Unfortuntely, this game is now in a rain delay in the top of the 3rd with the home team ahead 1-0.  But all is not lost and I’m not looking for a new game yet.  That’s because for baseball fans in Cincinnati, summer rain means one thing:

It’s time for Marty to take phone calls from Reds fans on the “Chiquita Banana Phone.”

And they have the corniest theme song for the segment too.  One minute you are hearing play-by-play of the ballgame from a Hall-of-Fame announcer and the next minute it’s now the squeaky voice of a banana singing:

“Ring, ring, ring, ring, banana phone.  Ding, ding, ding, ding, banana phone.  It’s no baloney, it ain’t a phoney, it’s the Chiquita banana phone.”

First question was about Ken Griffey Jr.  The analysts both took some delight in his failure to resuccitate his career in Seattle.  Interesting.  I hadn’t realized Reds fans were bitter about Griffey’s departure.  It’s not unexpected though since Griffey’s time in Cincinnati was a big disappoinment for most.  The third question of the segment was directed to Marty and the caller asked what the secret is to his full head of hair at age 66.

Nice.  I’d like to know that myself.  Oh how I love baseball on the radio!

Three distinct memories of the Milwaukee Brewers come back to me tonight.  The first is the 1982 World Series in which the Brewers lost a 7 game classic to the St. Louis Cardinals.  Seems odd now as the two teams have become division rivals.  But at the time Milwaukee was still an American League city.  Anyway, my absolute earliest memory of baseball is the 1981 World Series between the Yankees and the Dodgers.  But having been just short of 5 years old, I can’t recall any specific memories of that series other than rooting for Reggie Jackson.  However, I have a much better memory of the 1982 fall classic.  I remember rooting for the Brewers and being a fan of mustached closer Rollie Fingers, sluggers Cecil Cooper and Gorman Thomas, and young stars Robin Yount and Paul Monitor.  My new baseball collection was growing and I probably had some of their cards.  I was very disappointed the Cardinals won, as the team I had rooted for had now lost the World Series for the second year in a row.
 
The second Brewer memory is from 1996 when I listened to my very first baseball game over the internet.  It was a weekend night Brewer home game with Bob Uecker doing the call.  The internet was in its infancy and at the time I was well ahead of the learning curve, rather than way behind as I am now.  I can recall just how amazed I was to be listening to a baseball game in this manner.  MLB had not seized the broadcast rights yet.  I had tracked down the feed from a bare bones Milwaukee radio station web site.  And even though the dial-up connection necessitated re-buffering every minute or so, it was so cool.

My final Brewer memory is attending a game in now-demolished Milwaukee County Stadium in the summer of 1999 with my brother Russ.  We had driven up for a game from Chicago and didn’t stay long.  But it was memorable.  It was that ballpark’s last season and the building was indeed decripid.  The bratwurst and sausages, however, were affordable, plentiful, and wonderful.  Another thing that stands out about the game is that it was the first game played after a tragic construction accident at the new stadium that had killed one or more constuction workers.  That was kind of eerie, especially since we could actually observe the construction on the new stadium from our seats.  But we were grateful that the game was played and we got to be there.

So perhaps this game will go down as my 4th Brewer memory.  They are ahead 2-0 in the early-going.  Uecker had a solid call on a home run in which he was very animated.  In fact, he seems to be growing slightly more jovial with each inning.  He just claimed he could’ve hit a HR himself off the pitcher and has already told 2 stories from his legendary playing days.  I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the beer by his side is starting to kick in.  My only disappointment is that the game feed is not providing local commercials.  And they wonder why I’m drinking Mexican beer tonight!

It’s after midnight on the East Coast and so I’m listening to some late West Coast baseball.  There are three options with ongoing games in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Seattle.  I choose the last option.

It’s my first listen to a Seattle broadcast on the hometown KIRO feed.  The M’s are locked in a 2-2 tie with the visiting Orioles in the 9th inning.  So far the Mariner announcers sound like two older-sounding white guys with rather monotone voices.  These guys definitely do not fit the profile I expected for the urban-chic city of Seattle, but they’ll do for the moment.

The MLB audio is giving me local commercials tonight, which I really appreciate since the Pacific Northwest is so foreign to me 3000+ miles away in Southwest Florida.  Commercials for the Seattle Pacific Credit Union and the Dairy Farmers of Washington have given me a little of that local flavor I so enjoy.  But what about Starbucks?  Or Seattle’s Best?  It’s late here in Florida.  I need some caffeine — if only through the magic of internet radio!

I’m starting my listening day with the WLW Cincinnati radio feed of the contest between the Reds and Astros from the Great American Ballpark.  These NL Central division teams have already put up 7 runs alone in the first inning.  The Reds lead 5-2 early and I’m happy as starting pitcher Aaron Harang is on both of my fantasy baseball squads this year.

The real treat of this listen, however, is hearing the pleasant tones of Reds legendary broadcaster Marty Brennaman.  The play-by-play man has been doing Reds games for 35 years.  A quick search reveals he’s “only” 66 and hopefully has many good more years of baseball left in his career.  Brennaman, like all the greats, describes the action well but doesn’t get enamored with the sound of his own voice.  He can let the action (and the background crowd noise) at times tell its own story.  Those pauses are really important to build the drama and Brennaman knows exactly how to use them.

Since this is my first WLW broadcast, I was happy to catch a local reference to “Skyline Chili.”  It’s what Cincinnati is known for, afterall.

I’ve typed it here before, but Jon Miller really is a great announcer.  He may be one of the few younger announcers (relatively speaking) who will go down as one of the game’s legendary voices.  And he is so much better when not dragged down by the worthless commentary of Joe Morgan alongside.

Just added Milwaukee Brewers 2B Rickie Weeks to both of my fantasy baseball teams.  He’s off to a good start with HR’s in 3 consecutive games.  I don’t think I’ve caught a Brewer game yet this year.  Indeed it’s well past time to check in on the old Beerman himself, Bob Eucker.  Will surely report back on that soon.

I don’t have too many thoughts on the game.  It was a good listen.  Two things come to mind.  Firstly, I particularly dislike Gary Sheffield and it is great that he is on the Mets now.  Makes it so much more fun to root against him.  From admissions that he booted groundballs intentionally in order to force a Brewers trade nearly 20 years ago to his jilting of the Braves to his obvious use of steroids during the prime of his career, I can’t stand the guy.  Secondly, it sure ain’t the same listening to Braves games anymore without the voices of either Skip Carey or Pete Van Weiren.  They were great.  The new team of Jim Powell and Don Sutton is good.  And Sutton certainly has become a familiar voice to Bravo fans.  But they can’t match the charm of Skip and Pete and Jack Daniels too.

And basketball is a great sport to contract to baseball.  Unlike the slow pace of baseball, basketball features constant motion.  Additionally, the whole sport of basketball is built around the clock and timing.  The clock controls the length of games, the time of possession, how long one can hold the ball, how long one can stand in a given spot, etc, etc, etc.  In baseball, I can’t think of a single instance where a clock is relevant to the game at all.

For these reasons, basketball is not a sport I enjoy listening to on the radio.  In fact, I can’t remember when the last time I was that I did listen to some hoops play by play.  It’s a sport that is best in person and watching on tv is a close second.

But baseball — with its lack of timing rules and deliberate motions with frequent pauses in action — is ideal for description on the radio.  In fact, the more I listen to my MLB audio package, I think I may well reach the point where I prefer to LISTEN to baseball than to WATCH it.

So at the moment, I am watching the Lakers-Rockets and listening to the Padres-Diamondbacks.  The Lakers are up by 7 in the 3rd quarter of game 2 of that series, while Arizona holds a 3-0 edge in the 8th innings of a late West Coast game.  I’m tuning in via the San Diego feed.  Really like those annoucers, including the analysis of the great Jerry Coleman.

But that’s not to say I forgot about my 3rd favorite, good ol’ baseball.  Today has been a great day for baseball on the radio as I’ve been able to hog the computer a little.

I started with Pirates at Padres on the San Diego feed.  Really am starting to enjoy their broadcasts.  When that dud ended, I loved over to Giants at Diamondbacks on the KNBR feed out of San Fran.  This is one of the better listens too.  But since it is Sunday, announcer Jon Miller is tending to his ESPN duties and not behind the mic.  The game was good, however, as it went 12 innings and ended with an Arizona win.  Now I’m finishing up my listening day with Yankees at Red Sox on the New York feed.  Boston has put on a hurtin’ on New York so far and the Yanks need this one badly.

But I think I’ll be bailing soon.  It’s also the ESPN game.  And I’m starting to get hungry too.  Dinner beckons me more than baseball right now.

So I moved over to the Marlins-Pirates game via the Miami feed.  Our local sports station in SW Florida used to carry Marlins games but now runs the Rays games instead.  The Marlins are losing again.  This would be three in a row and certainly serve to temper some of the enthusiasm after their 10-1 start.  But the Pirates seem to be decent this year.  But time could certainly change that, as it inevitably does every year. 

However, there seems to be a real chance that in the next couple of seasons, the Pirates, Royals, and Orioles will all have competitive, if not outright good, teams.  That would be a welcome change.  I personally love parity in sports and would like to see that trend continue in baseball, as it has flourished in the NFL.