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Mark Fidrych's passing brings back this Bob Prince memory

P

Pratte4Life

After hearing the sad news yesterday of "The Bird's" death, presumably caused by a farm accident, I was reminded about how the game in which Mark Fidrych became a national sensation was actually broadcast by Bob Prince.

The Gunner was, of course, the original play-by-play voice of ABC's "Monday Night Baseball," which never caught on like "Monday Night Football" did but still was a fun watch while it lasted in the '70s and '80s.

One wonders if Prince hadn't been fired by the Pirates if he would have landed this rather high profile gig, but regardless.

But as the story Warner Wolf has often told goes, the Tigers were playing the Yankees. ABC brass insisted that the announcers play up the Yankees and opposing pitcher Ken Holtzman, even though Fidrych was just beginning to catch on and was 7-1 at the time.

And, of course, Fidrych beat the Yanks 5-1 and became a sensation of 1976.

Where Prince fits in with this is ESPN Classic often reruns this game and I'm sure will now (when they aren't showing poker reruns).

I'm too young to remember Prince calling these games on ABC (I do remember when Prince was brought back in the '80s and listened to him then, as well as have heard lots of tapes and the like) but have watched the rerun of this broadcast.

In it, you can see why Prince was so popular in Pittsburgh but wasn't able to take that popularity nationwide on ABC.

Prince wasn't necessarily supposed to be the storyteller here. He was supposed to be more of a traditional PBP guy with Wolf and Bob Uecker- I believe- telling the stories and the like. In hindsight we can see where it would have been better for Wolf to do play-by-play and Prince and Uecker tell stories.

There comes a part in the seventh inning where The Gunner simply cannot hold back any longer and makes a reference to a karate instructor in Pittsburgh.

And YOU KNEW- in Pittsburgh, making a reference to the karate instructor was going to be eaten up.

And on a nationwide scale- everywhere else they had to be wondering "who is this guy with the foghorn voice making references to karate instructors while Fidrych is pitching his way to start for the American League in the All-Star Game?"

Still, if you get the chance, give the rerun a watch. It's fun to see the shining point of Prince's national career.
 
Wolf, Uecker and the Gunner had to be the greatest baseball play-by-play team of all time.
I remember Uecker took off on a long story once about how when he played for the Cardinals
they switched to the polyester double-knit uniforms, and he did not think that he looked good in
them.. So he went to the manager and complained, and the manager said "You're right, Uke.
In fact, we think that you'd look much better in a Louisville uniform!"

When Monday Night Baseball hit the airwaves, I tuned in for Prince but came away a big fan of
Uecker. Today when I visit family in Wisconsin, I cannot have the Brewers game on the radio and
keep a straight face.
 
Yes...compare the PBP people back then to the "so-called" PBP people of today...

Back then, you still had people hitting home runs, scoring touchdowns, making excellent plays...just like in today's sports.

Back then, you listened to the description of the PBP guy who actually took pride in knowing what he was talking about and how he talked about it. That was a badge of honor for the PBP guy.

Fast forward to today, as radio circles the drain. What do you find in PBP these days? Answer? This STUPID yelling and screaming whenever the score occurs.
Oh boy, I'm I ever impressed! The more yelling and screaming the "alleged" PBP guy does, the "more professional" he is considered by his "peers". Of course his "peers" don't have a clue either. Today, the badge of honor is if the PBP guy sounds hoarse during the post game wrap up. And we wonder why radio is circling the drain.
 
Bob Prince was great and fun to listen to. I grew up in Chicago, but used to hear him at night on KDKA with Lannie Frateire (SP?). They were very entertaining.
 
Listening to Prince, you never quite were sure you got an accurate description of the game, but he was entertaining. He'd be off on one of his stories and then just say "two out", passing up the play by play entirely or he'd say "long drive! Caught behind second base...that'll end the inning".

I don't remember Paul Long on the radio, but the team of Prince, Woods and King was a good one.
 
radioman148 said:
Bob Prince was great and fun to listen to. I grew up in Chicago, but used to hear him at night on KDKA with Lannie Frateire (SP?). They were very entertaining.
Click to expand...

More likely you heard him with Nellie King. Frattare was part of the team that replaced Prince and King in '76.
 
All of the guys that you mention as great, and I'd add Jack Buck, Jack Brickhouse, Vin Scully, and Ernie Harwell to that list, came from an era when announcers re-created games in a studio when the team was on the road. Telco lines were just too expensive to use for a baseball game in the 1950s so the announcers stayed home. All they had was a ticker in front of them that would read "B1" or "S2" or "F8". The annoucer was then left to invent ball one, strike two and a fly out to the center fielder. They also knew when to shut up and let crowd tell the story. All of them carried that to TV.

Now everyone is taught that silence is death and their viewers (and listeners) need to be spoon fed everything.

How lucky I am that I grew up with The Gunner and lived in Chicago while Harry was still Harry.
 
Boss Radio said:
radioman148 said:
Bob Prince was great and fun to listen to. I grew up in Chicago, but used to hear him at night on KDKA with Lannie Frateire (SP?). They were very entertaining.
Click to expand...

More likely you heard him with Nellie King. Frattare was part of the team that replaced Prince and King in '76.
Click to expand...

Sorry--my bad.
 
All they had was a ticker in front of them that would read "B1" or "S2" or "F8". The annoucer was then left to invent ball one, strike two and a fly out to the center fielder. They also knew when to shut up and let crowd tell the story.
Click to expand...

Shafu's right on the money with how they did it. Here's a link to an article written by a man who worked with Tom Decker, the radio voice of the minor league Rochester Red Wings back then:

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/minor-league/minor2004a.shtml
 
Snafu said:
All of the guys that you mention as great, and I'd add Jack Buck, Jack Brickhouse, Vin Scully, and Ernie Harwell to that list, came from an era when announcers re-created games in a studio when the team was on the road. Telco lines were just too expensive to use for a baseball game in the 1950s so the announcers stayed home. All they had was a ticker in front of them that would read "B1" or "S2" or "F8". The annoucer was then left to invent ball one, strike two and a fly out to the center fielder. They also knew when to shut up and let crowd tell the story. All of them carried that to TV.

Now everyone is taught that silence is death and their viewers (and listeners) need to be spoon fed everything.

How lucky I am that I grew up with The Gunner and lived in Chicago while Harry was still Harry.
Click to expand...

Bob Elson the first voice of the White Sox used to call those "ticker games" back in the 40s & 50s.
He would read the ticker & turn the play into a "diving catch" or a "sensational slide" into 3rd.
 
That brings up an interesting question. What is the latest date at which any major league team still had a "ticker" broadcast of it's games? In the minor leagues I believe they existed up until the late 80's in Honolulu, as the travel expense plus the time difference did not make it practical for their announcer to go on the road
in a league with teams as far east as Nashville.
 
Fred- I don't believe Nashville and the Hawaii Islanders played each other in the late '80s. There were still three AAA leagues back then (the American Association still existed) and so the PCL didn't need to expand eastward.

Still, your point is valid as Honolulu to, say, Denver is still an awfully long trip.

To answer your question, I think the Pirates were the last team not to go on the road and use tickers.

At least that's the story I've always heard. I can't tell you the last year they stopped doing that- perhaps when the broadcasts moved from WWSW to KDKA in the '50s?
 
St. Louis was actually the last team in baseball to go live the entire season. I think the Bucs made the change just before them in 1958.

Western Union actually provided the operators who sent out the B1 and S2 information. Just like MLB.com and ESPN.com they had someone in each major and minor league park doing that every night. So nobody in the PCL was recreating games in the 80s because there was no way to get the information. To cut costs some teams didn't do every game from the islands and some teams would just skip a series late in the season altogether.
 
Wow!

Snafu, are you telling me Pirates announcers never went to Brooklyn or New York, but did go to Los Angeles and San Francisco?

That's messed up!
 
Pirate announcers didn't go anywhere but Forbes Field until the late 1950s. The telco lines were simply too expensive and the equipment too heavy to move around easily.

Off of the top of my head I can't remember the exact years the Dodgers and the Giants moved but The Gunner might have done road games live the last season the Dodgers were in Brooklyn.

But to answer your question, yes.
 
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