Baseball and the Radio

It's not often that I find agreement with a Nationals blog these days, but this is a really awesome entry.

The New York Yankees, led by manager Casey Stengel, shortstop Phil Rizzuto and center fielder Joe DiMaggio were playing Del Ennis, Richie Ashburn, Robin Roberts and the Philadelphia Philliesin the 1950 Series that Fall. Kerouac was taking it all in on the radio as explained in the letter. "This morning I did the World Series the honor of getting up early and blasting ahead of time," Kerouac wrote, "There’s an announcer from Philly called Gene Kelly who is an exact replica of John [Clellon] Holmes (that is, dig John as a radio announcer), with the same way of being proud of his verbs and so on, like a groundball is hit, he’ll say…'a slow, twisting, weak roller' as if baseball was the significance of life in itself, the things that happen in it representing in symbols of action, the symbols of (twisting) despair in the ‘modern world.’"

Kerouac’s life on the road was pretty much over by this point. He was at home now writing about the life he had lived, and recording in detail in his letters the things he was observing in his everyday life. The letter to Cassady continued with Kerouac's enthusiam for what he was hearing on the radio clear from what he wrote. "I must say, it’s mighty cool. Then I return to old reliable southern-accent Mel Allen, who has that simple back-country mind, like Dean [Moriarty], just pointing out things like ... ‘Well, there’s Johnny Mize mopping his face with a handkerchief’ or ‘there’s Del Ennis picking up a bat at the batrack’…"

Allen, who first worked a World Series as a color man in 1938, served as the Washington Senators' radio announcer for a time in 1939 when Sens' outfielder Buddy Lewis, pitcher Dutch Leonard and manager Bucky Harris led the AL franchise to a 65-87 record and a 6th place finish in the American League. But Allen left the nation's capital in the middle of that season to become the Yankees and New York Giants announcer. After serving in WWII, Allen worked for the Yankees exclusively. The 1950 World Series was the fifth of eighteen-straight he would call between 1946-1963.

The writer goes on to talk about listening to the Orioles-Nationals game over the weekend, and how incredibly cool it was to listen to a game. I couldn't agree more.

There have been many a night in my life that I listened to Harry Kalas calling a game, rather than watching it on TV. Travel dictated it to me many times. Today, the radio is the home of Larry Anderson, who's voice is made for the radio, and gives you a description of the game that allows you to envision it.

I love listening to baseball on the radio. If you haven't done it lately, you probably should.