Say Hey!

I haven't been able to listen to baseball on the radio with any conviction for years.

I think this started when color TV took over and I grew accustomed to seeing games that approximated, in a grainy or blurred fashion early on, the experience of being at the ball park.

I didn't own a color TV until I was well into adulthood, but I could watch games in a bar or at a friend's house and I always managed to get my fill.  By then the picture was a lot better, too.

Not like today's HD, but better.

Here it is years later. I don't have a TV these days either, but the radio is an option I'm not much interested in because TV spoiled me and I've lost my ear, the concentration it takes to follow a radio broadcast.  If you don't follow the game closely on the radio it becomes background noise, a distraction.

I have a similar experience with music.  I must listen intently or a composition loses meaning for me.

I last listened to baseball regularly on a tiny transistor radio back in the early sixties.  I'd find the San Francisco Giants on one of the super stations that carried all the way up to my home town, the tiny enclave of Sweet Home, Oregon.

I had no problem following the action back then.  I was riveted, able to visualize every move on the field.  I saw everything in black and white.

Willie Mays making a great play in centerfield?  Who couldn't see that formulated from words?

Yeah, I'd like to go back in time and do it all over...listen to the call...Say Hey!

Remind me again.  Who's playing tonight?


TS