There may not be another time in history where baseball has been looked forward to more than this year. When something terrible happens, many of us turn to sports to provide some level of comfort, some normalcy. I think back to the first game in New York after 9/11 and what that meant to so many. We continue to watch sports because there is no guarantee on the outcome of the game. The championship team can lose to the team with the worst record. Upsets are the drama that keep us on the edge of our seats.
During WWII, baseball was important enough that it continued with the league creating a new professional league with women while the men were away at war. This time, with COVID in 2020, we were left without any sports – no real seasons, no spring training, no baseball, no basketball playoffs, no Olympics, not even kids sports. Major League Baseball managed a modified season from July 23rd – September 27th. It is weird watching games on TV with empty stands or print outs of fan pictures and crowd noises being fed in through the audio system. For many whose lives revolve around sports seasons, especially baseball and the tradition, 2020 was like no other.
We know we have a lot of “true fans” out there. The folks who are passionate, diehard fans. Win or lose. Rain or shine. No matter what. Those of you that have a story about why you love the game, whether it was backyard ball with your dad or child, or that first game you got to watch with your favorite player at your favorite stadium, or the time you played in your first real game, or just memories of pick-up ball with your neighborhood friends. So many of you have shared your first time listening to a game on the radio. Your favorite radio announcer who could call the game like no other. You have told us there is just nothing like listening to baseball on the radio. Radio will be right there alongside you on opening day. Your favorite announcers calling the play by play, giving you the backstories that you cannot hear unless you are listening to the radio. Storytelling in action.
Seeing things opening, and with Spring training under way and opening day on the very near horizon, it’s a new beginning. We know the real heroes during all this are the front-line workers – nurses, doctors, first responders, and all those deemed essential from grocery stores to gas stations. It seems absurd in some ways that sports can give us this hope, the feeling of normalcy that nothing else does. The simple, pure enjoyment. But it isn’t really absurd – it’s community. You are a part of something bigger. You are connected and if we’ve learned anything this year, it’s that connection is priceless.
Enter to Win! Please tell us in the comments “Your Favorite Baseball Story” and be entered to win a CC Pocket Radio. Drawing to be held 4/8/2021. Please, one entry per person.*
*Participants and winner(s) must be U.S. residents. Drawing will be selected at random from all eligible entries received.
Update: Congratulations to James Reyome on your winning entry for the CC Pocket Radio. Thank you all for your participation. We had many good entries and really enjoyed reading each comment!
Many years ago I went to Fenway Park in Boston and sat in foul ball territory down the right field line. I took my portable radio and listened to the game being broadcast by my all-time favorite announcer, Ned Martin. As I listened I watched him in the broadcast booth through my binoculars. He announced a long hard foul ball drive to right field. As he was saying it “SMACK” the ball struck the steps right beside me! A foot or two more to the right and I likely would have been hit. Needless to say, I put the binoculars down for the rest of the game.
Hi Rick! Great story, thank you for sharing!
You have great products
Gee, Rick !
If you’d been paying attention without the binoculars, you might have caught the ball.
Maybe, next time.
Yeah, except it was going too fast! My hand would still be embedded in the concrete in right field
I grew up in Pittsburgh PA. My father knew an employee of the Pittsburgh Pirates. My father attended the 1960 World Series and he came home with a baseball signed by the entire team. My father, out of love, gave me (a six year old) the baseball. I played with it, got it dirty, the signatures became faded and smudged. I threw it away. I now wish my Dad had kept it and placed it in a bag. It would be worth a small fortune today. I love my father.
I was never a big baseball fan like my father, but i liked watching the video of Hank Aaron hitting the record-breaking home. Babe Ruth’s record stood for so long that I thought it was time to move beyond it..
Barry Bonds’ record is not legitimate, as far as I’m concerned !
As a diehard Red Sox fan, I used to go to Fenway Park to see my favorite team. Once while there, I was lucky enough to see a radio announcer asking fans baseball questions. As a student of the game, I was a winner and pocketed several silver dollars as a prize,
most of which I still retain some 70 years later. One of those dollars, however, I used to buy a crystal radio with a cat’s whisker to find the strongest signal. Much to my parents’ dismay, I erected a 100 foot long wire antenna directed toward the Red Sox station transmission towers and then listened to all the night games long after my parent enforced bedtime. So, as you can see, radio is in my blood!
I would listen to the Detroit Tigers on a transistor radio every night growing up in the 60’s with Ernie Harwell on WJR 760 am.
Also remember trying to listen to World Series in 1989 & could NOT find game on radio…..puzzled, befuddled…..then learned of earthquake in San Francisco.
Grew up listening to The Gunner Bob Prince calling Pirate games from Forbes Field in Pgh.Pa. Used to tune in to KMOX and WLS for Cardinals and Cub games.I still spend my Summer evenings on the porch tuned in to the Pirates on 93.7 the fan.
My father was a tavernkeeper in Wisconsin. He always liked to have Wisconsin beers on tap and Schlitz beer, brewed in Milwaukee was popular at the time. He commented to the beer man,” I know you have tickets to the brewer games, how about bringing some my way” A year or so later my dad called me and said the beer man came through, I have tickets to a ball game ,and get this, they are front row right behind home plate. It was a great experience. You could actually hear the umpire, batter and catcher arguing.
On September 29, 2009 I bought 2 $5 radios in Chinatown. I brought them to Yankee Stadium and gave one to a friend for the game that night. The Yankees won their 102nd game of the season, and I remember how we both had the cheap plastic earphones in to hear the announcer, John Sterling Yell out “Thuuuuh, Yankees win!” Those radios lasted a few months before they died, but they got the job done. I always brought a cheap radio to those games, but it would be great to finally have a top of the heap pocket radio like the c crane to hear John & Suzyn with rich sound.
I can’t remember the exact year, but when baseball came back to Milwaukee. The Braves had departed to Atlanta, and it was a number of years that there wasn’t a pro baseball team in my hometown of Milwaukee. I was quite young, and impressionable and hearing my dear old Dad grumble about that was sad for a young lad. But, lo and behold, Milwaukee was granted a pro baseball team and soon after that we had the privilege of listening to “Mr. Baseball “, Bob Uecker, announce the games for us. You just can’t beat that, and that opportunity is only through the airwaves of radio!
Saw the Three Stooges at Forbes Field Pittsburgh, PA
Nothing like opening day. My Dad would take me to mets opening day. Usually it was cold or raining I always brought a radio to listen to play by play to help me keep score and stay informed on anything going on during game Like pitchers warming up or injuries Even today when I go to a game I bring a small radio and headphones
Bill Maz HR in game 7 WS to beat NYY
When I was a kid about 9 or 10 years old in the 1960’s and living in rural upstate New York, my parents had my regular bed set at 8 p.m. Very often I couldn’t sleep, so I would listen to my transistor radio under my pillow and hear stations from all over come in via “skip” so I would listen to WLS from Chicago and WABC from New York and WGY from Schenectady, NY. and many others. I would listen to baseball where ever I could find it.
I remember listening to a game one night where the Yankees were playing the Orioles at the old Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. It was a great game but what I will always remember is Boog Powell’s at bat that night. It seemed to take 20 minutes as with a full count, he fouled off 10 consecutive pitches trying to keep himself alive. Back then there was not pitch timer so it seemed each pitch took more than a minute. After fouling off 10 consecutive pitches Boog hit a home run on the 11th pitch clearing all the bases. Needless to say I couldn’t sleep after that!
From a young age I knew that baseball was life to many people. Going to my grandparents in the 1960’s meant that my Grandfather always had KMOX in St Louis on listening to Cardinals baseball. And he always had a pipeful of Prince Albert tobacco. Even to this day smelling Prince Albert brings back the rich memories of a different time.
And of course going to the World Series in 64 and 68 and 82 and 87. We’d bring our radios to listen to the play by play because that’s what we did. My 1st radio was a huge (by today’s standards) AM/GM radio from Woolworth’s. While most phones have radios built in i still prefer my own radio. To pick up stations hundreds of miles away and still listen to live baseball. Doesn’t get much better than that.
Meant AM/FM. duh.
years ago 1963 my baseball team had a winning season and the coaches took our whole team to st louis to busch stadium to watch the la dodger an the st louis cardinales play a 3 game series still have good memories of that
I am now 75 and I have played softball all my life. The highlight of my career came, however, when I was a Cub Scout. I was in Den 10 and we were playing Den 9. In the bottom of the last inning I got up with the bases loaded and 2 outs and we were behind 9 to 6. The pitch comes in, and BAM, I hit a long one over the center fielder’s head for a grand slam home run. Den 10 beats Den 9 by the score 10 to 9. The game was the last game of the season, and it was talked about for months after. In all my decades of softball,I had many good times, but the above game is my fondest softball memory.
I was stationed in Naples with the Navy when some colleagues invited me to watch their kids’ Little League game. One guy accidentally beaned another with a ball, reducing him to tears. The pint-sized perp really wanted to apologize but his victim was having none of it. The bean-er followed him around for twenty minutes with his hand out for a shake. Finally the beanee relented, took his hand, and their reconciliation restored harmony to the world.
I think of my Dad, who followed baseball from a distance, taking me to see Henry Aaron in his final year in Milwaukee. Just to spend time with me. He bought me a glove and taught me how to catch a baseball. It was his first and last live sporting event. He was far too devoted to providing for his wife and nine kids to spend time or money on something like this. He did it for me without me asking. I will always associate baseball and my Dad.
I was born less than a mile away from Fenway… I’m the black sheep of the family… I like the Yankees. Every now & then I could hear the game from the Bronx on a little radio. Sometimes I was up a tree & sometimes up on the roof.
First time I went to Fenway was when Jimmy Buffet reversed the curse
My baseball/radio story is from the days of afternoon baseball.
I thought I was the smartest kid in 6th grade with a transistor in my shirt pocket and the earphone running up my sleeve. Just lean over now and then for scores or highlights.
It was taken away a few times and baseball left midday play but I’ve never left radio.
The Cardinals Rally Squirrel running into the game for the victory!
As a child growing up in Denver, CO, going to a Denver Bears game with all the smells and sounds of Baseball from the days of old, and not the plastic of today.
Not a baseball story, when as a young kid before TV every day at 5:30 pm would listen to Straight Arrow, Tom MIx, Gunsmoke ( William Conrad the voice), Green Hornet, Jack Benny and all those. Did so very religiously. Those were the best of times. It was in the early 1950’s. Still have the radio, vacuum tubes.
August 18th, 2020 my 15 year old son and I were on our annual camping trip near the boundary waters of northern Minnesota. I always bring my CCrane EP Pro because of it’s incredible reception on both AM and FM. It started raining in the evening and so we holed up in the tent and were able to pull in the the MN Twins against the Milwaukee Brewers on WTMJ out of Milwaukee. Twins pitcher Maeda went into the 8th inning with a no hitter. Brewers ended up tying the game in the 9th. Game went on until 11 PM at night with Twins winning in the 12th inning. Camping near the boundary waters with my son while listening to this incredibly exciting baseball game for hours at night with the pitter-patter of rain on the tent was the best baseball game I have ever seen or heard. I could have never done it without the incredible reception and sound quality of my CCrane EP Pro! Thank you!
Went to a Texas Rangers game in Arlington, TX with my wife and employees of where my wife worked. One of the employee’s son brought a friend. The friend’s name was Matthew McConaughey. Yes, that one, he was just a kid then. My wife gave him a hard time because he ate…a million hot dogs. Too bad we didn’t keep in touch.
As a Baltimore Oriole baseball fan, I was honored to attend the game where Cal Ripken
broke the consecutive game record. The response of fans was something to behold.
C Crane makes buying radios easy on the brain.
Buy a radio anyware else and throw your money down the drain
Good rhyme, Martin. Maybe C. Crane will use it.
I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit .
One best my best memory’s is the first time my father took my brother and me to Tiger stadium in Detroit to watch a Tigers game in the late 1960’s.
I might have been seven years old.
One of the earliest memories in my life was when the Giants moved to San Francisco in 1958 when I was a year old. My dad (who played professional softball at the time) was SO excited to have Major League Baseball in the Bay Area. I remember hearing the voices of Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons coming out of the radio in our garage in Sunnyvale, Ca. He passed in 1960 when I was only three so we never got the chance to play catch or attend any games together. My other favorite baseball memory was seeing the Oakland A’s pull out a 3-2 win in the bottom of the ninth over the Reds in game four of the 1972 World Series. I still have the program and ticket stub from that game.
In October, 1972, I was young and broke in San Francisco. A friend of mine asked if I’d be willing to make a few bucks selling beer at the ballpark. The A’s were in the World Series, and they needed vendors pronto, no requirements except black shoes, a company rule. So, after staining my white Addidases with a marker pen, I showed up at the Coliseum.
It was game 4, the only game the A’s won at home. Gene Tenace homered for an early run. The Reds scored two runs late, but the A’s managed four consecutive singles in the bottom on the 9th for two runs and the win. Wow. The thing is, I was there but I didn’t actually “see” the game, because vendors have their backs to the field almost all the time, looking for the raised hands and listening for, “Hey, beer man!” I did manage to turn around and watch Gino circle the bases. Otherwise, it was calling out in singsong, “Beer, beer, ice cold beer, Budwiser beer, hey beer!” all afternoon, and making change with a coin changer on my belt.
Years later, I bought A’s season tickets, for a better look at the games. Good times in the summer sun.
I remember when I was very young, late 1950s, listening to St. Louis Cardinals games while we all sat around the kitchen table. I thought Stan the Man was the greatest. The broadcasts, on KMOX, where done by Harry Carey, Jack Buck, and Joe Garagiola. Talk about a Hall of Fame broadcasting team!!
Love to go to the local games in Evansville In to watch the minor leagues play. This is where the movie A league of the own was filmed. Its such a small ball field that you can hear the ball players talk and hear the sound of the ball being hit. Every one is so happy and its like a family. The things that go on between innings with kids are also fun. This crowd respects the flag and national anthem which shows America like it is.
I was ten and Brother Ken was age eight , Ken ate eight ice cream bars at a Cleveland Indians game at old Cleveland Municipal Stadium back in 1959. We rode the Rapid Transit , on our own, without parents to get to the Stadium and Cleveland Barons Hockey games (free skate after the hockey game).
When I was about 5 I used to spend time at my grandparents house. This back in the early 60s and my grandfather was a diehard St Louis Cardinal fan. My grandmother would be watching TV in one room and my grandfather would in the kitchen listening to the Cardinal game every night. He didn’t really care for other sports but lived for the Cardinals. He taught me to how good baseball is on the radio.
Youth baseball is one of the few sports communities that is really “inclusive “!
When I first went out for baseball, I was the smallest and least skilled of the bunch. I had an oversized hand me down glove and wore glasses. But despite all of these things, I “made” the team! Ok, so it was little league ball, but the coaches and the league made sure that everyone was included and accepted as a member of a team and community. A community that accepted EVERYONE no matter their color, social circumstances or playing ability. We all proudly wore our uniforms and learned sportsmanship and shook hands at the end of all games.
These simple things were a foundation that we all carried forth into our lives, which made us more accepting and better people because of learning them!
That’s what baseball means to me and that’s the memory I will cherish!
Grandpa Rosie told the family that it might be an important night and wanted to go to the ball game. Grandpa got discount tickets from the grocery store and took Mom, Dad, my brothers and I on June 17, 1960 to a Cleveland Indians game. The crowd clapped and grew quiet with respect for an opposing player . As the opposing player hit the ball over the outfield fence , the crowd cheered and clapped and stood as Ted Williams had just hit number 500.
Since I was unquestionably the most uncoordinated clumsy kid around, I was invariably assigned to right field, so my baseball career involved studying the clouds or the birds and occupying the far end of the bench. To make things worse, I was left handed in a right handed sport, there was no such thing as a left hand glove, so in the rare situation where I actually got to catch a ball, I had to grab the ball, throw the glove on the ground, then swap hands to actually throw it, hoping it would wind up somewhere in the vicinity of my target. Needless to say, I was far better off in the physics or chemistry lab…
Remember sixth game of 1975 World Series. Was attending boarding school in Massachusetts. It was pretty strict, weren’t suppose to even have radios. Listening to the game when Carlton Fisk hit the home run to win the game and tie the Series. You wouldn’t believe the roar that went up from the whole dorm, when all were suppose to be in bed sleeping.
A few years ago a game of the world series was to be played on Halloween nite. What?? We always fix up the house and stay outside to hand out candy. I went out and bought a 19″ tv and set it up outside to have the game on while we was handing out treats. I would say all the parents loved it they stopped by , chatted and to watch the game for a few minutes. Met a lot of nice neighbors that way.
When the NY Mets won the 1986 World Series and you lived in NY at that time, you had better not have been wearing a Yankees hat. I lived there at the time and it was an amazing moment.
My entry for “Your Favorite Baseball Story” is about the baseball we got from our barber. It was a ball from Sandy Koufax and it was put on a shelf to be saved. One day my brother needed a baseball to use in a neighborhood “sandlot’ game and took it off the shelf, used it in the game, and returned it, much the worse for wear, to its place on the shelf.
My favorite Baseball story? Easy answer. I was not yet a teenager and my brother, just out of the Navy, decided to treat me to a Major League Baseball game for my birthday. We had to travel 70 miles or so and took in a doubleheader with the brand new New York Mets hosting the Milwaukee Braves at the old Polo Grounds. The Mets were truly terrible, they lost 120 games that year and were 5-17 at that point but they were very entertaining. We were sitting behind the first base dugout maybe 20 rows back. Future Hall of Fame pitcher Warren Spahn held the Mets in check and led 2-1 in the bottom of the ninth when Gil Hodges legged out an infield single. With two outs journeyman catcher Hobie Landrith hit a pop fly down the right field line that just cleared the fence for a walk off homer run. It was the only home run that Landrith ever hit as a member of the Mets. A journeyman relief pitcher named Craig Anderson was the pitcher of record in relief of Roger Craig and got credit for the win.
Game two was much different and featured an offensive explosion led by Hank Aaron who homered and drove in four runs. Both teams went through a total of 11 pitchers and with game tied and the Braves mounting a threat in the top of the ninth Mets manager Casey Stengel again called on Craig Anderson who managed to retire the Braves without allowing a run. In the bottom of the ninth with one out Gil Hodges launched a pop fly down the right field line that landed in the first row just beyond the foul pole for another walk-off home run. It was the first time the Mets swept a doubleheader and the first time in MLB history that any team won both games of a doubleheader by hitting walk-off home runs in the ninth inning. Craig Anderson who was the winning pitcher of both games in relief never won another game and finished with a lifetime record of 7-23. It was May 12, 1962 and as Casey Stengel would say “You could look it up!” It was day I would never forget.
30+ years later before it was easy to look these things up on the internet I wrote to The Sporting News research department and asked them if they could find the box scores from that day and God bless them, they did. I sent a copy to my brother to let him know how much that memory meant to me, and still does.
I grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia. My Father was born legally blind from birth. He and I loved the Phillies and we would take public transportation to and from Connie Mack Stadium to watch many games. Since my Dad could barely see, we always got seats behind home plate and he would try to watch what he could with huge binoculars. I always wanted to sit on the first or third base line so I could catch foul balls but, I never mentioned that to my Dad. On one evening at the ballpark we were seated, as usual, behind home plate. Suddenly, there was a hush in the ballpark as Dick Allen crushed a monstrous homer to straight center field. The ball was still rising as it flew over the center field flag pole. I turned to my father and said the dumbest thing you could say to a nearly blind man. I said, “Wow Dad did you see that!” To my surprise he said, “That home run was so straight I was able to follow the white baseball against the dark night sky with my binoculars. Yes, son, I did see it!” From that day on, I never complained to myself about sitting behind home plate. I was grateful that instead of a rare chance to catch a foul ball, I witnessed my nearly blind Dad SEE the longest home run ever hit at Connie Mack Stadium!
Back in the day–the late 50s, fifth or sixth grade for me, we would sneak our pocket radios into school during October so we could follow the progress of the World Series. These radios were Japanese AM-only models with different brand designations. They bore exciting labels proclaiming “all-transistor” or “6-transistor” to distinguish themselves from the clunky vacuum tube technology that immediately preceded them. As a practical matter they did fit in a pocket and could be pulled out during recess to check on the game. If they came out of the pocket during class, they would be instantly confiscated by the teacher, resulting in a call to Mom and great embarrassment. As I recall, the playground conversation mostly centered around Mickey Mantle. Price for one of these marvels? About $20, a fortune at the time.
“When I was about 13 years old ? We used to get up at 9am to meet at the park to play baseball Saturday morning ? Around the 4th inning we notice a grey sports car pull up and who got out of it was a man who just started watch us play ” well come to find out it was the right fielder for the boston red Sox (Dwight Evans) We all stop playing and he was nice to give us autographs ? I was shocked and happy same time?
In 1995 my husband, myself and two sons attended a minor league baseball game in our hometown. The management would pick someone to sing ‘Take Me Out To The Ballgame’ during the seventh inning stretch. Our oldest was 4 years old and very articulate. When they announced he would be singing, I took him to the press booth. I could see by the look on everyone’s face they had no faith he would be able to handle this. He sang it beautifully, never missing a word and received many compliments. As we exited the booth, people in the stands commented and asked…..That was really that little boy? Story from a proud mom.
The Rookie – great movie!
Originally a draft pick of the Brewers in 1983, Morris never made it past the Single-A level in baseball.
Accepting his fate, Morris became a high-school teacher Big Lake, Texas, also becoming the school’s baseball coach.
It was there in 1999 that Morris made a promise to his team that if they won the district championship, he would try out for an MLB team.
After winning the title, Morris kept his end of the bargain and tried out for Tampa Bay.
Morris worked his way up through the minors that year and got called up when the rosters expanded in September.
He made five appearances that year and 16 more the next year before being released.
While his MLB career was short, Morris showed that you’re never too old to follow your dreams.
From https://syndication.bleacherreport.com/amp/1623522-baseballs-best-underdog-success-stories-of-all-time.amp.html
I’ve only attended minor league baseball games, but as a child, I loved watching the professionals. My favorite player was Nolan Ryan. I’ll always remember that when he threw a pitch, the action of the ball was mind-boggling. I couldn’t even get a whiffle ball to move as his pitches did! I love the older version of professional baseball and sadly, most of those wonderful, colorful announcers/broadcasters are no longer with us. I hope they’re still calling the shots with all of those legendary players who made the game unforgettable. I loved listening to Bill King broadcast the Oakland A’s on my little transistor radio and will never forget those days.
My most memorable baseball moment was being in the stands at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore when Wilson Alvarez of the White Sox pitched a no-hitter on August 11, 1991. It was surreal to cheer on the opposing pitcher and team as the game went on, and the only time I remember 40000 fans erupting in cheer and applause when losing a game.
People will ask me, Where are you from? And I would respond “Cooperstown! Cooperstown, New York!” Baseball has always been a part of my life. After a hard New York Winter I could not wait until Spring came. I knew when Spring arrived baseball would be soon to be played. I played baseball through my youth up until high school. What kid did not want to grow up be a professional ball player?! That was my dream. I was good player. I pitched and played the the outfield. I also was a catcher. My dad looked everywhere for a left-handed catcher’s mitt. He found one and I have it til this day. My dad even coached my ball team. My dad also grew up in Cooperstown. He would tell stories of coming in contact with pro ball players that would come to town for the Induction into Baseball Hall of Fame. One time he met Willie Mays. My dad was eating plums downtown when Willie Mays came up to my dad and said, “Hey kid! Do you have any more plums?” My dad said to Willie “Sure!” They sat on the curb and ate plums together.
Another story my dad likes talk about was when he met Mickey Mantle. The pros would play an exhibition game every year at Doubleday Field. Mickey hit the ball over center field and my dad raced the other kids to get the ball. He got to the ball before anyone else and the other kids jumped on him. My dad hung over the dugout and said to Mickey, “Can you autograph this ball Mickey?” Mickey said to him, “After the game!” Mickey left before my dad could get the baseball autographed. To this very day my dad has kept the ball in glass case on his dresser. If you visit Cooperstown in the Summer there is good chance you will run into a pro ball player. I have seen Whitey Ford, Reggie Jackson, Ozzie Smith and Pete Rose. Pete even signed a ball for us. Super guy. When you visit Cooperstown you must visit the Baseball Hall of Fame. You will not be disappointed. When we moved to Columbus, Ohio my dad and I decided we would become ushers for the Columbus Clippers at the new Huntington Park the first year they opened. It will be a spring and summer I will never forget. The emotions it brings to me when I talk baseball with my dad is similar to the scene in Field of Dreams when the son said to his dad “Want to have a catch?” Always take that opportunity play catch with your dad, mom, sister or brother. That is what life is about.