Memories from the Microphone by Curt Smith

Author:Curt Smith [Smith, Curt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781642506761
Publisher: Mango Media
Published: 2021-06-23T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

1960s–1970s:

Shining Teams Amid the Night

In mid-twentieth-century America, Mel Allen and Red Barber were often thought to be baseball’s finest voices by network radio/TV and mass-circulation print, most located in the East. Many in the interior favored others, including Harry Caray and Jack Buck. Individually, they differed. From 1954 to 1969, they formed the Cardinals’ truly larger-than-life team.

This chapter describes a number of 1960s and 1970s twosomes and trios of whom, as Aristotle said, “The whole is greater than the [here, considerable] sum of the parts.” It also chronicles the twinning of Voice and franchise where visitors became family and others discover, as Dorothy said, “There’s no place like home”—each making the other better.

Caray was born in 1914 of an Italian father and Romanian mother, later orphaned and raised by an aunt. It may surprise a reader that he was a bookworm growing up. Raised in a poor part of St. Louis, Harry sold papers by day and devoured books from the library by night. Poverty and bad vision scuttled college and the air force, respectively. Instead, in 1942 Caray eyed a puzzlement.

Harry often trooped to Sportsman’s Park. Electric in person, the Cardinals on radio put him to sleep. Was he lucky, seeing only great games—or were Voices that inept at conveying baseball’s lure? It must be the announcing, he felt. Auditioning at giant KMOX, Harry was told to read a script: “Puccini? Who’s he?” He flopped but intrigued GM Merle Jones, who steered him to weaker stations. In 1945, Redbirds play-by-play opened. This time, a Griesedieck Bros. Brewing sponsor lauded another candidate: “I can listen to him and read the paper at the same time.”

Caray leaped from his chair: “You’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to sponsor baseball,” for what? “You need someone who’s going to keep the fan interested in the game. Because if they’re paying attention to the game, they’ll pay attention to the commercial!” The sponsor phoned the ad director: “Get over here. I want you to meet our new play-by-play man.” Caray’s sidekick was ex-catcher Gabby Street: “The closest thing to a father I knew, outspoken, great humor,” said Harry. Gabby died in 1951. Two years later, August A. Busch Jr. bought the team to keep it in St. Louis.

In 1955, the Cardinals signed KMOX, millions learning baseball over their Anheuser-Busch network from Pocahontas, Arkansas, to Galesburg, Illinois, including a young Bill Clinton in Little Rock. Today, a 111-outlet Redbirds hookup still ties Vincennes, Indiana, and Ripley, Tennessee: Harry’s greatest legacy. Asked which Voice has most loved the game, many would bellow, “Holy cow!—it’s him!”

Harry’s signature stemmed from a Browns game at Sportsman’s Park in 1942. The Yankees’ Phil Rizzuto caught a ball, threw wildly to second base, and screamed at Gerry Priddy, “Holy cow! You should have held it!” Seated nearby, Caray heard the idiom and later used it on the air. Much later, as a Voice, Rizzuto adopted “Holy cow!” Harry then asked Allen to tell Phil to stop. Mel said, “I’d be glad to pass on a note,” and did, but Phil didn’t listen.

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