The End of Play by Play on Radio?

I've seen replays of the Kick Six synched with both radio broadcasts. On the Auburn network, Bramblet was on top of it all, even as his partner was totally losing it (as one would expect). Gold never identified the ballcarrier

 

Rod Bramblett's call of the Pick Six will live forever. Sadly, Rod left us way too soon.

 

Ditto. I've been road tripping a lot this past year, and I've listened to games in the car that I never would have watched at home. SEC basketball games driving through Alabama and Tennessee just last week.

As a former radio PBP guy, there's nothing more annoying. True for all sports, but especially for (my beloved) basketball, you literally cannot give score (and time) too much.

 

Growing up a Showtime fan in Minnesota in the '80s it wasn't always easy to keep track of the team, especially before we got cable. Newspapers in the morning would have the dreaded (late) by their games. There were the CBS games but of course during playoffs sometimes we wouldn't get their game. I might only see them play a few times a year. And would then wait for highlight tapes like Return to Glory or The Drive for Five, months after the season.

But there was radio play by play from faraway lands. In southern MN we could get the Dallas, Denver and San Antonio stations, for whatever reason. The reception actually usually came in better in my parents' room so I'd tune in on their clock radio until dad had to come to bed, then try and get it on the one in my room. But that would be, what, like 10 to 12 games a year I'd get access to that I wouldn't normally. Those games were gold. Never got to listen to Chick call a game but I at least got to hear some of Magic's exploits. And when the Wolves came into existence would have Harlan on their radio games so a few more Laker contests could be heard. The two games I still vividly remember listening to: Magic hitting a game-winning 3-pointer during the 1989 season in Denver; Byron Scott hitting a buzzer-beater at San Antonio. As the announcing crews signed off with sadness on both of those games, I went to bed a very happy kid.

 

One hates to speak ill of the dead, so I’ll just say that I found his predecessor (Jim Fyffe, who also died much too young) to be more professional.

 

Those were the days, STG! WBAP- Dallas (Dave Barnett, later Ted Davis), KOA-Denver (Jeff Kingery with the late Bob Martin), WOAI-San Antonio (Sam Smith, later Jay Howard).

 

I enjoyed my share of clear-channel AM baseball back in the day too. I stuck the whole way one Saturday night with KDKA when the Pirates were on the West Coast with the Padres and it went 17 innings. West Coast extra-inning baseball is like crack.

ADD: My bad, it went 19 innings. All I had to do is remember the D'Acquisto at-bat.

https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/aug...ly-raise-the-jolly-roger-after-19-inning-win/

 

Radio play-by-play can be magic. Covered a football game in Iowa City one Saturday. It was in the early slot. Wrote and filed during the late-afternoon slot. Tennessee-Georgia was the ESPN prime-time game. Drove home some three-plus hours listening to Larry Munson on WSB 750 Atlanta, flagship of the Bulldogs Network.

Munson was amazing and on this night, very much in his prime, with timely analysis of his own, bringing in his partner, his sideline guy, and throwing in his references to "the stupid clock" running too fast or slow, as appropriate. At one point, he managed to knock his lineup chart out the window. He called that as well, saying something like, "Well, there goes the Tennessee defense board. We'll have to wing it!"

There were a couple of minutes left when I pulled into my driveway. I stayed with Larry until the final whistle. Who needed TV?

 

Larry broke every radio rule, particularly in the use of "we" and "they." But knowing that, you knew when the Dawgs were winning or losing, just by the tone and tempo of his voice. I still remember "Lindsay Scott!", the "hob-nailed boot" game and another time, his gravely voice intoning, "We need three yards. We pitch it out and ... we're not gonna make it. We're not gonna make it."

Larry Munson would never have been succesful in many other places. But if you grew up a Georgia fan, he was your eyes and ears, in addition to your heart and soul.

 

So true. He was brilliant, from “Now get the picture” right down to the half-yard calls. Not sure I’ve heard that before or since. And his “we” and “they” wasn’t standard hometown. His glass was often half empty, as in “They’ve had us with their play-action all night.”

And to think he came to Atlanta to call the Braves after leaving the Vanderbilt job.

Now I feel like driving up to Sea Island and breaking some furniture.

 

My first year living in the state, I always worked desk on college football Saturdays, which meant missing most of the games I really wanted to see. One particular Saturday, I hung out at the house as long as I could, then finally left for the 25-minute drive to the Valdosta Daily Times. At least I could catch the end of UGA-UT on radio.

Munson went through every known emotion on the drive down from Hahira. Then the Vols scored in the final minute to take the lead right as I was exiting I-75 and he went through every stage of grief in the time it took to kick the PAT and go through the TV replays. And then he let loose with the second-best line of the broadcast, one that never became famous somehow.

“Well they’re going to kick off to us. And some stupid miracle could still happen.”

By the time I was passing the courthouse a block from work, he was making the “Hobnail Boot” call. I’ve never been a Bulldog but that was the first moment I felt like a Georgian.

 

On WSB, Saturday night, in the middle of nowhere, Mississippi, hard by the Alabama line ... Larry Munson:

"Rex Grossman has thrown for a million yards ..."