The Old Lefthander
Posted by twayn on Saturday, November 17th, 2007 at 12:56 am
I just logged on to check a few things and was saddened to see that Joe Nuxhall died. It’s like that as you get older, I know. Grandparents and parents, aunts and uncles, neighbors and family friends. The ones we called grownups as children one by one disappear and only the memory, a dim reminder of the living thing remains. Joe Nuxhall was the voice of baseball for me as a child growing up in Ohio, just a few hours drive from Cincinnati. Few broadcasters could infuse a ballgame with the wit and knowledge and drama that Joe could. He was as respected and loved by Reds fans as Herb Carneal was by Twins fans, and I will miss him as I miss every part of my childhood that passes away. This is an excerpt from an article titled "Fading Voices" that I wrote for GameDay this summer:
Once upon a time if you wanted live baseball, you got it on the AM radio. Back then, before the advent of FM or XM, before TV extended its limited reach, the AM radio clear channel stations ruled the American airwaves. Operating without interference from sundown to sunrise, their high-power signals bounced off the ionosphere to reach listeners more than a thousand miles away. From the 30’s through the 70’s, baseball fans in many parts of the country were treated to fairly regular evening game broadcasts from several different teams, often in distant cities, many of them called by legendary announcers in the prime of their careers.
So for all the convenience we have today, we’re slowly losing something that tied the years together, that bound the season with the times and connected one generation to the next. We're losing the voices of our childhood memory, the voices of the broadcast pioneers who filled thousands of nights for millions of fans with the drama and disappointment and delight of baseball. We're losing the voices that narrated the modern game, the original voices of summer.
As a youngster, my corner of the baseball world was dominated by the Big Red Machine. We were treated to games called by Joe Nuxhall, the youngest major league player ever, who made his big league debut as a 15-year old southpaw during World War II and his radio debut in the 60’s. Nuxhall was famous for his signature sign-off, “This is the Ol’ Lefthander, rounding third and heading for home.” His broadcast partner starting in the 70’s, 2001 Ford C. Frick award winner Marty Brennaman, coined his signature call of a Cincinnati win, “And this one belongs to the Reds,” in just his second broadcast for the team. While Brennaman still calls games for the Reds, Joe Nuxhall recently retired and is currently battling cancer.
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It’s like that as you get older, I know.
If by "older" you mean over the age of 16, yeah. I think it took me at least 24 hours to process Kirby's death, and I don't consider myself all that old.
I agree with your point that we're losing something from the AM radio era. I'm not sure that's a bad thing or a good thing so much as it's a thing, but we're losing it. I remember it mostly from driving around during the summer as a youngster, but it's tough for me to separate professional baseball from radio broadcasts of professional baseball.
Thanks for the story, twayn. Listening to games on the radio is such a part of my life and has been for so many years.
I had a copy of the Guinness Book of World Records when I was a kid (the 1972 edition) and it listed Joe Nuxhall as the youngest player ever to play major league baseball. It was a fact that I knew back then and one that I've always known. A few years back I came to know that he was a broadcaster for the Reds. I never, ever knew the story behind his young debut until just in the last couple of days when I read about his death.
Actually, Fred Chapman was allegedly 14 years old when he pitched in a game in the American Association (then a major league) in 1887 (link).
But yeah, Nuxhall is the verified, modern youngest player, and the far better story to boot. I never heard him announcing, but I know the radio feeling. I think sports broadcasting in general has been marginalized by the glut of new media, and just the glut of pro sports. Will future generations produce any classic announcers of their own? Or will we just get more Joe Bucks?
Nice piece, Twayn. Count me as one of the radio listeners - to this day, even.
Will future generations produce any classic announcers of their own? Or will we just get more Joe Bucks?
Sadly, I was wondering the same thing.
And since the topic is about the passing of time, I'll note that E-6's father turned 87 today.
Happy Birthday, Mr. E-6!
Good stuff, twayn. (I edited the NYT link to set it to the permalink)
My dad definitely was a part of that AM generation, having grown up in NE Nebraska as a Brooklyn Dodger fan, thanks to the radio coverage.
Then he probably got to hear Red Barber calling games. That would have been a treat.
In my little part of Ohio, we could listen to AM radio broadcasts from the Reds, Indians, Pirates, Cubs, and Tigers on a pretty regular basis. We probably got more, but those were the teams I remember most. When I was 12 I got a crystal radio kit for my birthday, and when I got it all put together and hooked it up to our outdoor TV antenna I could pull in some of the east coast teams at night, too. I wouldn't trade the convenience and availability we have today, but for me baseball and radio were made for each other, probably because of the pace of the game. That and the fact that when I was young we only really got one MLB game a week on TV (often the Dodgers with Vin Scully in the booth), plus the highlights on This Week in Baseball (narrated by the great Mel Allen from '77-'95).
I too remember falling asleep at night to Herb's voice in my crystal radio earpiece. Those were the days.
One of my good friend's dad was a Cardinals fan growing up (besides Twins), because he could pull in their games at night on their farm in NE NoDak. Actually, I think the Cubs and Braves initially picked up a lot of fans during their early SuperStation years. Exposure is everything. And when you have a quality announcer like Joe was, there's staying power, too.
oh, yea. crystal radio memories!
I could only pull in one or two stations with mine. Luckily, Spamtown had an affiliate in the Twins Radio Network.
When I was about 12, we had just moved to Iowa. We moved in the summer, so I really didn't have much of a chance to make any friends until school started. Instead, I used to sit with my radio and see what kind of baseball games I could get. I had a little notepad by my bed with the station and call letters of all the games I got. I remember the Twins, Cards, Cubs, Royals, and even the occasional Rockies and Reds games.
I don't really remember Nuxhall as a player, but I remember having his baseball card as a kid. It noted on the back that he'd started his career in the majors at age fifteen, and I couldn't believe it. That was my big brother's age. How could someone that age play in the majors?
I used to check the schedule, to see which teams were playing on the west coast, and then try to find their games on the transistor radio. The Chicago teams usually came in. St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Texas were pretty reliable. Detroit and Houston, sometimes. When there were no major league games available, I'd listen to the Denver Bears.