Casual
Eastland, Terry
Casual RADIO DAYS At a church dinner recently I stepped out during a lull to use the facilities. That wasn't all I did, nor, I'll confess, was it my only purpose. I proceeded outside, into the...
...Okay, I'm a baseball nut...
...Buck, in his 80s, is still at the mike...
...At Palo Alto in the late '60s, in his first teaching job, Novak found that his "indoor radio" couldn't bring in Los Angeles stations and thus the broadcasts of his beloved Dodgers...
...Because radio doesn't demand your eyes, you can listen and do other things at the same time...
...Radio also has better broadcasters than you'll find on TV...
...More than once I took my dinner to the car to hear the end of a game...
...But at night his car radio could...
...In the close pennant races of those years, to my wife's dismay," he wrote, "I would retreat to the car in the driveway and listen to the radio...
...TERRY EASTLAND...
...I heard the third out and went back to the dinner, confident that my team would win the game...
...Michael Novak has written many books, but the one I like most is The Joy of Sports, published 25 years ago...
...But there are good reasons for baseball on radio...
...The problem with baseball on radio is that you can't tune in a faraway station until the sun goes down, and even then static may overwhelm the broadcast, especially on nights with thunderstorms...
...When big games arrive, I've been known to carry my Radio Shack transistor in a coat pocket...
...A good argument, that, if you have the time to watch the whole game...
...I proceeded outside, into the parking lot and then to my car...
...I got in and turned on the radio, preset to WSB-Atlanta, which is found at 750 AM, in case you didn't know, and which you can usually get in the Washington area once night descends...
...Growing up in Texas, I often tuned in Harry Caray and Jack Buck, who so splendidly joined to do the Cardinals' games on KMOX...
...My wife has told me that many times...
...Today many games are on cable, and I'm told that with a satellite dish you can get any game you want...
...But there was a 5- to 10-second delay in the broadcast, and often the transmission would be interrupted...
...Taking a few well-chosen breaks in the lobby, I heard parts of critical innings...
...Why bother with radio when you can see the real thing...
...Quickly I had my answer: The Atlanta Braves had two outs in the first inning but had scored 10 runs against Florida...
...Baseball Radio, I'd call it...
...A big reason is television...
...Maybe even the whole game...
...Getting the audio back could consume a half inning or more...
...I felt silly...
...Living in California one year in the '70s, I got to hear the incomparable Vin Scully, who still does the Dodgers' games...
...Which it did, a victory that also made Atlanta the National League East champion...
...During the sixth game of the 1991 World Series we happened to be taking in a big concert out at George Mason University in Fairfax...
...But I wanted to hear...
...Baseball fans under 35 grew up with cable television, while those of my maturity were in households with a single black-and-white set but lots of radios...
...There is now a way to overcome all of that, but it's not very satisfactory.This year on www.mlb.com—"the official site of major league base-ball"—you could, with a $9.95 season pass, listen to the live broadcast of any big league game...
...Novak was so taken with Scully's rendering of the last three outs of Sandy Koufax's fourth career no-hitter (a perfect game) that he published it verbatim in \ The Joy of Sports.Novak commented that Scully's account was "as perfect a jewel as if it had been imagined, written, corrected, polished...
...The good news is that with satellite technology it may be possible to make a radio that receives game broadcasts live, day or night...
...Also, radio can be wonderfully portable...
...But I suspect I'm not the only one who's gone to such absurd lengths in the thick of a pennant race—or even the thin of an April or a May or a June—to get to a radio to find out the score or listen to an inning or two...
...Novak is a senior baseball fan, and I'd guess that, among the more junior fans, few are as radiocentric as us older types...
...I'll admit, too, that baseball on TV has other advantages, not least the video replays...
...It would be the perfect gift for the baseball nut...
...His dinner, mind you...
Vol. 7 • October 2001 • No. 6
