Hearing Voices

I still hear voices in my head.

No, not demons or evil spirits, but the voices of my youth, the voices that emanated from two of my constant companions during my growing up years, my bedside radio and television.

Sure, my Dad and my grandpa and others helped teach me to play the games, but the voices, the voices taught me the history of the games, the nuances that could only be detected by decades of paying close attention to every detail, from endless hours of talking to players, coaches and managers.

The voice the rings loudest is that of Jack Buck.  I have written much about him over the years.  I learned more about baseball listening to him call games on KMOX than I learned from anyone and nearly 20 years of playing the game.  Outside of my immediate family, Jack was my hero, the one I wanted to be like.

I still hear Joe Garagiola and Vin Scully as well.  Garagiola, the former catcher, who for years called the NBC Game of the Week.  Yes kids, there was a time when you saw one game a week on television, and it wasn’t that long ago.  I can still hear Garagiola reminding me that baseball can be fun, and funny things happen.

Vin Scully is still with us, in his mid-80’s, who started broadcasting the Los Angeles Dodgers when they were still in Brooklyn.  To put that in perspective, the Dodgers last year in Brooklyn was the year I was born (1957).

Scully is the Rembrandt to Buck’s Rockwell, painting a canvas of descriptive words which filled the mind with vivid color and imagery.  There is no one like him in baseball today.  I doubt there ever will be again.Do this for me.  Go to You Tube and type in “Kirk Gibson Home Run, 1988 World Series.” 

Buck is calling the game for CBS Radio, Scully I think for NBC Television.  In the bottom of the ninth, the Dodgers, trailing 4-2, send up Gibson to pinch hit in the bottom of the ninth.  Gibson, their best hitter, is rendered useless for the World Series because of knee issues.  Yet, someway, somehow, he hits a home run off of the Athletics Dennis Eckersley to win the game for the Dodgers.

Listen to Scully’s call, “In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.”  Then listen to Buck, where he broadcast to the millions listening on radio, “I don’t believe what I just saw.”  Then after a couple seconds of silence, he says it again, “I don’t believe what I just saw!”  Classic.

But the voices in my head replay more than baseball.  With every hockey game I watch, I hear Dan Kelly, who has been dead for 20 years, saying “he shoots, he scooooooooores!”  Goosebumps.

Then there is football, where three voices share space in my brain.  There is Ray Scott, one of the early voices of the NFL, who seemed to be the play-by-play man on every important NFL game.

They there is John Facenda, who did not broadcast for just one team, he broadcast for all of them.  For years, Facenda, who was a Philadelphia newsman, was the “Voice” of NFL Films, narrating every play and highlight.  At NFL Films and around the NFL, Facenda was simply known as “The Voice of God.”  You Tube him as well, and look for “The Autumn Wind.”  I so wish I had a voice like him.

Then there is Pat Summerall, which I guess is the reason I am writing this column.  The University of Arkansas graduate was voice of football for a generation.  Starting in the 1970’s with Tom Brookshier who was later replaced by John Madden, Summerall respected the intelligence of those watching.  He didn’t state the obvious, just in his own, smooth style, let you know what was happening.  He was the total opposite of Madden, his partner for 20-plus years at CBS and Fox.  

Summerall died this past week at the age of 82.

I saw a bumper sticker a few months ago that said, “I may be old, but I got to see all the good bands.”Let me tweak that for a moment.  “I may be old, but I got to hear all the good announcers.”
Buck, Garagiola, Scully, Kelly, Scott, Facenda and Summerall. 

I still hear voices in my head, and they can stay as long as they want.

This originally appeared in the April 25, 2013 edition of the Pocahontas Star Herald.