I live in an area where my cable provider doesn’t carry SNY. Where ESPN, FOX and TBS often black out their games and no one around here has the MLB network. I do get NESN, but who wants to hear what the SOX are doing and all those noisy advertisements?
For me, this is really wonderful because I get WFAN with the best baseball announcers team now working. (Vin Scully works solo) So for every single Mets game, I can hear Howie Rose, Wayne Hagin and Eddie Coleman and it’s bliss.
I’m sure many of you grew up with a transistor radio tucked under your pillow so you could pretend you were asleep when Mom or Dad checked after lights out as I did. I have three radios – office, living room and bedroom – so I hear it all no matter where I am in the condo. Or I can take my transistor out onto the porch and listen there.
And I listen carefully – each of these men has his own style and his own stories. They carefully describe each pitch, each play and everything else you need or want to know about the game. It never gets boring.
Howie has his signature sign off – “Put It In The Books” – and when I hear that I know it’s time for me to sign off too, but during the season there is always the next game with Howie, Wayne and Eddie to look forward to.
I think it’s baseball as it ought to be.
