Beisball been veddy good to me*

*an old SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE reference. Garrett Morris as Chico Escuela, former ballplayer and... you had to be there I guess.

Baseball is in the air. The All-Star game is Tuesday. Home field advantage for the winning league hangs in the balance although no one gives a shit, especially the players. The Giants, hosting the mid-summer classic, had to stage a big campaign to get the fans to vote for Barry Bonds. He’s soon to be the all-time home run champion and hometown fans still had to be persuaded to vote for him.

And then tomorrow I fly up to Seattle to announce for the Mariners Thursday and Friday nights. (New posts will continue. I understand they have the internet in Seattle.)

So I thought this would be a good day for a humorous baseball related post.

I learned how to announce play by play by sitting in the top deck of Dodger Stadium, up there with the drunks, the skinheads, Cub Scout troops, escaped convicts, booster clubs, Freddie Kruger, and the guy with the pinwheel hat. The players were ants. I'd be saying, "He's really got that palm ball working tonight" and couldn't even see the ball. You’d think that would be my worst broadcasting vantage point. But it wasn’t. Some of the actual press box facilities when I was a legitimate working announcer were worse.

During one spring training with the Mariners we played the Angels, who at the time were still in Palm Springs. Since they were also televising that game there was no room in the actual press box for visiting radio (us). So they set up a long table in the stands and that’s where we did the game. I’m on the air to a thirty-station radio network, sitting on the aisle, and calling a very exciting inning. Hits and double steals and rundowns. Forget that I can’t see them because the six LaKishas in front of me stand up, but as I’m calling a triple I feel a tap on my shoulder. I glance over to see a vendor with a two beers. He wants me to pass them down the row. I do, continue to call the play, and then feel a tapping on my other shoulder. I’m to pass the money along. I do, keep announcing, another tap, I have to send along the change. This was the big leagues!

When I was in the minors we played the Denver Zephyrs in Mile High Stadium (capacity 70,000, typical Zephyrs attendance: 2,000. The place was EMPTY). There was no baseball press box per se but they set us up in one of the luxury boxes. Behind us were four rows of seats…THAT THEY SOLD. We’d be calling the game and people would tell us to shut up, we were annoying them. Or they would shout and cheer loud enough to be heard on our broadcast. “Thompson, you fucking pussy! Throw a fucking strike, you piece of shit!” (If anyone actually listened to our broadcasts I just know they would have complained.)

At old Sec Taylor Stadium in Des Moines they had a huge civil defense speaker and would sound a siren half the county could hear anytime one of the Des Moines Cubs hit a home run. The speaker was right next to our booth. The first time it happened it almost blew me out of the booth. After a three game series in Des Moines, considering our pitching staff, I couldn’t hear for a week.

When I was with the Orioles we played two exhibition games at Joe Robbie Stadium (or Dolphin Stadium, whatever they call it now. It’s the “other” one besides the Orange Bowl.) This was before the Marlins (who now draw worse than the Zephyrs did), there was no baseball press box so they just put us in the football press box, a thousand miles from home plate way down the right field line. Every ball hit looked like it was going to right. You had to take your cue from the fielders. But you could be fooled. “There’s a fly ball to center field…foul.”

Later that same spring, we played two exhibition games against Boston at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. Same story. No baseball press box. Just a luxury box. In this case, one box for both our broadcast and the Red Sox, separated only by a flimsy riser. I could hear Boston announcer, Bob Starr as loud as I could hear myself. And so could the Baltimore listeners. All I could do was have fun with it. I’d say, “And now for the 1-1 pitch, here’s Bob Starr” then point the mic to him in time for my listeners to hear “low, ball two.” Then I decided to mess with Bob (who was a GREAT guy by the way and a good friend). Every time he called a pitch a fast ball I called it a curve. Every time he called a slider I called it a change up. Listeners don’t believe announcers can accurately call pitches anyway. This just confirmed it. I would pull these little pranks to amuse myself, and the Orioles listeners. Is it any wonder I only lasted a year there?

I feel it’s only fair to also mention the best press box I ever worked in. That would be the broadcast booth in old Tiger Stadium. It hung suspended over home plate, high enough to see the entire field, but low enough that you could actually hear players and umpires. Sure, four announcers a year were killed by foul balls but it was a small price to pay. Jon Miller of ESPN told me the first year he did games in Tiger Stadium, Oakland player, Gene Tenace fouled a pitch off his foot and was hobbling around the home plate area trying to walk it off. Jon said on the air, “Tenace is still in a lot of pain, “ and Gene looks up at the booth and yells out “Brilliant fucking deduction!”

Now that’s close!

Talk to you tomorrow from Seattle.