Who is Your Favorite Sportscaster?

If you want to start a good argument among a bunch of guys, just raise the question: “Who’s your favorite sportscaster?” While talking about their favorites, most sports fans also will readily tell you who they don’t like.

Ever since I was very young, I have been a sports fan and one of my true pleasures was listening to a good sportscaster describe the action on the radio when I was driving or working around the house. I don’t listen to sports on the radio very much anymore because so many games are on TV, cable, satellite and streaming sports channels.  But, I do have a few favorite announcers for different sports. So, in no particular order, here are some sportscasters that I really like.

My favorite sport is college basketball and my all-time favorite sports broadcaster is Cawood Ledford, who was the radio voice of the Kentucky Wildcats for 39 years from 1953 to 1992. Ledford’s smooth, tenor voice with a slight twang was made even more distinctive by his use of colloquial phrases to describe action. His call of a made shot was: “Bulls eye” or “Got it.” A long shot might draw “Tickles the strings” or “String music.” An easy layup was a “Snowbird” or a “Gimme.” A shot that hit the rim but went in was described, “Got a lot of iron on it, but it fell through.”

Ledford was great because, even though he was the home voice of the Wildcats, he wasn’t afraid to criticize his team when they weren’t playing well. When Kentucky trailed in a game, he would not shy away from telling his audience exactly what the Wildcats weren’t doing well even when they were coached by the legendary Adolph Rupp.

My favorite baseball announcer was ranked number one in the book “The Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball’s 101 All-Time Best Announcers” by Curt Smith. Vin Scully was the voice of the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers for 67 years. I first heard Scully in the mid-60s when I had a shortwave radio and his broadcasts of Dodgers games were carried on Armed Forces Radio. Like Ledford, Scully knew so much about the game and was not afraid to tell listeners what his team or individual players were doing right or wrong. By chance, I was listening the night Scully described pitcher Don Drysdale of the Dodgers setting the major league record by pitching 58 consecutive shutout innings in 1968.

During the summer in the 60s, I spent lots of evenings scanning the AM Radio dial to listen to baseball broadcasters. Two other announcers I also want to mention are longtime Pittsburgh Pirates announcer Bob Prince and Harry Caray, who was the voice of the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs. Both of them were much more entertaining than the cookie-cutter announcers you hear today. Prince and Caray provided interesting anecdotes and unique phrases when they called games.

Caray would describe an unusual play with his trademark “Holy Cow!” and as a long fly ball headed for the fence, Caray would say: “It might be. It could be. It is…a home run!”

Bob Prince had a unique take on the baseball cliché “can of corn” used to describe an easy fly ball to the outfield. When an easy fly ball was heading for the great Roberto Clemente in right field, Prince would say, “It’s a number 303 for Roberto.” Since I worked in a supermarket as a teenager, I knew that the number 303 described a standard size can of a vegetable or fruit. I loved this unique call.

For college football and college basketball, another personal favorite is the longtime CBS announcer Verne Lundquist who covered the SEC football game of the week and the NCAA Men’s’ Basketball tournament both on CBS. I especially enjoyed it when he was paired with Bill Raftery whether for a regular season basketball game or the tournament. These two men had a terrific comic rapport with lots of good-natured back and forth ribbing that made even a blowout entertaining.

In 1992, Lundquist and Raftery covered the legendary Kentucky-Duke East Regional Final for CBS, while Cawood Ledford announced the national radio broadcast for what many have called the greatest college basketball ever. There was a lot of talent at the broadcast table and on the court that night.

I have a great deal of respect and admiration for the work of Jim Nance, the number one sportscaster for CBS. I really enjoy his NFL work with Tony Romo and the two do an effective and entertaining job describing a game. Romo is one of those color analysts who always tells me something new about the game whenever I listen to him. He and Nance have a more personable manner than the number one Fox NFL team of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman.

My final mention goes to Ernie Johnson who hosts the NBA pre-game and post-game shows for TBS. He also anchors studio coverage of the NCAA Men’s’ Basketball tournament for TBS and CBS. His dad was the longtime voice of the Atlanta Braves and gained national prominence in the late 70s. Media mogul Ted Turner put the Braves games covered by his struggling independent TV station in Atlanta up on the satellite for cable systems across the country and the TV sports boom exploded.

The younger Ernie does a masterful job of managing the panel of Shaq, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley. He allows each of them to provide witty comments and insightful commentary, while keeping the show on track. It’s usually both entertaining and informative.

The Last of the Pontiacs

Recently, we had a sad day. No, I’m not talking about a mass-shooting or other type of disaster or a personal tragedy. It was a sad day for my wife Pam and I because we sold our final Pontiac automobile. Pam and I have driven Pontiacs almost exclusively since we married in 1970.

We just bought a 2019 Subaru Legacy and are selling our 2007 Pontiac G6.

You see, her grandfather Ralph “Pappy” Willis, started a family business called the Willis Motor Company in 1934 in North Canton, Ohio. The first year, he sold Plymouth autos, but switched to selling Pontiacs after that first year.

Willis Motors sold Pontiacs for more than 70 years until 2007 when Pam’s brother Jeff decided to cancel the Pontiac franchise and close the dealership following the sudden death of their dad Bill Willis. Pam’s father worked for his father “Pappy” beginning in his teens and took over the business when Ralph passed away in 1980. Jeff was the heir apparent.

In 2009, General Motors announced the termination of the Pontiac brand and the last cars rolled off the assembly line in 2010.

During the final days of the Willis Motors, Jeff had a handful of cars to sell and Pam and I decided to purchase the G6 sedan. So, it was one of the last Pontiacs sold by Willis Motors.

Pam and I married in 1970 and our first Pontiac, a bronze color 1970 Lemans was our wedding present. Pam’s dad always wanted her to drive at least a medium size car because he felt that would provide more protection during a crash.

Pam and I met at the end of our sophomore year at Miami University and I visited her later that summer. When I pulled into her driveway that Friday evening, I’m sure her dad was appalled at seeing my 1959 VW Beetle with the front hood tied down with piece of rope. After that visit, whenever I came to North Canton to visit, he made sure to have a larger used car available for us to use.

Sometimes he let us use a Bonneville, Pontiac’s largest sedan and driving that was a lot different than driving a VW Beetle. Looking out the front windshield, the Bonneville’s hood seemed as large as the flight deck on an aircraft carrier. Another time he let use use a four-speed stick shift GTO, Pontiac’s classic performance car and that was quite an experience, too.

My favorite “loaner” from my future father-in-law was a blue 1967 Pontiac Tempest convertible that he let us use during Memorial Day weekend in 1969. The weather was perfect that weekend and Pam and I logged a lot of miles enjoying the northeast Ohio countryside with the top down and the radio blaring.

I loved that car and I asked Bill how much it cost. The price tag of $1,300 was way too much for a kid who had another year of college and was making about two dollars an hour at his summer job.

After we married, we always had one nearly new Pontiac and I drove mostly older used cars. When it was time to replace my older car, we would check with Pam’s dad and buy a car traded in for a new Pontiac. Many of his customers traded for new cars every three of four years, so he had a steady supply of decent cars for us to choose from. Many times, those were not Pontiacs.

In the early 80s, when we both had good jobs, we splurged and became a two-Firebird couple. Pam got her Pontiac sports car first, a white 1980 model that didn’t seem too sporty enough for her. So her dad arranged to have a horizontal red racing stripe put on each side and replaced the interior with red, cloth seats.

A couple of years later, I bought a new bronze color Firebird that was the spiffiest car I ever owned. I had it a couple of years before it was stolen one day in Pittsburgh while I was visiting a friend. The police recovered it several weeks later, but the radio-cassette player had pried out of the dashboard, the seats damaged and the wheels and pop-up headlights stolen.

I used an insurance company loaner for a few weeks while my poor Firebird was being repaired. I drove it home from Pittsburgh one evening while looking at the gaping hole in the dashboard where the radio had been. Bill’s mechanic examined the car after I brought it back to Ohio and we decided to wholesale the car because it has been treated so poorly by the criminals who stole it.

Last year we decided to replace both of our older, high-mileage Pontiacs. First, I bought a 2013 Honda CRV from Pam’s brother Jeff, who currently sells for a used car dealer in North Canton. I sold my 2004 Pontiac Vibe with 184,000 miles on it and I hated to see that car go. It was arguably the best car I ever owned, a small SUV with a luggage rack on top that we used to take our son Brian to and from college in St. Louis.

So, the last Pontiac we own is currently for sale at Jeff’s used car lot in North Canton. The dark gray 2007 Pontiac G6 sedan with about 117,000 miles also was a great car. Because it was about the last car sold by Willis Motors, it holds a special, sentimental place in our memories.

It is more than a car, it’s a memento of a family business that was a big part of Pam’s life. And mine, too.

My Tale of Two Cities

This is my personal tale of two cities and my reaction to the horrible tragedy that has befallen each. The cities, Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, both hold an important place in my life and I grieve with them as I write this.

They are very different cities. Dayton is a somewhat typical Midwestern city that was once anchored by an internationally-known company and large auto-related manufacturing plants that have since moved elsewhere. The area still has Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the historical notoriety of being the birthplace of the Wright Brothers, who invented the first airplane.

Nearly 1,600 miles southwest is El Paso, Texas, at the very western tip of that state and directly across the Rio Grande River from Cuidad Juarez, Mexico. El Paso is also home to a major military base, Ft. Bliss, and is a major commercial and banking hub for western Texas.

The two cities are now linked in history by two acts of violence that occurred only about 13 hours apart. On a sunny, hot Saturday morning, a lone gunman with an AK-47 rifle opened fire in a Walmart parking lot in El Paso and then went into the store to continue his killing spree. He killed 22 people and injured 26 more before he was arrested a short distance from the store.

This shooting took place in a large shopping area that straddles I-10 for several miles and includes the Vista Cielo Mall to the east of downtown El Paso. The suspect, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, allegedly drove 600 miles from suburban Dallas before his bloody attack. Federal government authorities will charge him with domestic terrorism and hate crimes because of a manifesto he published on a white supremacy web site saying he wanted to kill Mexican immigrants to prevent them from taking over the country.

Just 13 hours later, a lone gunman, 24-year-old Connor Betts, from nearby Bellbrook, Ohio, began a shooting rampage in the Oregon district, a popular nightlife district with bars and restaurants east of downtown Dayton. This attack lasted about a minute before several Dayton Police Department officers, who were routinely patrolling the area, shot and killed the shooter before he could enter a crowded night club.

In this attack, nine were killed and 20 more were wounded. As I write this, police still don’t have a precise motive for this attack, but one of the fatalities was the 22-year-old sister of the shooter.

So, two cities that are so different are now connected forever because of these atrocities. I am writing about each of them because I have a personal connection to both.

When I was 14, my family moved from Columbus, Ohio, to the Dayton area because my dad accepted a new job. I lived in the suburbs and attended Archbishop Alter High School in nearby Kettering. Because this was more than 50 years ago, I’m don’t know what the Oregon district was like back then. When I turned 18 and was legally permitted to drink 3.2 percent beer, my friends and I tended to visit bars along Brown Street close to the University of Dayton. While I was in college at Miami University in nearby Oxford, Ohio, I still returned to the Dayton area during holiday breaks and worked there during the summer months. Since my 50-year class reunion in 2016, I have kept in touch with several high school classmates who live in the Dayton area via Facebook.

While I don’t have a direct connection to the victims of the Dayton shooting, I still feel emotional about the tragic deaths of a group of people enjoying a warm summer night in the city that was an important part of my growing up.

My connection with El Paso is much more recent. To get away from the cold Ohio winter, I decided to rent an AirBnb property from mid-January to the end of March this year in the Mission Hills section of El Paso. Why El Paso? When doing my research about where to spend the winter, I was intrigued by that city’s proximity to Mexico, both in location and culture and the dry desert climate.

I was not disappointed with my choice. This city of 680,000 is vibrant and interesting with a mix of both American and Mexican cultures. About the half of the population of El Paso has a direct family link to nearby Mexico. I rented a casita or small house while there and I could see Juarez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua from the street in front of my house,

I took some non-credit classes at the University of Texas-El Paso (UTEP) and learned about the history and culture of the area that locals call the Borderland. I met some interesting people there and was intrigued how the two cultures exist side-by-side in this city. At the local supermarket, restaurants, coffee shops and on campus, hearing people speak both English and Spanish was an everyday occurrence.

I went to El Paso to get relief from my chronic asthma and allergies, but the elevation of the city of about 3,800 feet, proved to be a problem for my breathing. If not for that, I would gladly go back next winter. I really liked the city and the Borderland area.

Because the shootings in El Paso were apparently racially motivated, my heart goes out to the people of a community where Americans and Latinos live and work side-by-side in relative harmony. El Paso’s crime rate has historically been much lower than the national average for a city its size.

So, I was deeply affected by the events of in both Dayton and El Paso. I have a great deal of love for both communities and they are both an important part of my life, although separated by about 50 years.

One final note. Ironically, both Dayton and El Paso are linked by one thing I love: college basketball. The University of Dayton Flyers have been a nationally-ranked mid-major power for years and I still root for them most of the time, even though I am not an alumnus. They are a prominent part of the community that was an important to me when I was growing up.

UTEP was formally called Texas Western University and, in 1966, the Miners won the NCAA national basket ball championship over Kentucky. I attended a couple of games while I was in El Paso and joined fans in applauding a couple of players and the coach’s wife when they were honored, even though they beat my graduate school’s alma mater. The movie “Glory Road” celebrates this incredible story.

So, I am very sad about the fate these two cities shared. I’m not going to comment about our country’s gun laws or immigration policy here. These are two cities that did not deserve what happened this weekend, but they will be forever linked by tragic events. And, they will both have a place in my heart for as long as I live.

The Songs of Summer

As the middle of summer approaches, with the temperature near 90 and coupled with Ohio’s summer humidity, I decided to see which popular summer songs I remembered that were popular when they were released.

A quick Google search revealed a webpage article titled “Top 30 Summer Songs” published by Billboard Magazine—one of pop music’s most highly regarded sources. I won’t comment on all of the songs, but here are some of my favorites from the list.

The number one song on the list is the “Surfin’ Safari” by the Beach Boys. This 1962 hit introduced the California surf culture to the rest of the country. The opening verse says it all:

“Early in the morning well be startin' out
Some honeys will be coming along
Were loading up our Woody
With our boards inside
And headin' out singing our song”

This is one of five Beach Boys singles the made the Billboard list, more than any other artist or group. Other Beach Boys songs on the list include: “Surfin’ USA”, “Wipeout” (made in 1987 with the Fat Boys), Surfer Girl and “California Girls.” I still remember their 1979 concert at Blossom Music Center in Ohio opening with the beautiful guitar riff of “California Girls” while a there was a raging thunderstorm going on outside the pavilion. It’s one of my favorite concerts of all time.

The number 2 song on the Billboard list is a jazzy, highly instrumented version of the song “Summertime” sung by Billy Stewart in 1966.  This song is probably the best known song of the musical “Porgy and Bess” written by the Gershwin brothers. It has been recorded by numerous artists and I think many of those versions are much better at representing the song’s purpose in the show to portray the steamy ambience of summer in the South.

In 1983, the girl group Bananarama had a huge hit with the song “Cruel Summer” about a love that’s left. I really like this song’s instrumentation and the last chorus displays both angst and a threat.

“It's a cruel (Cruel), cruel summer
(Leaving me) Leaving me here on my own
It's a cruel (It's a cruel), cruel summer
Now you're gone
You're not the only one”

Number 5 on the list is the rock classic “Summertime Blues” sung by Eddie Cochran in 1958. The song expresses the emerging rebelliousness of the 50s teens against their “Greatest Generation” parents. “There ain’t no cure for the summertime blues…” expresses the frustrations teens of that era felt.

In 1972, Seals and Croft released “Summer Breeze” and the song became a huge hit. It featured the duo’s rich harmony and the use of a mandolin with very sensory lyrics to describe the pleasure of a welcome breeze on a summer day.

“Summer breeze makes me feel fine
Blowin' through the jasmine in my mind”

Another personal favorite of mine is number 17 on the list, “Under the Boardwalk” performed by the Drifters in 1964. The song features interesting key changes and the use of a violin that was unique for that time.

At number 20 is “Boys of Summer” by Don Henley. The Eagles mainstay went solo when the band took as Glenn Frey said, “…a 14-year vacation.” This was one Henley’s several major hits in the 80s and the lyrics refer to his memories of a summer fling and the realization that summer and his crush are both gone.

Number 22 on this list is the huge hit by the group Sly and the Family Stone called “Hot Fun in the Summertime.” This song was released in the summer of 1969 and appeared in the Billboard Top 100 at the same time as the group was performing at Woodstock. The song salutes the easy and free spirit most of us felt during the summer months of 1969.

“Hot town, summer in the city, back of my neck getting’ dirty gritty” was the chorus for the 1966 hit “Summer in the City” by the Lovin’ Spoonful. This piece featured driving instrumental interludes and percussion that seem to increase the heat, even if you listened to it during cooler times.

Summer also is the time for a number of novelty songs, pieces of music that weren’t much for substance, but seemed to catch on. In 1960, Bryan Hyland recorded “Itsy-Bitsy-Teenie-Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini” and the song shot up the charts that summer. The song is about a girl who buys a skimpy bikini but was afraid to wear it once she got to the beach.

“It was an itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka-dot bikini
That she wore for the first time today.
An itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka-dot bikini
So in the locker she wanted to stay.
Two, three, four, stick around we'll tell you more!”

I know that summer music seems to be especially memorable for me and I hope some of these songs bring back good summer memories for you. There are 30 songs on this list and, if I didn’t mention your favorite, check out the list yourself and enjoy your summer:

https://www.billboard.com/articles/list/513566/top-30-summer-songs