Dialing up The Fall Classic

 Our national pastime is perfect for radio. Pitch perfect. A perfect announcer can paint word pictures that even HD can't capture.

Back in the Dark Ages, when one could only get "Monday Night Baseball" or maybe a Saturday game of the week, I'd fire up an AM radio not unlike the M&M Boys unit shown at left and could pick up games as far away as Chicago and Detroit.

This was long before cellphones and every other damn thing ruined radio's oldest bandwidth.

Television has its advantages, but baseball and radio go together like peas and carrots.

I was reminded of that fact this weekend. Driving home from my friend Shelton's house last night, I listened to the last couple of innings of the World Series on Sirius/XM, Joe Castiglione on WEEI. Tonight, I caught a couple of innings on KMOX -- Mike Shannon and John Rooney.

The best part? No Tim McCarver.

There is a caveat at work here, though. Baseball is terrible on the radio (or on TV for that matter) if the announcers are atrocious. I was spoiled for years by Pete Van Wieren, Skip Caray, Ernie Harwell, Marty Brennaman, Joe Nuxhall, and, after satellite surfaced, the peerless Vin Scully. I still have nightmares about Bob Rathbun and Ken "Hawk" Harrelson.

I'm not old enough to have heard the late, great Lindsey Nelson cover the New York Mets on the radio, but I certainly remember some of his later national TV broadcasts. ("Hello everybody, I'm Lindsey Nelson!") When he moved back to Knoxville, you could often spot him downtown sporting his trademark plaid sport coat. I think he lived at the Pembroke. Feel free to correct me on that. I'm going by memory.

Now, I'm kicked back on the couch, the Series playing on TV as I type. I like Joe Buck. I'm glad this is it for McCarver. But I'm biased. For years I had one of his Topps baseball cards taped to my toilet.

 TV announcers aside, this game is tailor-made for radio. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Walter Mitty dream jobs

OK, let's get one thing straight:

I've got the best job in the world.

Sure, the pay isn't great, the hours are long, you hear more complaints than applause, and when you screw up 100,000 people can potentially see it.

But that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I tell tales for a living. Doesn't get much better than that.

Still, I have my Walter Mitty moments. So, here are a list of jobs I sometimes dream about on cloudy days.

Being Rob Petrie -- I don't want to be just any ol' comedy writer for a TV show. I want to be Rob Petrie from "The Dick Van Dyke Show." Let's face it: He sits around all day thinking up jokes with Rose Marie and Morrie Amsterdam. Every now and then they get to make fun of bald guy Mel. They work for Carl Reiner's Alan Brady. At night, Rob goes home to Mary Tyler Moore circa the 1960s Capri pants era. (OK, we'll forget that he also trips over the ottoman -- sometimes! -- and for some strange reason has to sleep in a single bed next to Mary's.) His neighbor is Jerry Paris. What a life!


Being Jack Benny -- I'm a big radio guy and missed out on its Golden Age. Thank God I can listen to endless hours of Benny's classic comedy. Picture perfect timing, classic routines, the self-confidence to make yourself the butt of every joke, Jack Benny's show created the sitcom. He was everything his radio/TV character wasn't -- warm, generous, even talented on the violin. I would have loved to have had a radio show like Jack's, Sunday nights at 7. LSMFT!

Being Harry O/Magnum, p.i./Jim Rockford -- Yes, I would like to be any member of this trio of TV detectives. Oh, I know it's a fantasy. The work is hard, tedious, dangerous. But, I'll take a beachfront cottage in San Diego (Orwell), a guest house in Hawaii (Magnum) or even a seedy trailer by the highway in Los Angeles (Rockford). Shows about quirky detectives have given way to a saturation of rote procedurals. It's such a shame.

Being Jonathan Schwartz -- He's been a fixture on New York radio for decades. Jon Schwartz is one classy cat. Saturdays and Sundays on WNYC, he spins everything from Sinatra to the latest showtune singer. He used to be a cabaret singer himself. His dad was a famous composer. He lives in Manhattan. He likes baseball. He writes books. Yes, sir. Yes, indeed.

Being Robert Osborne -- Need I explain it? Although he's finally slowing down, Osborne has been the host of TCM since its inception. He waxes poetic about classic cinema. And he does it with class, confidence and cogent comments. Roll the next clip!

Being Vin Scully -- Oh, that sounds too pretentious, but I'd love to be a radio/TV play-by-play announcer for a major league baseball club. The national pastime is tailor made for radio really, and Vinny and the late Ernie Harwell and a couple of others are the cream of the crop. They knew what to say, they knew when to shut up and they did it (and in Vin's case is still doing it) with class and competence.

Having said all this, being Jake Mabe is pretty darn good.

But I can dream, can't I? (To coin a phrase.)

Oh, how I love this grand ol' game

I love this game, this national game, this baseball.

Oh, how I love it.

Here's one of its quirks. How many times have you seen a player make an outstanding defensive play to end a half-inning only to come up to bat in the following frame?

That just happened in San Diego, to Dodgers shortstop Dee Gordon. He made an amazing play for the third out, one that makes you dance a joy jig. Then he led off the top of the fifth. Oh, yeah. He just hit a triple.

Amazing.

I'm listening to velvet-voiced Vin Scully, octogenarian, master of his craft. Nobody, and I mean nobody, compares to Vinnie. He's been with the Dodgers since Brooklyn and Red Barber and he is a national treasure. I told some folks earlier I could listen to him read names out of a phone book. He's forgotten more about this grand ol' game than most of us will ever know. And I love it when he throws in tidbits about Broadway plays and such during his broadcast.

Today is my birthday, Christmas, New Year's and Fourth of July rolled into one. Opening Day. Hurray!

I watched Al Kaline throw out the first pitch in Detroit. "Field of Dreams" and all that. Yeah, I believe it. Yeah, I got misty-eyed. Sue me.

You can have your football, your hoops, your soccer, your hockey. Whatever you love is fine. I like most of it, too.

But baseball is my balm.

Oh, how I love it so.

The Lost Weekend

Well, it wasn't perfect.

You've already read about my Thursday. Friday morning I was standing in Kroger by 11 to grab grub for the weekend. Jimmy, the guy at the counter, recognized my name. He said some nice things about the Shopper.

"You're a busy man."

"Well, I'm just glad to have a couple of days off."

"Did the Tigers win their opening game?" he asked, noticing the Old English D on my jacket.

"Nope," I said. "They lost to the Yankees."

"Oh, no."

"Well," I said, "that's nothing new."

Friday afternoon, Ken Lay regaled me with stories of being "Kenny the clubhouse boy" for the old Knoxville Sox.

We began watching games at 1 p.m. and didn't stop until 1 a.m. Twelve straight hours of the national pastime. It's a personal best. Hey, don't laugh. This is my vacation!

The Sox stunk up the joint in Arlington. Bard was bad. It was ugly.

Ken and I welcomed Saturday with the velvet voice of Vin Scully.

"He's still got it," Ken says. "He didn't slip at all."

Later that day, I got up early -- well, early for a guy who didn't get to bed until 3:30 -- waiting for the AT&T tech who didn't arrive until mid-afternoon. Got him squared away just in time to see the Braves get nipped by the Nats and the Tigers get yanked by the Yankees.

Pal Mike Hermann showed up in time to see the Sox stink it up again. But, the steak was good and we found our chuckle for the night, about the batter hitting in the No. 2 hole.

John Lackey was even worse than Jon Lester. We didn't even have the distraction of the two girls who sat behind home plate during the opener. Mike did a dead on Jerry Remy impression. That helped. Some.

This afternoon, I fell asleep while Clay Buchholz served up four solo homers en route to a 5-1 loss to Texas. Swept on opening weekend. Say it ain't so!

There are a few bright spots amid the falling Red Sox sky. Yo, Adrian, for one. The kid can hit. Here's what Dan Shaughnessy says about him.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. I did switch it over to CBS long enough to see Connecticut stave off a Kentucky comeback. Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Tonight I'm watching "The Kennedys" on ReelzChannel to see what all the fuss is about. Have had enough baseball -- at least until tomorrow night.

It may have been a Lost Weekend, but at least we had some laughs.

Scully, Dodgers chase away the Braves and Tigers blues

One of the simplest pleasures of life has to be listening to Vin Scully call a baseball game.

What a strange, frustrating season this has been. The star-studded Tigers have imploded. The Braves can't figure out how to win on the road. The Smokies aren't even worth mentioning.

So, I've found myself drawn to Dodger games, mainly because of the team's longtime, velvet-voiced announcer. (Just to give the uninitiated an idea of how long he's been around, Scully was calling games when the Dodgers played in Brooklyn.)

It works out rather nicely. When Los Angeles is playing at Chavez Ravine, or in Pacific time, the games begin around 10 on the East Coast -- usually about the time I get home or have a chance to unwind long enough to watch. They aren't that great, but they aren't bad.

Best part is I don't much care what happens. It's baseball. More to the point, it's Vin Scully calling a baseball game. That's enough.

Put the game on last night after work. Sat on the couch awhile and chilled out.

The Dodgers were playing at San Diego, a place I have to visit someday. The crafty right-hander Greg Maddux was on the mound for the Friars. The kid pitching for Los Angeles, Clayton Kershaw, had a sweet curve and a wicked, if sometimes wild, fastball.

Maddux, by the way, has been pitching longer than Kershaw has been alive.

I lost myself in the cadence of Scully's delivery, finally giving up on the game to make a few phone calls before bed. The Los Angeles Times tells me this morning that Russell Martin was the hero in the Dodgers' 7-2 victory.

Hearing Vin Scully, though, reminds me how much I still love this child's game, even when my boys of summer ain't doing so hot.