Letter in Mpls StarTribune Sat 10-12-2022.
“Maintain the magic of radio”
I was born in 1948. My dad listened to Major League Baseball games on the car radio. I started listening with him when I was still little. Mostly for him it was the St. Louis Cardinals.
I have been listening to baseball on the radio my whole life. The only game I heard in 1969 was the last game of the World Series, which was on Armed Forces Radio. I was a combat Marine in Vietnam that year, and I was in my battalion rear area recovering from having had malaria. The Miracle Mets, oh my.
I live in rural Decorah, Iowa, and can get a quite a few different teams on the two radios in my barn. I listened to the Brewers for a number of years because of the legendary Bob Uecker and his partners. Uecker could call the game, talk about that player, that situation, that team, that team in their division, and what was going on in baseball all at the same time; ask Cory Provus.
It was wonderful until the guys from California bought the Brewers. No more two guys in the booth at the same time talking about the game. No more contextual stories. Only one guy in the booth and he hardly had (has) time to call balls and strikes because of all the commercials and gimmicks he had to read.
I started listening around to the other teams’ broadcasts and came upon the Twins with John Gordon and Dan Gladden in the booth. I stayed listening to the Twins. The Twins then, and still today for me, have the best radio announcers in the game. It is like the Uecker broadcasts of old. An amazing journey through the game with the stable of announcers the Twins use today.
I agree there is something wrong with the Twins today and that maybe the Twins should have new ownership (“Pohlads to sell Twins,” Oct. 11). But beware of what you might get with new ownership. Days and nights listening to the Twins’ wonderful announcers on the radio might be a thing of the past.
For myself, and all of the Twins radio listeners, I hope not.
Bob Watson
Decorah, IA