we've been trying to have this uh next man on our show ever since we've been on the air yeah
one of the best without a doubt the best and he's the one that everybody patterns themselves after
the good ones are all a little like vin scully uh many people consider our next guest to be
the baseball's greatest announcer uh he has been the voice of the dodgers listen to this
for 40 years ladies and gentlemen here's vin scully then
i'm delighted to follow charles grodin because i'm working on a game show called the prince is right
i appreciate that you know uh having you out here it's literally like having an encyclopedia of the
sport and and also part of american culture uh you started doing radio play-by-play for the brooklyn
dodgers when 1950 1950 and so this would be 41 years somehow it's gone by and uh how did you
get the first job well i'll never forget coming home and my mother who is red-haired irish and 89
now uh i came in the house and i was still a kid and she said you'll never guess who called and i
said who and she said red skelton wow red sky and i finally found out it was red barber and
that was the beginning that was the beginning of going to work for the dodgers did red skelton ever
call your mom no funny thing not to my knowledge anyway this subject never came up now i don't know
your age but i'm guessing you were a kid when you took that first job right well yes uh i was
very small in fact there's a line from mame where one lady says to the other real [ __ ] type just
how old are you yeah or how old do you think i am and she said somewhere between 40 and death
but what were you doing now i mean in those days to get that job to be a radio play-by-play as
the the assistant to red barber i guess that was just that was magic and unheard oh yeah
so how were you in a position to even you know call them or even well very quickly uh i had
gone to fordham university here in new york worked on the radio station auditioned and got a job with
cbs in washington uh did almost everything there i had some letters of introduction to people to
keep me alive until the following february when i was going to go full time one of the letters was
to red barber uh and he said gosh we don't have anything i'm rushing to meet my wife and i said
i understand and you know leave your name etc and that was the beginning actually yeah it's truly
amazing we were talking about this this afternoon in those years 40 years you've seen every major
league baseball player play several several times yeah it's kind of scary it's uh it's maybe like
being at a golf tournament and staying in one position and watching the entire field go by
knowing sooner or later that you will join the entire field going by yeah but still in
all what what a great perspective to have now faye vincent was here a couple of weeks ago the
commissioner of baseball and we were talking to him about why is the game of baseball today longer
than it used to be i think the the average game is about 20 minutes longer
there are probably several considerations number one because the starting pitcher is no longer
complete game that's what he said relief they are truly starting pitchers so now you have a
parade of pitchers coming from the bullpen number two they run so much more than in the old days
uh 1950 dom dimaggio led in stolen bases with 15. well nowadays with everybody running the pitchers
throw over the first 208 times the catchers call pitch outs and then there's a third consideration
and this would be several years ago in order to get enough revenue to pay the accelerated
salaries baseball allowed the sponsors to take a little more time i think now on a network telecast
on a cable telecast it will be um two minutes after every third out
so if you take two minutes after every third out you're talking roughly about 18 more minutes
now you have a game that's 20 minutes long so so they're looking to pay the bills is one of the
maybe the main reason why it's a little longer any talk to going to seven innings oh no no no
that's the mark of the minor leagues and it will forever be uh now let's talk a little bit about
how you prepare what is the first thing you do now you're going to shay to do a game tonight
what what what will you do when you get there now i know you've been to shea stadium many many times
before but you can't take this for granted you go there what will you do well you know first of all
i was thinking before it's a lot like shea being here it's noisy enthusiastic
uh there's everything here but the airplane's flying yeah and it's as cold yeah i would say
it's a real nice place here yeah so i've already got my basics in right there right but also my job
now is an accumulative thing uh all the time that i'm on the road let's say i'm in montreal and i'm
in philadelphia i'm reading about the mets and i'm making notes and lifting things out of the papers
and i have a press guide and so when i get to the ballpark i will go and visit with the managers and
the coaches do they like to see is that usually a friendly video yeah very oh very yeah very much
so and i usually have only a basic question is there anyone hurt is there anyone i might expect
to see who can't play because i i don't want to wind up saying i don't understand why you
didn't use so-and-so to pinch you want to know find out he's you know in the hospital you you
ask where the buffet is uh i know what that is yeah local knowledge i go right to the president
now i know this from listening to your uh broadcasts in in los angeles you don't really
get to know the players on a social level you don't go out with the team oh no no i don't
want to get too close because i'm uh i'm afraid maybe friendship might somehow twist color your
objectivity so i don't do it now what happens uh two years ago when when the dodgers in that
unbelievable world series the kirk gibson that that's an image that i think is still vivid in in
every baseball fan's mind when he hits he's up there gimpy and he hits that home run
so the dodgers win they were underdogs now didn't you want to be a part of that celebration
oh sure absolutely i mean i'm not a machine i'm a human being and i know the dodger players more
than the other players i try very hard to go down the middle when gibson hit the home run it was a
tremendous emotional experience and luckily i didn't have to say anything i mean i just shut
up and let the crowd go crazy until i calm down because there's an animal magnetism about a crowd
it rubs off on you it gets you all worked out i hate that when they rub up against you like that
it all depends but i mean did you when when the dodgers won the world series did you go down did
they spray stuff all over you did you none of that no you remained aloof from that uh aloof is not
really the word i just don't want to get drowned and have champagne in my eyes and but i'd rather
oh absolutely sure i'm very happy for them when i was in brooklyn and i watched the
brooklyn dodgers thoroughly frustrated losing one world series after another
i really felt for those fellas so when they finally won one in 55 i was honestly thrilled
for them sure how many world series have the dodgers won since you've been doing their
playback well they won in 55 which was brooklyn then they won in 59 63 65 then they won an 81. and
then they won in 88. so they've been those are the winners you've got the greatest job in the world
it's a it's a great job uh occasionally you you might think otherwise you know when you travel
with a group of ball players it's like traveling with any people at all in this world there are
sleepers readers card players and talkers and uh one night we were flying coast to coast and they
decided to play a game band leader initials huh terrific game so you know it's a bg benny goodman
and each one lw there you go lawrence thank you very much okay g.d uh grateful dead right
anyway we're we're on the plane and one of our young outfielders says okay i got one for you e
c and boy we said easy uh uh and each guy will say i give up i give eddie condon no
uh make one up eddie charles no and everybody backs out
all right we give up when he goes i knew i'd get you who is it xavier kuga
uh have a good game out there at shay tonight ben thank you very much
you