I wasn't there: Indians-Senators, 1939

A coworker of mine has what might be described as a throwback blog called Cladrite Radio and today he wrote about a somewhat recent posting of the full-day audio archives from Sept. 21, 1939, of WJSV in Washington, D.C. I think the most apt description of these recordings is an audio time machine.

What stood out to me for the purposes of this post are at the 4 p.m. and 5:45 timestamps -- at 4 is most of a broadcast of the Indians-Senators game from that day (Spoiler alert: don't click on the link if you don't want to know who wins! The broadcast picks up in the fourth inning and continues through the end of the game in Part 12.) and 105 minutes later is a sports report. I haven't listened all the way through (yet), but if you're so inclined, the ballgame at 4 p.m. starts at the beginning of Part 11 and the sports report is just about at the 46-minute mark of Part 12.

Listening to history

As I was getting ready to drive into work last night, I got the text alert that Dallas Braden was perfect through six innings. As I waited in traffic heading into the Lincoln Tunnel, it occurred to me that I had yet to receive an update saying that the perfect game bid was over. So I fired up At Bat on my phone and listened to the Oakland radio feed just as the ninth inning was beginning.

Braden breezed through it in 12 pitches but it seemed like about four. Listening to the picture painted on the radio was a treat. Ken Korach's play-by-play was descriptive and unobtrusive. I've watched the no-hitters thrown by Jon Lester, Carlos Zambrano and Ubaldo Jimenez in recent years, but in each case, the TV announcers were a little too loud, too over the top. If anything, the radio broadcasters should raise the excitement a notch while the TV commentators should let the images speak for themselves. Twice I held my breath, wondering if the balls hit would find the outfield grass. There was Dioner Navarro's line drive to left fielder Eric Patterson on which there was a moment I wondered if it would fall in, and then Gabe Kapler's ground ball to shortstop Cliff Pennington, who fielded it cleanly and threw to first for the final out. If anything, I could've used a touch more excitement from Korach to know that it was a routine grounder to Pennington, but I can't really criticize his even call which, those who listen to A's games on the radio may know from experience, was an indication that it was all routine.

And then there are the Rays, who were perfected by Mark Buehrle just 10 months ago. Seven of Sunday's starters also played in that game in Chicago, including reserve Gabe Kapler, who nearly broke up Buehrle's with his drive to center in the ninth that Dewayne Wise made an amazing play to grab, and who made the final out yesterday. Only the Dodgers, who were on the wrong end of history for Tom Browning in 1988 and Dennis Martinez in 1991, have been the victims of two consecutive perfect games. Los Angeles had just one player in both games -- shortstop Alfredo Griffin. The Rays had seven. What baffles me about Tampa Bay, usually known as a strong and patient offensive club, is that those three batters in the ninth -- Willy Aybar, Navarro and Kapler -- weren't standing at the plate taking pitches until strike two. Especially Kapler, who made the final out on a 3-1 pitch. Braden came into the game averaging 1.70 walks per nine innings -- why not make him work in the final inning? He hadn't pitched out of the stretch all afternoon, so even a walk might be enough to throw him off his game and result in a fat pitch easily drilled for a base hit.

But I'm not complaining. It was a lot of fun listening to the ninth and a great story for a kid from a tough background, one who lost his mother to cancer in high school and had his grandmother in the stands on Mother's Day. A great day for baseball.

Ernie Harwell's legacy

I love this thought:

There’s a man in Mobile who remembers a triple he saw Honus Wagner hit in Pittsburgh 46 years ago. That’s baseball. So is the scout reporting that a 16-year-old sandlot pitcher in Cheyenne is the new “Walter Johnson.”

And also this one:

In baseball, democracy shines its clearest. Here the only race that matters is the race to the bag. The creed is the rule book. Color is something to distinguish one team’s uniform from another.

Those are from "A Game for All America," an essay written for The Sporting News in 1955. The author became famous for the words he spoke more than those he wrote. It was Ernie Harwell, the longtime voice of the Tigers who passed away last night.

I don't have any personal memories of listening to Harwell on the radio, but I do recall summer nights when I'd lie in my New Jersey bedroom and slowly turn the AM dial on my radio and see what ballgames I could tune in from across the Northeast. I don't know that I ever got a WJR affiliate, but I know I heard the radio voices of the Blue Jays, Indians, Pirates and Orioles in addition to the much-closer Mets, Yankees and Phillies. And Harwell just fits that memory, even if I can't recall a specific game I heard him describe.

Ernie's death reminds us that there aren't many iconic announcers left. On a national level, Vin Scully may be the only one. Loud noises and flashy graphics and the announcers that fit the mold just can't come close to the subtle storytelling of the Scullys, the Harwells, the Bob Murphys and the Harry Kalases. Harwell, Scully and other broadcasters of yestercentury became nationally known because of coast-to-coast broadcasts on ABC, CBS and NBC (radio and TV). Their counterparts of today on Fox and ESPN just shout at us.

On the local level, there's Bob Uecker in Milwaukee, Jerry Coleman in San Diego, Dave Niehaus in Seattle. And though many of us know Uecker from national broadcasts, Major League, beer commercials and Mr. Belvedere, he's a regional announcer to anyone too young to remember when the Blue Jays won a World Series. So even though we can get any game and any announcing team on our phones or computers with At Bat, it's not going to create the lasting memories for today's young fans that these distinctive voices have for those of us in our 30s and older.

There's not much else I can say about Harwell, but there's a lot of great stuff that has been said:

The Detroit Free-Press obituary

MLB.com's tribute page

An NPR feature from 2002

When Ernie met The Babe, also from NPR

A fond farewell from Larry at Wezen-Ball

Farewell, Ernie. You and Jack Buck will make quite the team up there.

Classy Kalas

One of my friends didn't believe my sincerity when I expressed my condolences on Harry Kalas' passing and added that I considered him the classiest member of the Phillies organization. Coming from a Mets fan, he said it was an empty expression.

I said I was sorry if it came off that way, but it's true. Of all the people I met covering the BlueClaws, Kalas was the one I was most excited to come across. (OK, maybe top two, because Tug McGraw was pretty sweet, too. But Tug was more the guy's guy -- I'm not sure too many people would put him under the "classy" column, and I'm not saying that is a detriment to his character.) But somewhere, I still have the mini cassette with the Kalas interview on it.

Plus, as my Yankee fan boss will tell you, I'm a baseball fan first and a Mets fan second. I certainly appreciate the game's history and icons, and Kalas certainly was that. Among the others I met who I'd consider classy are Ryan Howard, owner Dave Montgomery, former assistant GM Mike Arbuckle, former Lakewood manager Jeff Manto, Marlon Anderson and the late former pitching instructor Johnny Podres.

The Mets put Kalas' image on the video screen before the home opener on Monday and mentioned the death of Mark Fidrych ("Moments ago we also learned of ..."). They were a sadly recent addition to the annual moment of silence the team has to start the Opening Day festivities each year honoring those who have passed away since the last game.

I've got much more to say about what was a mostly pleasant return to baseball in Queens, but just didn't have the chance today, mostly because I focused on the photos first. That post, I hope, will come tomorrow.

As seen on the radio

I don't often read in bed anymore, another lost pastime swallowed up into the sensory overload brought on by digital cable and sleep timers on the TV. But tonight, as I spread out in the center of our queen-size bed, my fiancee away for the night, I began my weekly ritual wherein I meander, page-by-page, through the latest issue of Sports Illustrated.

Just past the letters to the editor and the contributors page came Steve Rushin's column, which, once I finished reading, made me put the magazine down and give in to yet another diversion -- the computer in my lap, my lap still in bed. I couldn't put this off until morning. If XM Satellite Radio hasn't already begun thinking of how to use this column in advertising its product, it will soon. I was debating the purchase myself, strictly on the strength of having 15 baseball games a day at my earlobes, but I hesitated when consulting the Sunday circulars and discovering the awful truth about such technology these days: You can't have it all. Baseball is on XM, but the NFL is on Sirius. XM has CNN, MSNBC and the Weather Channel, but Sirius has ESPN and Notre Dame sports. And, sadly, XM has right-wing blowhards and football and basketball from the ACC, Pac 10 and Big Ten. But to read Rushin's experiences from one week of surfing the satellites pretty much sold me. In fact, I picked up my TV remote and turned the Indians-Angels game I was watching (with my MLB Extra Innings package) to the Dodgers-Padres matchup to hear Vin Scully tell me Mark Sweeney's degree from the University of Maine.

Clearly, though Rushin didn't tune into a Pirates game, or he might not have been misled by Dan Gladden on a Twins broadcast. For it was in Pittsburgh along the Allegheny that the aluminum beer bottle was developed and marketed, not the Twin Cities of the Mississippi.

But maybe he did and just got confused. If I had 15 ballgames per day, at least five days a week, at my disposal, I might mix up some of the minutiae too.

In a week or so, I'll probably know.