarily meaning a compliment. On
the other hand, he asked for little, worked like a dog, and helped found the
Baseball Assistance Team.

Churchill termed Russia "a riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma."
Intriguing people often are. Said Joe G.: "I went through life as a [ 1946-541
player to be named later." Ordinary on the field, he was extraordinary off.

Joe will always be boyhood pal Yogi Berra's ambassador without portfolio.
"I'll ask him, `What time is it?'Yogi'll say, `Now?"'

"I get lost going toYogi's home, and call. `Where are you?' he says. I tell
him. He says, `You're not far away. You come this way. Don't go that way."'

A woman mused, "Yogi, you look cool in that outfit." Berra smiled.
"Thanks," he said, "you don't look so hot yourself."

What a card-or was Yogi Charlie McCarthy, mouthing a baseball
Bergen's lines? "It's his humor," said Garagiola, growing wintry. "He thinks
funny, and speaks what he thinks."

Joe's mother "a dear, loving simple woman"-could not speak English.
Dad worked in a brickyard. Born on Lincoln's Birthday, 1926, their son learned a salute-to-the-flag, catch-in-the-throat, tear-in-the-eye Americanism. Like Yogi, "a pickoff away" on St. Louis's Dago Hill, his universe was
baseball. The exception was, oddly, soccer.

Berra took ill the morning of one game. "You look terrible," Garagiola
said. "Why don't you go home?"

"If a guy can't get sick on a cold, miserable day like this he ain't healthy,"
Yogi shrugged. Try converting that for mom.

Growing up, both shared a glove, played in a Works Progress Administration league, and worked in a Cardinals training camp. In 1942, Joe graduated
from South Side Catholic High School, signed for $500 with St. Louis, and
bounced to Class-A Springfield,Triple-A Columbus, and the Army in Manila.

One day he heard the wireless etch a young, fast, and strong Cardinals
catcher. "I turned to my closest Army buddy and said, `If that guy's that good,
I'm in trouble."' The radio predicted Garagiola would fill Walker Cooper's
shoes. As he said, it didn't say with what.

In 1946, joining his home team, Joe G. was assigned washing sanitary hose.
"We used to always put on Stan Musial's socks 'TGIF'-Toes Go In First.
Anything to help The Man."The Man helped by leading the league in seven
categories.

Enos Slaughter had an N.L.-high 130 runs. Howie Pollett, Harry
Brecheen, and Murry Dickson went 51-31. St. Louis was still made a 7-to20 Series underdog vs. Boston. Games One-Two split. The Sox then won
Fenway's first Series match in 28 years. To New England, Game Four seemed
as long: Swifties, 12-3. Joe, Slaughter, and Whitey Kurowski each had four
of a record-tying 20 hits.

"Here I am," he said, "living a kid's dream, and [Ted] Williams picks that
day to beat the shift [three infielders right of second base]." Papers blared:
"Williams Bunt!" Cards, in seven. Garagiola gloried in his .316 average. The
hereafter was stickier: 1947, .257; '48, minors; '50, shoulder separation.
Hurt, Joe began listening to Caray, "how he called the game, and I got to
thinking about radio."

Dealt to Pittsburgh, he rubbernecked the 42-112 '52ers. "It was the
most courageous team in baseball," said baseball's Letterman. "We had 154
games scheduled, and showed up for every one. We lost eight of our first nine
games and then we had a slump."

Next year marked the ninth season of Branch Rickey's five-year plan.
One day the Bucs' G.M. summoned Joe. "He looks at me with his big, bushy eyebrows. 'By Judas Priest,' he says, `we're turning the corner. And you, my
boy, figure in my plans."' That week he was traded to the Cubs.

In 1954, the Giants claimed him off waivers. "I'd sit in the bullpen and
say, `Why the hell doesn't he throw the curveball?"' Joe said, retiring. "All I
had to do to become an announcer was to take out the hell."

Hired by KMOX St. Louis, the Funny Man began making a virtue of necessity. "You can't imagine the thrill," Joe said of his .257 career average, "to
walk into a clubhouse and wonder if your uniform is still there." Dago Hill
became terra firma. "A door to door peddler told my mom I was the first boy
from the neighborhood with a name ending in a, e, i, o, or u that gets his
name in the papers and he no kill anybody."

Baseball wasn't "like going to church." Dead air: "I'm Italian. I like to
talk." Strategy: "An idiot could pick up" the signs. St. Louis forgave his sharp
voice. Caray taught using the diaphragm. "I had a lot of help, and needed it.
Off my first play-by-play, I wouldn't have hired myself."

For Anheuser Busch, Joe emceed, spoke to B'Nai B'rith, the Holy Name,
and Masonic Lodge, and bloomed as a ribster. He and Musial became godfather for the other's child. In 1959, he broadcast with the Cardinals from
Japan. Back home,Yogi's pal taped, reviewed, and learned, becoming the Bob
Hope of the resin hag.

His gate, unlatched, would soon open wide.

In 1960, Herbert Hoover and Indian prime minster Jawaharlal Nehru were
introduced at the World Series. "You amaze me, Yog. You've become such a
world figure that you draw more applause than either a prime minster or
former president," Garagiola laughed. "Can you explain it?"

"Certainly," said Berra. "I'm a better hitter."

That season, Joe released the runaway bestseller Baseball Is a Funn), Game.
"One (lay I'm a dumb jock and suddenly I can write." NBC made him 1961
"Major League Baseball" colorman. Next year Bob Wolff began play-by-play.
"You work your side of the street [interviewing players]," said Garagiola, "and
I'll work mine."