From a Picture to The Voices of My Youth

I have an app called Timehop that I check every day. Literally everyday -- 1428 in a row, according to the app.

It shows me Facebook memories and Twitter miscues and Instagram pics. It's good and bad.

Today, it reminded me that I called division one college basketball at Stony Brook on Long Island against Mount Saint Mary College. That began a fun season of calling Mount basketball. I don't know who has called their games since then but, at that time, I was the first play-by-play "voice" in their history. At least that's what they told me.

It was a special time for me as well as for Sean, who came with me to games, including a road trip on the team bus where he felt like a big deal.

I tweeted the memory at the Mount athletic department. No response as of press time. Oh well.

Timehop also recently produced the picture at the top of the post. It was taken in Oct, 2009 (according to the caption) as we drove to Hunter Mountain for Oktoberfest. Sean took the picture.

I can see a lot of "stuff" in my face. There were times then when I felt lost, alone, defeated, and demoralized. I look tired in the picture.

I post it tonight as a reminder that, no matter what, we've been through crap. Some better, some worse. But we've survived, and that's the message I wanted to give. We know how take the lemons, mix them up, and drink it down.

Divorce, death, highs, lows. See the good wherever possible. I've tried so hard to do that throughout 2020. I've told stories, of course, and have battled my emotions, but I'm still here.

Better days are coming. Smiling pictures are on the way.

I've survived. So can you.

*****

I saw STAA (Sportscasters Talent Agency of America) tweeted a question as to who were the voices of your childhood.

For as much as the answers became Dick Enberg and Vin Scully and the other people who brought the sounds of sports alive to me, the true answer was the big three of Yankees baseball in the 1970s.

There was Phil Rizzuto, of course. Everyone loved the Scooter. He talked about anniversaries and birthdays, ran from thunderstorms and tried to beat traffic across the George Washington Bridge to get home to Cora in New Jersey. In between was a fascinating broadcaster who wasn't always these things (including a homer), trained begrudgingly by Mel Allen and Red Barber.

Rizzutos' frequent sidekick was Bill White. A former first baseman for the Giants, Phillies, and Cardinals, White turned to broadcasting in St. Louis and Philadelphia before joining the Yankees' booth in 1971. It never even occurred to me that he was breaking barriers as a Black man. He was, simply, a member of a great three-man broadcast team.

Then there was Frank Messer. Where Rizzuto and White were ballplayers-turned voices, the former Marine was a trained broadcaster. Frank was different to me. His descriptions enthralled me. He was the "pro" versus the ballplayers.

In those days, the three rotated positions so that they'd each do time on radio and TV. Thus was got to know all of them. It was Rizzuto, for instance, who had the local call of Chris Chambliss as he beat the Royals in the 1976 American League Championship. It was White, famously, who uttered, "Deep to left! Yastrzemski will not get it...it's a home run! A three-run home run for Bucky Dent and the Yankees now lead it by a score of three to two."

It was Messer who was at the mic for the chaos of the Pine Tar Game in 1983. Sitting next to him -- as if I wasn't already interested in sports broadcasting -- was a former outfielder named Bobby Murcer who had recently retired.

Scully and Enberg and Summerall and Emrick and Michaels and Jackson and so many others helped teach me how to close out any rooting interest. They called the game impartially as they were the network voices that helped shape me. Curt Gowdy was that guy in the 70s more than anybody.

But it was White, Messer, and Rizzuto that helped start molding me. And I can't say this clearly enough, I also give credit to Lindsay Nelson, Ralph Kiner and Bob Murphy of the Mets for adding to that foundation.

These were the voices that started me on the path of describing and storytelling. Oh, the game may have seemed secondary to Rizzuto at times but it really wasn't. It was just part of the show -- almost a latter-day Dizzy Dean, but with a New York accent.

That's where it started and that's what I try to explain to students. Learn how to craft. Learn how to describe. The rest of the skills might follow.

Holy cow!