The Loneliest Place in the World

Harry Kalas' passing and John Madden's recent retirement reminds us that the great lights are going out, especially in the broadcast booth. To be replaced by, who knows? Mostly anonymous screamers, hawking product and running an endless stream of chatter over the Great American Game. At the tail end of this post, I link to Vin Scully's broadcast of the ninth inning of Sandy Koufax's perfect game. Everyone needs to listen to this, as I'll explain.

Sports, particularly for boys when I grew up and before, were an introduction to some semblance of the adult world to come. I didn't understand or have interest in business, politics, the war, or even girls. Other than the race to the moon, sports were the one grown-up pursuit I could follow with any degree of understanding. Mainly because my friends and my brothers and I played sports. We even played with Dad, who taught me how to bat, how to throw, to catch, and to run. Every boy I knew followed the Astros, the Oilers (or Cowboys), and later the Rockets. We all played out in the street, sometimes assuming the identity of our sports idols. When we didn't have enough kids to make entire teams, we'd invent games to play, unlike the heavily supervised and managed children of today, whose helicopter parents won't let them throw a ball or run five steps unless its part of an organized league with appropriate parental supervision, coaching, and liability releases.

When we weren't actually playing games, we were watching them on TV or listening on the radio. I actually remember Dad and I watching the 1968 Super Bowl (Oakland vs. Green Bay). I missed the bus home from second grade one afternoon, having lost track of time watching the 1972 World Series (Cincinatti vs. Oakland) in the school library with the principal. Mom got mad at me but Mr. Ledger stuck up for me and calmed her down when she came to pick me up. Sidebar-the present lack of daytime World Series games is an abomination. Dad and I and later my brothers would watch every Oilers game, and lots of other baseball and football games together. We often went to Houston Cougar football games, marveling over Bill Yeoman's explosive veer offense. Every so often we went to the Astrodome to watch Astros games, sitting in the bleachers, eating peanuts, and hanging on every pitch. I can still name every player in the early 1970s Astros lineup.

It has always been so with American boys (and now boys and girls throughout the world). My dad recently showed me a letter to the sports section editor he wrote as a kid, complaining that a writer had slighted Stan Musial. In the 1940s and 50s, the St. Louis Cardinals had a minor league team in Houston, the Houston Buffs, so Houston baseball fans gave their loyalty to the Cardinals for many years. Dad's letter listed with zeal Stan the Man's accomplishments and talents, as only a boy who grew up immersed in the American Game of Baseball and the local team could.

We listened to games on the radio, especially baseball. Baseball ultimately is a radio game. The best announcers did more than describe the game-they painted a picture. They called the action, but gave it shading, depth, color, and dimension. They'd explain the strategy and nuance, but they'd tell stories too. The great announcers of that era were more than just play-by-play men, they were your friends with whom you caught the game. Year after year, they were part of your life. They had nothing in common with today's screamers, who have seizures over every fly ball, or hawk Auto Zone or tell you about plenty of good seats still being available for Administaff Friday Fireworks between pitches, or talk about their favorite brand of donut or where they're going golfing tomorrow, instead of describing the game. This new breed of announcer is a homer, simply a shill for the team ownership, trying to hype ticket and merchandise sales, having little interest in describing the game.

I was privileged to grow up listening to the magnificent Gene Elston call Astros games. Elston was of the variety I described. Plain spoken, friendly, comfortable. Never hyperbolic or prone to emotional outbursts like today's announcers, Elston called a game like he was talking just to you. Later, I would take a transistor radio to bed and listen through the static to Jack Buck broadcast Cardinals' games on KMOX or Jack Brickhouse broadcast Cubs games on WHO (in Des Moines). Though a bit livelier than Elston, these men had much the same spare, plain spoken style. They presented the game, not themselves.

But the best, ever, was and is Vin Scully of the Dodgers. Scully began calling Brooklyn Dodgers games in 1950, serving an apprenticeship under the incomparable Red Barber. Scully called the Brooklyn Dodgers' only World Series championship, in 1955, as well as Don Larson's perfect game in 1956, Hank Aaron's 715th home run, Reggie Jackson's three home run game in the 1977 World Series, Bill Buckner's error in the 1986 World Series, Kirk Gibson's home run in the 1988 World Series, Orel Hersheiser's scoreless innings streak...the list goes on. 59 years later, he is still calling Dodgers games, working solo, with his trademark simple eloquence. Scully called the NBC Game of the Week during the 1980s, as well as numerous All-Star games and World Series.

Without question, his greatest moment, and with apologies to Russ Hodges, the greatest moment in baseball announcing, was his call of Sandy Koufax's perfect game. In 1965, Koufax was in the middle of a hot streak almost no other pitcher has ever had. Koufax finished the season, in which the Dodgers won the World Series, with a 26-8 record, 2.04 ERA, 382 strikeouts, and pitched in 335 innings. Those numbers are unheard of today, and constitute one of the greatest seasons any pitcher has ever had. On September 9, 1965, Koufax pitched his fourth no-hitter, which at the time broke the record of three set by Bob Feller (later to be bested by the Alvin Express, Nolan Ryan). The Dodgers were in a tight pennant race with the hated enemies to the north, the Giants. Though the Dodgers would ultimately win the pennant by two games, they were a 1/2 game out of first (tied with the Reds) on the night Koufax achieved perfection. The game was one of the best pitched games ever. Bob Hendley of the Cubs threw a one-hitter against the Dodgers that night and allowed only two base runners. The final score was 1-0. One hit and two base runners in a nine-inning game each remains a major league record. Koufax struck out 14 batters, over half the 27 he faced, ending the game with six consecutive strikeouts. It was a masterpiece.

Amazingly though, it is Vin Scully's call of that game that people remember most. It has been called the best piece of baseball writing ever, though of course his description was completely off-the-cuff and unrehearsed. Scully paints a portrait of that game that takes the listener not just to the park, but to the mound right next to Koufax. The lead-in from the commercial break after the 8th is maybe the greatest opening sentence of any paragraph I've ever read, much less heard delivered extemporaneously by a man witnessing, and trying to describe, history. We see, or hear, the game as if we were right there. Scully, who had to have been just as excited as any fan in the park, dialed down his emotions and instead conveyed the spectacle through a combination of matter of factness and nearly-poetic images. "29,000 people in the ballpark and a million butterflies." "the mound at Dodger Stadium right now is the loneliest place in the world." "A lot of people in the ballpark now are starting to see the pitches with their hearts." Notice also that after he calls the final strike, he waits 38 seconds until he says anything else, instead allowing the moment to sink in, giving the audience a chance to revel and to hear the crowd's eruption. Jon Miller, himself an outstanding contemporary baseball announcer for the Giants, once called off an entire planned pre-game show to simply read the transcript of Scully's call, prompting the most fan mail he'd ever received. The call is simply exquisite. We live in times where its not likely we'll ever hear its equal again.

Click below to hear the broadcast



And, Slate magazine transcribed the call, so click on this link to read it.

Keep listening after the end of the game, for Scully to explain why he kept stating the date and time.

Hope you enjoy.