Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball's 101 All-Time Best Announcers (9 page)

The '53ers went 105-49, scored a near-league record 955 runs, and
led it in eight other categories. Since 1939, Gillette had run the Series.
"It was growing an empire, but announcers only got a demeaning $200 a game," said Barber, then 45. Most took it. In September, Red tried to up
it, demanding "the right to negotiate my fee." Gillette told him to jump
off the Tallahatchie Bridge. Naively, he phoned a man who deemed him a
pain in the patootie.

O'Malley had owned the Brooks since 1950. One night, at Toots Shor's,
he and Yankees owner Dan Topping got thoroughly gassed. "I hate the son of
a bitch," Walter said of Barber. Topping then trashed Mel. "Tell you what,"
O'Malley urged. "I'll trade you the son of a bitch." Dan flushed. "I'll give you
Allen." Sober, next day they reneged.

O'Malley was less likely than A. Craig Smith to back Red's right to negotiate. "That is your problem," he sniffed. "I'll nominate Scully to take your
[Series] place." Barber wrote: "I said to myself, `Walter, the Dodgers are now
your problem.' " Resigning, he was replaced by the son Red never had.

"I have to be careful about Vin Scully," Barber said. "He's my boy."The protege replied: "He became like a father to me in every way."

Scully joined Red in 1950. "Near the end of the season, Boston, it's
dark," he said. The Dodgers needed to win. "To Brooklyn, he made that
tempest a symbol of time running out." Rain neared. Brooklyn took the
lead. "If the Dodgers could retire the side in the fifth, keeping their edge,
the game was official." The first two men made out. Rain pelted Braves
Field. "Red described raindrops as Pee Wee took a grounder and threw to
first. I'll never forget how, by that gentle power of his voice, he made the
game come alive."

In late 1953, Brooklyn's weatherman became Allen's aide. A month
later, surgery caused permanent deafness in one ear. "New league," he said,
"I don't know the players, my head's like a sea." Manager Casey Stengel
could be hard on young players. By contrast, one old gentleman might save
another. "He knew without my mentioning it that something was wrong.
He'd brief me, take all the time in the world." Photos show him standing
next to Red's good ear.

NBC's Tom Gallery thought the lay preacher "a sanctimonious, Psalmsinging son of a bitch." Prim and distant, Red hated flaws and fools: "So different," said Harwell, "from his relaxed, Arthur Godfrey on-air image."
Increasingly, that core turned public in the Bronx. "In Brooklyn, Red may
have been the best ever," said Costas, "but later he turned dry, somewhat
bitter, almost interior, nowhere as good as Mel."

Possibly, he simply missed being boss.

In 1964, the Yanks won a pennant on the next-to-last day. Shockingly, Mel
was fired. "Red was not considered to do the Series [Phil Rizzuto was]," said
a friend. "Not family."The Stripes' became dysfunctional. On September 22,
1966, the day Michael Burke became president, 413 pocked the last-placers'
65,010-seat park. Barber thought it "the perfect place for Burke to start,
nowhere to go but up."

Red asked the WPIX TVdirector to pan the stands. No shot. He asked
again. No go. "I later found out [Yanks media head] Perry Smith was in the
control room. He told them not to show the seats." Report, Barber knew from
teletype. "I don't know what the paid attendance is today, but whatever it is,
it is the smallest crowd in the history of Yankee Stadium, and this crowd is
the story, not the game."

Next week, asked to breakfast, he expected a new pact. Burke skipped
sugar: "There is no reason to be talking pleasantries. We have decided not to
renew you." Axed, Red was freed. "I'd become a servant to the microphone.
On my own, I'd have gone back for who knows how long "The next quartercentury became a valentine: seven books, dozens of radio/TV events, and
feathers in the cap for excellence.

In 1978, with Allen, this mix of "old courtliness and the flintiness of the
utterly independent man," wrote Halberstam, became the first Voice to enter
Cooperstown. In 1981, Red began each-Friday commentary on National
Public Radio's "Morning Edition." Depending on date and mood, he traced
cats, cooking, squirrels eating birdseed, or crape myrtle blooming in his Tallahassee yard.

Once Barber segued from 1984 Vice-Presidential candidate Geraldine
Ferraro to Mary, Queen of Scots, to caddies at the British Open. Time of discourse: three minutes. No egg timer needed.

"Red's notion was that education continues no matter what your age,"
said NPR host Bob Edwards. "A man who remembered when cars and airplanes were new inventions found some new marvel each day." The real
marvel died October 10, 1992, jarring the show's 3.5 million listeners. "Fridays will never be the same."

In a eulogy, Steve Kelly said that "some people are meant to be
immortal. Their voices and their visions are meant to continue from
generation to generation"-bringing letters to language; and shading,
sport. Owning himself, Red could not be bought.

"Do a little plowing," Barber quoted cousin Eula of Boston, Georgia,
"because if you stop, you're gone." We had him for 84 years. He never (lid.

RED BARBER

Ask a seven-year-old about baseball. He likes the soul-crushing poke-the
homer. Announcers like it, too. Mel Allen cried, "Going, going ... gone!"
Harry Caray closed a million bars. "It might be ... It could be ... It is!"
Harry Kalas yelps, "It's outta here!" Aunt Minnie dwarfed them all.

One day in 1938, the Pirates' play-by-play man unveiled his calling card.
A drive neared the scoreboard. Out of the blue Albert K. ("Rosey")
Rowswell yapped, "Get upstairs, Aunt Minnie, and raise the window. Here
she [baseball] comes!" An aide dropped a pane of glass. To listeners it meant
the window.

"Too bad," Rosey sobbed. "She tripped over a garden hose. Aunt Minnie
never made it." She never did, but was never heard to grouse.

Rowswell was a humorist, poet, and banquet speaker- "a 112 -pound toothpick [a.k.a. `Hercules' or `Muscles']. Gentle, sensitive," said Bob Prince who wrote "Should You Go First" after musing with wife Gyp what each
would do sans other. It ended: "I'll want to know each step you take / That I
may walk the same / For some day down that lonely road / You'll hear me
call your name."

From 1909 to 1929, Rosey was secretary of Pittsburgh's Third Presbyterian Church. Baseball as religion: he prayed at the Pirates' hull, and Boston,
New York, and Philadelphia. In 1936, the Bucs made him Voice-to Prince,
"the logical choice. There were big-league clubs, but to Rosey only one bigleague hub."

Most play-by-play is local: a scout sets the style. At Fenway, Curt Gowdy
tracked Fred Hoey's: keep it simple. Rowswell rooted for the home team:
Not winning was a shame. "America's [self-styled] most partial baseball
broadcaster" set an alarm clock for Pennsylvania, east Ohio, and West Virginia: housewives began dinner when Rosey signed off.

Once 5,000 women listeners stormed WWSW to see him re-create.
"Even schoolkids knew his sayings," said skipper Billy Meyer. The Pirates were
"Picaroonies." Like Barber, his bases were "FOB: [Full of Bucs/Brooklyns]."A
"doozie marooney" (extra-baser) might clear the sacks, a "dipsy doodle" (K)
fan the side. "Oh, my aching back," he said, losing. Winning was yummier. "I'll
be home soon," he told Gyp. "Put on the lamb chops now."

In 1939, Aunt Minnie commenced at Forbes, in an Austin car, at a KDKA
TV exhibit. "Later people claimed that they were her," said Prince. "Actually,
Rosey invented her" to mask Bucs stench. Silver linings: Lloyd Waner's .316
average, brother Paul's third batting title, and Rip Sewell's blooper, or
"Eephus," pitch. Ralph Kiner hit 294 homers, leading the N.L. each year
from 1946 to 1952. After his last at-bat, half the crowd would leave.

One afternoon a Bucs part-owner shared the mike. "I'd like to see Ralph
improve a little on his showing so far this afternoon," Bing Crosby said. "Against
Rush he couldn't do much.... Maybe he can do a little better! [vs. Doyle Lade].
And he did! ..." Rosey, interrupting: "There goes a long one-open the-it
may go in there! Aunt Minnie! [shouting] Boy, it goes clear out over the scoreboard." Der Bingle, barely audible: "Oh, what a blast . . ." Rosey: "Over into
Schenley Park, a long homer for Ralph Kiner-his first of the 1948 season!"
Crosby: "Oh, did he. . ." Rowswell: "Let's hope that it's the first of 61 !"

Bing seemed obtuse. "Sounds great," laughed Prince, "hut you haven't
had the mike for 10 seconds." Rowswell was as daft. "My Lord," Bob said,
"do you know who you just stole the mike from?"Years later Bob shook his
head. "When you upstage Bing Crosby, you've really pulled the cork."

Another part-owner midwifed Prince's 1948 hiring. "Tom Johnson insisted,"
said broadcaster Ted Patterson. "Rosey said, `I'm afraid of him, he's brash,"'
busting the rookie to reading ads. Finally Bob cornered him. "What do you
have against me?"

"You're nothing but a fresh punk."

"Look, I'm not after your job. All I want to do is succeed you when you
retire."

In time, Prince loved the Rosey Ramble. "We'd be losing, and Rowswell'd
start talking poetry and crazy sayings."An inning might star a recipe, the weather,
and local zoo. "It's not just play-by-play that matters," Rosey said. "What counts is
what's said between pitches."Any pitch might hatch Aunt Minnie.

For a while aides dropped glass. Too messy, felt Bob. "So up comes a
dumbwaiter's tray with bells, nuts, and bolts-anything for noise." Prince
dropped the tray on command. "On radio, it resembled an earthquake. All
the time you're hearing, `Poor Aunt Minnie. She didn't make it.' " Meanwhile, Bob, on all fours, retrieved material "in case the next guy hit one."

In 1954, the Picaroonies added weekend roadTV toWWSW Radio's 20station network. Rowswell died of a heart attack February 6, 1955.

A plaque in the Bucs' press box hails the "Pittsburgh Pirates' first
announcer." Memory ties the dipsy doodle, doozie marooney, and putting lamb
chops on the stove.

Open the window, Aunt Minnie, and don't forget that garden hose.

ROSBY ROWSWELL

Chemistry fuses molecules. Jim Britt fused nouns and verbs and terms. "No
broadcaster better used the language," said Ken Coleman. Many thought Britt
savvy. Some felt him snooty, panning the average Joe.

"There are 27,000 persons here today," Jim observed.

"Jim, you always say persons," said Coleman. "Is there a reason you don't
say people orfans?"

"Yes, Ken, people is correct," Britt stiffened. "And fans are correct. But
persons is more correct."

English is said to be mistaught in public school. Britt taught much about
the vagaries of public life.

By 1921, the 1 1-year-old son of a Burroughs Adding Machine Co. CEO had
lived in San Francisco, Erie, Baltimore, and Denver. In 1935, the high school
debating, public speaking, and dramatics teacher graduated in prelaw from
the University of Detroit. Dad made computers and calculators. Britt now
calculated what to do. He got married and earned a USC law degree, but
never took the bar.

"Why not?" a writer said.

"Because I'm an idiot." Actually, he preferred mike to bench.

Britt's radio career began in South Bend, Indiana. In 1937, Russ Hodges,
working in nearby Gary, told of a job atWBEN Buffalo. Soon Jim did theTriple-
A Bisons. Roger Baker was their swell. "They'd recreate the same game," said
partner Leo Egan. "Roger stayed a half-inning behind in case the wire broke.
Not Jim."The man in a hurry finished 20 minutes ahead.

Egan joined the Yankee Network, which dumped Frank Frisch in late
1939. "I'd helped get Frank's job. Now I help pick his successor." Arriving,
Britt confronted its daily "Superman" show. "Didn't matter who was up at
5:15," he said. "It pre-empted us. We came back at 5:30." Usually, Jim signed
off: "Remember, if you can't take part in a sport, be one anyway, will you?"
In 1942, he joined the Navy. "If you can't take part in the war, buy bonds
anyway, will you?"