Baseball On The Radio
The start of baseball season and my recent blog about "The Knack” brought to mind listening to major league baseball on the radio as a kid back in the 50’s. With the advent of television, the old tube-type radio that was in our living room was all mine to use. It was similar in style to the model shown above, but obviously after many years of use, was in much worst shape. But that did not bother me a bit, as I could then listen to baseball in my bedroom all to myself since my only brother had not been born yet.
Waite Hoyt and Joe Nuxhall, pictured below, were my favorite Reds broadcasters. Nuxhall followed Hoyt in the broadcast booth after his 22 year playing career with the Reds. Joe’s favorite saying near the end of each game was “This old left-hander is rounding third and heading for home”.
After listening to to Waite or Joe for a few innings, I’d then try to find the broadcast of the team they were playing to hear their side of the game. That was easy if the Reds were playing the Pirates or Cubs, because those teams were in range of the radio’s built in antenna if the weather was right and there were no thunderstorms around. But to reach the Reds opponents further away took some ingenuity. That’s where having the “knack” paid off, as I noticed the reception was better if I touched the back of the radio. It improved even more if I used my other hand to touch the metal bed frame. After taking the radio apart, I noticed the antenna was located inside the back cover, so a wire was run from the antenna to the bed frame and suddenly the NY Dodgers, NY Giants and PA Phillies games on the east cost and the SL Cardinal’s and MIL Braves games to the west were all within range. In those days, all the baseball games were broadcast on 50,000 watt AM stations that were much easier to pick up than today’s low power FM stations. I recall using adhesive tape to mark around the dial the frequencies of each of the NL teams so the games were easier to find. Plus after the Reds game, I’d tune to the teams in the west who were in a later time zone.
That worked fine until 1958 when the Dodgers and Giants moved to California; so back to the drawing board. By this time I was a little older, so with some allowance money, new vacuum tubes from a mail order catalog were ordered to improve the power. Plus I hooked up a larger speaker from my grandma’s old console radio after mounting it in a separate plywood box. Then the radio antenna was connected to our TV antenna mounted on a tall pole just outside my bedroom window, as my room was right above our living room. Reception improved dramatically, but I never was able to pick up any of the west coast teams. I do recall getting minor league baseball in Colorado and Texas, and just once, hearing Wolfman Jack, a famous west coast radio personality.
With no inter-league play, I had little interest in the American League teams, except during the World Series, when I’d listen to the teams in the Series, like in 1961 when the Reds and Yankees played. Mel Allen was the Yankee announcer, whom I couldn’t stand, cause he was such a homer (as if Waite Hoyt and Joe Nuxhall weren’t). Allen never gave the Reds their due, likely because the Yankees blew them away in 5 games, so there wasn’t much of anything good to talk about. In those days World Series games were played during the day, so I recall distinctly helping my dad build a new corn crib while we listened to that disappointing ’61 Series. They even announced the score during school for that Series, resulting in lots of moan and groans as the Yankees killed our beloved Reds. The only good news was keeping Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris from hitting any home runs after they had hit 54 & 61 respectively during the season. There was a lot of controversy over Maris beating Babe Ruth’s 60 home run record for a season, as the number of games had increase to 162 games versus 154 for the Babe. But that controversy paled in comparison to the Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds steroid-induced home run records years later.
Eventually my brother was born so we shared a bedroom together until I went off to college, and the radio was likely junked for some newer model, probably along with my baseball card collection and Erector set (another “knack” thing!), as all are now "long gone”.
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