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I once said you can observe a lot by watching.

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Well, back when I was a kid, the only way to see a ball player up close was listening.

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Don't quote me on that. Let me explain first.

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Growing up poor in Elizabeth Avenue in St. Louis during the 1930s,

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there were two kinds of free entertainment, playing ball and listening to the radio.

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Free was good in those days because time was tough.

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Sometimes on Saturday we got to baseball games for free.

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We would sit up at the top of left field stands at Sportsman's Park with the Cardinals and Outhold

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Gang en route for Joe Medwick, Frankie Fish and the Dean Brothers.

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From the distance you don't get to know the players too well.

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A lot of what we knew about big leaguers came from the newspaper and back of bubble gum cards.

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What you really got to feel for the players was on radio.

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From play by play man, you would get little pieces of information that would help build a picture of

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a player. France locks did the Cardinal games back then and also the St. Louis Browns.

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Sometimes ball players would read commercials. Sometimes they were in the interview.

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And man, how we loved it. They made a guest appearance on one of the big programs

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and hammed it up with the cash.

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Radio was still a big deal when I came out with the Yankees at the end of the 46th season.

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I went to some programs and did plenty of interviews during my career.

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They used to joke that I had a face made for radio.

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My best pal, Joe Gargiola made a nice living calling games on radio for the Cardinals after

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he retired in 1955. By then television had started to take over and baseball and radio

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kept going on like old friends.

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I bet fans still listen to most of their games on radio, especially when they're not watching

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them on TV. That you can quote me on.

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For this collection, I listened to a bunch of shows and picked up the ones that remind me

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of how baseball and radio teamed up.

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Jack Benny, Bob Hope, and Fred Ellen. Those were the superstars of radio.

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Actors Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper. They were top guys back then.

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Bill Stern. He was like one man ESPN.

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And what a pleasure to hear from old friends.

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When I listened to Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Casey Stinger on these old programs,

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I can't believe they go back 50 or 60 years.

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One of the guys on Radio Spirit said that I might be the only person in life to understand

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that Casey was talking about.

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I told him the more things change, the more they stay the same.

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I was the only guy who understood him, back then too.