As the Little League World Series rushes headlong towards Sunday’s championship game, from my vantage point behind the iHeart Radio microphone, it has been a week of personal reflection on several counts.
As many of you know from past columns in this very space, Little League Baseball has been my lifelong companion. I was introduced to the game by my dad at a very young age, enjoyed more than twenty years coaching the game to kids in the Little Mountaineer Little League, and had the rewarding privilege to serve seventeen years on the Little League Headquarters staff as its Central Region Director, and for the past twenty-three years have had the opportunity to broadcast World Series games on local radio.
Simply stated, over the years, I have experienced the ups and downs, exhilarations and disappointments, successes and malfunctions that have accompanied this worldwide program and our very own community treasure. I’ve enjoyed memorable conversations with program founder Carl Stotz, worked under the leadership of Peter J. McGovern and Dr. Creighton J. Hale, and played a very small introductory role upon Steve Keener’s arrival at Little League.
Dr. Hale brought Keener, then a student at Westminster College, aboard as a summer intern in the late 1970s. He cut the grass, worked in the mailroom, and spent some time learning the organization’s administrative procedures. In my Central Region position, Steve spent some time in my office learning the ropes. In 1980, he joined the Little League staff and rose to the president’s role in 1994. The rest, as they say, is history!
With his developed knowledge and people-friendly approach, he has served the organization well, leading it through some challenging times and championing many accomplishments. Over the years, we’ve shared conversations and swapped stories, and he has helped me achieve some personal projects.
With his announced retirement, effective December 31, all this flashed through my mind as I watched him go about his World Series duties for the last time. Throughout the history of sports, teams lose skillful players but continue to play the game. The same will be done at Little League under Keener’s successor Pat Wilson’s coming leadership. But the changing of the guard will be noticed.
Also noticed from my press box perch is that despite numerous changes to the game’s rules, it is still played by excited young participants who fulfill the opportunity to play on their own field of dreams, meet new friends from around the world, and make memories that will never be forgotten. It is our own ‘Disneyland’ and has been so since 1947.
When our broadcasters open our mics, I am always reminded of the history of the opportunity and responsibility to describe those sights and sounds via the radio airwaves. Baseball and radio have a similar relationship to peanut butter and jelly, something most everyone has experienced and enjoyed.
As a matter of history, the first radio broadcast of a baseball game occurred 103 years ago, on August 5, 1921, in Pittsburgh on radio station KDKA. Using a microphone cobbled together from a converted telephone, a twenty-six-year-old technician, Harold Arlin, re-created the details of a Pirates game. It wasn’t considered a big deal at the time, and most people didn’t think it would last.
Like Stotz himself, the early local radio pioneers of stations WRAK & WWPA didn’t know what would come of their 1947 World Series airings. Radio personalities Bud Berndt and Vince Campana were among the first to bring the proceedings to local listeners.
When the Series was moved from the west end’s Original Field to South Williamsport’s Lamade Stadium in 1959, local radio took on a greater role. WMPT’s Bill Byham began his long run of World Series broadcasts, which continued until his passing in 2017. In 1971, Ken Sawyer opened his WWPA mic just in time to call the details of Lloyd McClendon’s historic Series. In 1974, Gary Chrisman, then a college student at the University of Miami, joined Sawyer for his first Series. The pair have been doing it ever since.
I was thrilled to join the radio team at Sawyer’s invitation in 2001 when the Series expanded to sixteen teams, and Volunteer Stadium was added. Tom Speicher came on board as ‘the man in the crowd’, providing informative interviews to the radio audience. Several years ago, Tom O’Malley brought his professional baseball expertise to our veteran crew.
Over the years, baseball announcers have used a variety of colorful terms to describe the action on the field. On KDKA, Pirates’ famed announcer Rosey Rowswell used his signature phrase, “Get up, Aunt Minnie, and raise the window! Here she comes,” when describing a home run call.
Current Pirates play-by-play voice Greg Brown booms out, “Clear the deck, cannonball coming,” when a Bucco hits one over the wall.
The iHeart radio team has nothing similar but has enjoyed years of positive relationships, calling all the Little League action to those listening from afar. It has been my privilege to be a part of this special team.
An even bigger joy comes from our home dugout experiences with my lifetime teammate, Jean, with whom I share our 60th wedding anniversary on August 21st! Like this year, most of those anniversaries have been celebrated on a baseball field. She is a trooper!
