Lost art

Listening to the Mariners on the radio tonight, I remembered a story I wrote for Northwest magazine decades ago about the Portland Beavers play-by-play announcer who had to re-create away games in the Portland studio because the team couldn't afford to take him on road trips. Man, was this guy an actor! He had a small bad hanging from the ceiling and a second to hit it with, before saying, "Base hit!" or "Foul ball!" He wore a glove and threw a ball about 18 inches into it in front of the mic, "Steee-rike!" He had sound effects, the popcorn guy, booing the umpire. He had amazing stories. The way it worked was that someone phoned in what happened inning by inning -- but he only got the results, not the details of an at bat. He'd get "grounded out to short" and had to improv how many balls and strikes happened before then. Once he lost phone contact entirely and had to create a thirty minute passing thunderstorm and delay of game before getting back to it after reconnection.

I really enjoyed this guy and writing the story was great fun, too. Haven't thought about him in, well, decades.