Listening to Bob Costas and Harry Caray from 1989

Another hot day and I “popped in” an audio tape of Bob Costas interviewing Harry Caray at some point during the 1989 baseball season. The tape I listened to was a repeat that aired on Christmas Eve, 1989. Costas is tremendous at any time but especially concerning his favorite sport, baseball. Surely I prefer listening to Caray and Costas talking about Stan Musial than watching the 21 point favorite United States basketball team win by 7 points vs Spain’s team. That is my choice, as NBC is getting great ratings and some criticism for its Olympics coverage.

Few broadcasters had the impact of Harry Caray. Costas states this in reference to how long Caray was denied entrance to Baseball’s Hall of Fame. His style, that of a fan and an unabashed “homer,” would merit some detractors but one could not write the history of baseball broadcasting without including Harry Caray.
On the show, Harry led the crowd at a St.Louis restaurant in “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” Praise for Stan Musial and Bill Veeck “grows as time goes by” were the essence of Caray’s words.

I realized that this show aired and was recorded by me the night before Billy Martin died. Costas says “What a quinella that is” when hearing of Caray and Martin having a drink together. A (drink) is surely an understatement. When the show aired originally, Martin was to be on the next show and surely was. When that was stated in the rerun, Martin was living his last full day on earth.

Likely, Caray and Martin did live full lives. While nostalgic to hear Harry Caray, I also must look forward and try to live life fully. Sadly, that is a difficult task. The task is made more difficult because my passion for sports has been drastically tempered by among other things, the paucity of good radio broadcasters. I wish Harry Caray and for that matter, Bob Costas could “take me out to the ballgame” by being my eyes through their radio broadcast of the game.