 |
| Harold Arlin |
* I'm not kidding. One...er...poster interpreted a tweet of mine last night as my being a Red Sox fan. Yes. Read that again. When I made it quite clear that I was, of course, not one, he went full "I don't care and I'll curse at you with a pithy picture to make sure you know I don't care." Which, of course, means he did care.
On Aug 5, 1921, Harold Arlin went to Forbes Field in Pittsburgh and called the Phillies/Pirates game on KDKA. While there had been other efforts to relay sports via "wireless," this seems to be the date most recognized as the birth of play-by-play.
I wrote about it in 2017.
Things were quite primitive, to say the least, but so was everything in the early days in radio. Both KDKA and WJZ relayed descriptions of the 1921 World Series, with WJZ (based out of the Newark, NJ) doing the 1922 Fall Classic.
Graham McNamee (an eventual Ford Frick Award winner) first appeared on the Series in 1923.
Play-by-play would grow during the '20s with the World Series, college football, Davis Cup tennis matches, and more being attempted. In fact, every World Series has been broadcast since 1921.
Among the oldest broadcasts is Game 7 of the 1934 Classic at Navin Field in Detroit. This game is famous for a nasty battle between Joe Medwick of the Cardinals and the Detroit fans (go to 1:21:57).
We've obviously come a long way from that.
It's mighty safe to say we've had many characters and high-energy personalities since Mr. Arlin in 1921. We've had poets and wordsmiths (Vin Scully, of course) and southern lawyers (Mel Allen, who passed the bar exam) and explosive calls (paging Russ Hodges) and great expressions ("Oh Doctor" from Red Barber).
Ever heard of Rosey Rowswell? Likely not. Full of sound effects and canned phrases, he entertained
Pirates fans for 19 years with home run calls, like "Raise the window, Aunt Minnie. Here it comes, right into your petunia patch!" That was followed by someone (likely his assistant, Bob Prince, who would become a Pirates legend in his own right) dropping a tray full of various items to sound like a crash.
How about Dizzy Dean? Sure, he was a Hall of Fame pitcher. He was also an English-destroying, Wabash Cannonball-singing play-by-play announcer from 1941 to 1965.
So yeah. We've seen a lot. We've heard a lot. Don't get lost in the notion that we were always stodgy chain-smokers.
And we continue to grow. We evolve further into the 21st Century with true talents like Joe Davis of the Dodgers and FOX (who sort of took over the seat once occupied by the GOAT, Mr. Scully).
That also means there are some less-than-quality "voices" in the stew. That's just the nature of the talent pool.
The future will be fascinating. Let's see what tomorrow holds. Even for me.
Thanks again, Mr. Arlin.
No comments:
Post a Comment