Of Harry, KMOX and Summer Baseball 1965
“I just got hooked on the radio, the voice
of it all. It was my connection to metropolitan America, if you will. Sports,
in particularly baseball then 'cause of its rich sediment of numbers, was one
of the first things a young person could peg up with adults on - that is, you
could know as much about Jimmy Fox as your father did.”
George Will
 |
| Harry Caray |
For an eight years old
boy in the summer of 1965, when the sun goes down his world expands beyond the
limits of rural Missouri. Equipped with only a $4 Sears’ transistor radio, a
cheap pair of ear phones and a stash of AA batteries; major league baseball is
magically carried through the wonders of the AM airwaves and into his darkened
bedroom.
Like a
Bob Gibson fastball splitting the night air, the smooth voices of legendary
announcers - Hall of Famers like Bob Prince, Jack Brickhouse and Ernie Harwell
- mesmerize a boy who lives for nothing but baseball. It allows him a glimpse
of greatness, of faraway places, of men who threw and hit baseballs so hard and
far that they disappear.
When
these radio broadcasting giants speak of America’s pastime; drums roll and
flags unfurl. Each summer weekday night KDKA carries the Pittsburgh Pirates;
WGN the Cubs (only on the road, Wrigley Field has no lights); WCKY the
Cincinnati Reds and if the air wave gods are cooperating this night, the Tigers
on Detroit’s clear channel WJR 760.
Ernie
Harwell broadcast Detroit Tigers games for over 40 years. In his final
broadcast on Sept. 29, 2002, he told his listeners, “Thank you for letting me
be a part of your family. Thank you for taking me with you to that cottage Up
North, to the beach, the picnic, your workplace and your backyard. Thank you
for sneaking your transistor under the pillow as you grew up loving the
Tigers.”
However,
these are the backups, mere seconds, only to be tuned in on those rare sticky
muggy summer nights when the hometown’s St. Louis Cardinals are idle. Most
nights; like a favorite Uncle, KMOX radio broadcaster Harry Caray will bring to
a wide awake boy all the trials and tribulations of his Cardinals. Set to 1120
on the dial of the red plastic incased radio’s screen, KMOX is the best sports
radio station in the history of the worlds’ of 8 years old boys. Caray, the
longtime voice of the Cardinals, is the anchor for a city’s ongoing love affair
with its baseball team.
The
boy’s dad saw summer life through a prism of family, farming and work. He liked
his Schlitz beer cold, his Teamsters’ union strong and his kids quiet and
orderly. His two favorite Cardinal mangers were the last one and the next one.
May
1965, the boy accompanied the father to his first live Cardinal game, his first
trip to the soon to be abandoned and torn down old Sportsman’s Park. A victim
of urban blight, city leaders said. But, seen through the eyes of an 8 years
old, it was just like Harry had promised it would be; an awe inspiring and
breath taking green cathedral.
The new
smells and sounds of a major league baseball park are intoxicating to the boy.
The cigar smoke hangs heavy but sweet over the green and lush outfield grass.
He arrives early enough for batting practice. The ringing sound made by the
crack of a major leaguer’s bat (his ears has never heard such a dominant and
forceful sound in the local sandlots) has him on the edge of his left field
bleacher seat, glove in hand, just in case.
 |
| Sportsman's Park |
If he
could have gotten just a little closer, he could have seen with his own eyes
the dent in the scoreboard atop the left field sun soaked bleachers caused by
Mike Shannon’s 1964 World Series rocket shot home run. Harry said it traveled
at least 450 feet from the home plate where 3’7” midget Eddie Gadel had once
been sent to pinch hit in a Bill Veeck publicity stunt. That had been years
earlier, and not even by the Cards but by the dearly departed St. Louis Browns,
but Harry loved to retell the story, at least once every home stand. It was the
same home plate Enos Slaughter had touched after scoring from first on a
single, a famous mad dash that won for the Birds the ‘46 series, another of
Harry’s favorite stories.
A boy’s
first trip to a live Cardinals’ game with his father is a sacred part of
growing up in St. Louis, MO; a welcome rite of passage, a treasured father son
experience the boy would make with his own son to the “new” Busch Stadium, 30
years later. However, for a boy who came of age in the Cardinal’s golden years
of Brock, Gibson and Musial; summer baseball memoires are of the radio; KMOX
and Harry.
Mom’s
routine never varied. Never. Just make sure your bedroom door is left
open. Nightly rounds are made at
precisely 9:55 when the lights in the kitchen down the hallway go dark (head
phones out, radio under pillow) followed by footsteps (roll on to side, feign
sleep), then stir slightly and sleepily mumble when tucked in for the night
while awaiting the “all clear” signal, the closing of the bedroom door. Just
follow the plan. It is the perfect crime carried out night after summer night,
the great escape to the magical after-hours world of Cardinal baseball.
Win or
lose, no matter how dire the Cards situation may appear, to not remain always
the loyal listener would be treasonous. Late September, 1965 finds the Red
Birds mathematically eliminated from the National League pennant race, double
digit games behind the hated Dodgers with only single digit games left to play,
hopeless. The West Coast game will not start until 10 pm and will not end until
well after midnight. This is a school night. So? Koufax is on the hill for the
Bums and this minor league wunderkind of whom Harry’s rave reports from down on
the farm have teased fans all that long and frustrating summer is to make his
Cardinal debut tonight. Bobby Tolan, speed to burn and Harry says he is the
perfect future right field complement to All Stars’ Curt Flood in center and
Lou Brock in left. This kid can’t miss, Harry assured (but he did).
Fifty
years later, in a now middle aged man’s life, the memory of 1965 Cardinal
baseball on a cheap transistor radio is lovingly ingrained deep and vivid. Like
a well thrown fastball that hisses as it sears the muggy night air; an
unhittable aspirin tablet, bringing fear to all those who might dare to disrupt
the secure summer nights of an 8 years old boy.
