A Mets vs. Yankees series would be a second since 2000; Dave Sims wants John Sterling’s gig in the booth

Calling Baseball on either Radio, Television, Cable or Streaming

Albeit on a feeble or weak signal, radio was mesmerizing even the in the 1920s.

The roar of the crowd was exhilarating when Babe Ruth stepped to the plate. Like a man finding his love for the first time, I knew then that baseball radio was for me and so was the game. Mel Allen, Red Barber and Russ Hodges did the Yankees, Dodgers and baseball Giants, respectively. It fostered a kinship that put me behind. The flickering voice of Mel was mellifluous. Phil Rizzuto was the soothing nice guy next door, Red Barber was detached but fatherly. Russ Hodges called the homer at the Polo Grounds by Bobby Thompson in 1951, the shot heard around the world!

The Yankees were perennial baseball contenders and have won 27 World Series. 1923, 1927, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1943, 1947, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1956, 1958, 1961, 1962, 1977, 1978, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2009. Roger Maris was from South Dakota. As he hushed to set an all-time, single-season home run record, Mel was unrestrained while Red would never raise his voice. Red was Red!

During their history, the Mets have won the World Series two times. The first coming in 1969 against the Baltimore Orioles, and the second in 1986 against the Boston Red Sox. The Yanks defeated the Mets in 2020.

He insisted upon pronouncing Los Angeles with a hard G, the Hispanic way. I was only a kid then, I couldn’t figure it out. He pronounced the G in Los Angeles like the G in the word great. He was impervious to convention. The world, of course, pronounced the G in Los Angeles like the G in the word generation.

At the barbershop, the Chinese laundry, or on the Sixteenth Avenue bus in Brooklyn, the game on radio was seemingly always on, especially baseball. After all, back then, football and basketball were just ways to fill time between baseball seasons. Radio has been a wonderful lifelong companion, producing
compelling. Yes, illuminating and unforgettable theater.

At first, any announcer sounded good. Then I went through a discriminating phase of judgment and taste. Glickman was inspiring, Mary Albert was galvanizing, and Spencer Ross was invigorating. After graduating from college, I committed my professional life to radio and to learning every aspect of it. I had fallen in love with basketball, As a teenager I wanted to announce the sport myself. So I moonlighted calling college games while embarking upon a sales career in radio. In  the big city, I listened to Glickman, Albert and Ross.

I was fascinated by the history of radio sports, and beginning in the 1970s I kept copious notes on the subject. There was little written, but the old-timers were always ready to tell stories, whether of their pasts or their memories of radio in general and TV.

In the summer of 1986 Dave Sims (now doing baseball in Seattle). Arguably, he knew of my love of the history of radio sports and one night invited me to be a guest on his program. We talked about everything, from Harold Arlin’s the first baseball broadcaster in Pittsburgh in 1921 to fond memories of Barber and Allen.

We had calls from listeners, and I was in my glory. Time passed too quickly. What could be better than a public forum of an esoteric subject I love most?

“Dick from Corona” phoned-in to the show, WNBC, 660, now WFAN, a powerhouse. I learned that he was sightless, and radio was his world. One brief conversation and it was obvious that he was a treasure. I had the producer of the show give him my number. He was and is a fountain of historical data.

Since our first conversation, Dick Barhold had shared an inexhaustible wealth of information on the subject. He is blessed with a genius-like memory. I never met anyone as brilliantly gifted. For instant-recall of dates and facts, give Dick a date, any year, he’ll tell you the day of the week it fell. He will probably also be able to tell you what he was doing that day.

Beginning with the early 1940s, his mind is encyclopedic. He can jump from one year to the next, relating data from one decade to the next, and he’s implausibly accurate. Year by year, team by team, station by station, Dick spewed out data with flawless precision.

Also about that time, autobiographies of sportscasters started sprouting.