I once said you can observe a lot by watching.
Well, back when I was a kid, the only way to see a ball player up close was listening.
Don't quote me on that. Let me explain first.
Growing up poor in Elizabeth Avenue in St. Louis during the 1930s,
there were two kinds of free entertainment, playing ball and listening to the radio.
Free was good in those days because time was tough.
Sometimes on Saturday we got to baseball games for free.
We would sit up at the top of left field stands at Sportsman's Park with the Cardinals and Outhold
Gang en route for Joe Medwick, Frankie Fish and the Dean Brothers.
From the distance you don't get to know the players too well.
A lot of what we knew about big leaguers came from the newspaper and back of bubble gum cards.
What you really got to feel for the players was on radio.
From play by play man, you would get little pieces of information that would help build a picture of
a player. France locks did the Cardinal games back then and also the St. Louis Browns.
Sometimes ball players would read commercials. Sometimes they were in the interview.
And man, how we loved it. They made a guest appearance on one of the big programs
and hammed it up with the cash.
Radio was still a big deal when I came out with the Yankees at the end of the 46th season.
I went to some programs and did plenty of interviews during my career.
They used to joke that I had a face made for radio.
My best pal, Joe Gargiola made a nice living calling games on radio for the Cardinals after
he retired in 1955. By then television had started to take over and baseball and radio
kept going on like old friends.
I bet fans still listen to most of their games on radio, especially when they're not watching
them on TV. That you can quote me on.
For this collection, I listened to a bunch of shows and picked up the ones that remind me
of how baseball and radio teamed up.
Jack Benny, Bob Hope, and Fred Ellen. Those were the superstars of radio.
Actors Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper. They were top guys back then.
Bill Stern. He was like one man ESPN.
And what a pleasure to hear from old friends.
When I listened to Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Casey Stinger on these old programs,
I can't believe they go back 50 or 60 years.
One of the guys on Radio Spirit said that I might be the only person in life to understand
that Casey was talking about.
I told him the more things change, the more they stay the same.
I was the only guy who understood him, back then too.