In my English class, we are reading the novel Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. Ultimately, it is a letter from a dying father to his 7-year-old son, and so far I really like it. The father is a preacher (not sure which denomination), and writes about several of his "religious experiences," both in Church and in nature. One of the experiences he discusses is listening to baseball on the radio, and this led to a discussion in class. My professor is of the same age as some of my older readers, and can remember gathering around the radio at night to listen to the Cincinnati Reds games. The point in the novel is that you can hear everything that is going on, but you still use your imagination to make visual images out of the sounds. The narrator describes the joy he felt after experiencing this.
Although I have never listened to a baseball game over the radio, I have been to several games, and have watched games on television. When my grandmother lived in Atlanta the first time around (more than ten years ago), I had gone for a long visit, by myself, over the summer. We spent several nights watching Atlanta Braves games and eating ice cream (usually Brown Cows, if you are familiar with those). I may not have fully understood what was going on, but I remember it was a great experience, and I enjoyed the time we spent together.
I was wondering if anyone else out there had memories of "America's pastime" to share, especially if you are from the "radio days." It would be interesting to hear what your take on this is, and if that term "America's pastime" is correct. You know how much I love hearing your comments!
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11 comments:
Wow, the ballgame on the radio. What a lot of memories associated with that.
Where we grew up on Navy, people used to sit on their front porches and listen to the ballgame. Radios were not even portable back then so they were turned really loud to be able to hear them on the porch.
I don't remember the game actually being on at my house, but from our porch, or out on the street playing with the other kids, we could hear the ballgame coming from all directions.
After I started working at Johnnies, (1 1/2 blocks from home) I was able to walk all the way to work without missing a play, then the game would be playing at the store.
Double WOW. I remember the ball game broadcasts on Navy street. My best friend's (Bob Mealback) grandfather was one of those sitting on the front porch listening to the ballgame. I could hear it from 3 or 4 houses away. I also remember Mr Moore would have his car radio on loud while washing his car on the street in front of his house. We could here that from inside our house. We did not need a radio to know the Detroit Tigers play by play.
The ballgame was not a big thing at our house, Papa did not have an interest in it. My interest in baseball was in playing it not hearing it. Yet, I did hear it when others were listening, and also the Red Wing hockey games. I do not remember when we got our radio but I do remember it, it's shape and the two knobs. It was a Philco. I recall being allowed to listen to "Jack Armstrong The All American Boy", what a treat. It was strange to listen because we would face the radio when listening, why I don't know. Redios in cars took a great deal of energy and many a person ran his battery down listening to the radio when the engine was not running.
I remember listening to "Little Orphan Annie" and we actually bought Ovaltine and drank it because of those comercials. I did send away for the secret decoder ring (just as Ralphie did in "A Christmas Story") and I was equally disappointed to find the message was only a comercial. I only decoded one message, that was enough for me.
Bobbin with the Robin, hob nobbin with the Robin... How many of you remember that.
As I got into my teens (or maybe tweens) they started running commercials for Motorola TV. Bernie would laugh and say they were cutting their own throats. When enough people had TVs nobody would listen to radio any more.
I remember the brown half-oval radio with the cloth speakers and two knobs at the bottom. In time, Papa built a shelf for it in the kitchen over the oven.
We would sit around the kitchen table and listen to Jack Benny, The Great Gildersleve, and whatever that show was with Pasquale that always started out "Dear Mama Mia" Papa loved that one.
Now skip to the next generation--radio was only for listening to music and there was only one radio station (what was it Gretchen?). If we were lucky we had a transistor radio that we could take with us. No ear phones--tinnie sounding. The older generation didn't allow it--too much racket. One year on vacation we went for a whole week without hearing the radio. We thought we were going to die.
Our television was black and white and you had to get up to change the channel--actually we needed the plyers, because we broke the channel knob off fighting over it. We had days for who got to pick the shows we'd watch on the four whole channels that we got--and we were lucky because we had the Canadian channel. Not everyone got it.
Eight tracks--wow, play your music that you wanted where ever you went--now that was sweet.
Man am I old.
I'm not Gretchen, but I'll bet the station was "CKLW".
CKLW was the Canadian station, but I think Kat was looking for the ‘only’ radio station any self respecting teen would listen to.
marty
CKLW (800 on the dial) is correct, there was also KEENER 13, but it did not come in all the time. CKLW was the "rock" station and KEENER 13 played "old" music (not oldies that was HONEY, but old people's type of music.) KEENER 13 became WNIC when everything moved to FM. I don't know if FM started in my memory, but I remember only having AM radios (possibly because they were cheaper) and I remember first having FM.
I will listen to a baseball game on the radio before I watch it on TV. It doesn't keep my full attention either way and least when I'm listening I can do other things. I usually listen to the Tiger day games while I'm at the office - with headphones.
In my family I think I am the biggest Baseball fan. My son and I until this year had season tickets to the Dodgers. I will listen to any team on the radio or watch any team on tv. Some of my favorite memories with my kids revolve around baseball, whether a Dodger game or a Little League Game, or having my daughter be the team babysitter for all the siblings of my son's team mates.
I remember WNIC and W4 being the stations to listen to in my teens. And feeling very special when mom let me listen to music in the car instead of News radio. Now I find myself being very eclectic in my radio choices. I can listen to Country with my Daughter, Alternative Rock with my son or whatever station isn't playing a commercial.
Well, welcome to the 2000's. Watching or listening to a baseball game is so last week. The only way to follow to a baseball game these days is on mlb.com.
You can have it on a tab in your browswer and click back and forth to continue to work. They have a generic picture of a batter (lefty or righty) and then they show the actual picture of the person batting. You can see where each ball went and how fast it was going. Much easier to follow than on a TV screen. And it gives a running play by play similar to a radio play-by-play but they don't feel the need to fill in the empty spots with mindless chatter. I hate the mindless chatter.
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