J
Joseph_Gallant
Guest
At the top of today's (February 20th) local noon nwscasts on Boston's WBZ-4, WCVB-5, and WHDH-7, it was announced as "breaking news" that legendary sportscaster Curt Gowdy has died in Florida, after a battle with leukemia.
Gowdy's earliest work was in the Midwest and West, then briefly worked New York Yankees' radio broadcasts alongside Mel Allen. In the early 1950's, Gowdy moved to Boston when he became the play-by-play voice of the Boston Red Sox for the old WHDH-850 (no relation to the current Boston TV station with those call letters) and WBZ-4 and the then-WNAC-7 (both split the Red Sox TV schedule; the TV rights were owned by the Narragansett brewery in Rhode Island, who didn't want to show favortism between the two TV station in Boston at the time).
Gowdy remained with the Red Sox until the end of the 1965 season, but was already a natonally-known and respected sportscaster before he left Boston, thanks to his extensive network work during the first half of the 1960's. In 1966, he went fulltime to network TV. Many consider Gowdy to be the best play-by-play sportscaster who ever lived; certainly he was one of the mosty versatile.
Among his many accomplishments: Play-by-play of 13 World Series for NBC television, 7 Super Bowls for the network, host of ABC's "American Sportsman", several Olympics (both Winter and Summer) from 1964 through 1984 (he was also in-studio anchor for NBC's coverage of the 1972 Winter Games in Sapporro; many critics thought his talents were wasted as studio host and that he should have been doing play-by-play of figure-skating, hockey, or alpine skiing), NCAA Division 1 men's basketball "Final Fours" from 1969 through 1979; the "lead" play-by-play man for network telecasts for most of the history of the old American Football League (ABC from 1960-64, NBC from 1965-69) and nine of the ten AFL championship games (1961-69), quite a few Rose Bowl games (13 or 14??), and I think he may have also done some network NBA games in the early 1960's.
In his later years, he also owned several radio stations in both Massachusetts and Florida. The call letters of one of them (WCGY-93.7 Lawrence/Boston, now WMKK) spelled out his name: Curt GowdY". Two of his children went on to successful careers in broadcasting; daughter Cheryl for a time worked at WCGY and son Curt Jr. became a top television sports producer.
A true giant in television has passed away.
Gowdy's earliest work was in the Midwest and West, then briefly worked New York Yankees' radio broadcasts alongside Mel Allen. In the early 1950's, Gowdy moved to Boston when he became the play-by-play voice of the Boston Red Sox for the old WHDH-850 (no relation to the current Boston TV station with those call letters) and WBZ-4 and the then-WNAC-7 (both split the Red Sox TV schedule; the TV rights were owned by the Narragansett brewery in Rhode Island, who didn't want to show favortism between the two TV station in Boston at the time).
Gowdy remained with the Red Sox until the end of the 1965 season, but was already a natonally-known and respected sportscaster before he left Boston, thanks to his extensive network work during the first half of the 1960's. In 1966, he went fulltime to network TV. Many consider Gowdy to be the best play-by-play sportscaster who ever lived; certainly he was one of the mosty versatile.
Among his many accomplishments: Play-by-play of 13 World Series for NBC television, 7 Super Bowls for the network, host of ABC's "American Sportsman", several Olympics (both Winter and Summer) from 1964 through 1984 (he was also in-studio anchor for NBC's coverage of the 1972 Winter Games in Sapporro; many critics thought his talents were wasted as studio host and that he should have been doing play-by-play of figure-skating, hockey, or alpine skiing), NCAA Division 1 men's basketball "Final Fours" from 1969 through 1979; the "lead" play-by-play man for network telecasts for most of the history of the old American Football League (ABC from 1960-64, NBC from 1965-69) and nine of the ten AFL championship games (1961-69), quite a few Rose Bowl games (13 or 14??), and I think he may have also done some network NBA games in the early 1960's.
In his later years, he also owned several radio stations in both Massachusetts and Florida. The call letters of one of them (WCGY-93.7 Lawrence/Boston, now WMKK) spelled out his name: Curt GowdY". Two of his children went on to successful careers in broadcasting; daughter Cheryl for a time worked at WCGY and son Curt Jr. became a top television sports producer.
A true giant in television has passed away.