{"id":1646,"date":"2023-05-01T16:45:02","date_gmt":"2023-05-01T20:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=1646"},"modified":"2023-05-01T16:45:04","modified_gmt":"2023-05-01T20:45:04","slug":"baseball-the-radio-a-true-love-affair-with-the-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/01\/baseball-the-radio-a-true-love-affair-with-the-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Baseball & the radio – A true love affair with the game"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By DANE FUELLING<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The view from center field at the third edition of Busch Stadium in St. Louis. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Those lines from James Earl Jones, or should I say, Terrence Mann, still ring true across rural America today, 35 years after the world fell in love with a field of corn in Iowa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, baseball on the radio is a sacred ritual, something whose daily rebirth is as much a part of summer as buying baler twine in town before a big day on the farm. That\u2019s why the news of Mike Shannon\u2019s passing Sunday hit me so hard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was 16 years old, I lost my radio hero, Jack Buck. His words and his voice were part of my upbringing. They connected me with my grandfather, who grew up in the house I now inhabit before it had electricity or running water. I spent countless nights of my youth waiting for the sun to drop far enough that the static would clear and Buck\u2019s voice would shine through. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was, indeed, the radio that connected our farm to the outside world in the early 1930s, not much longer after the St. Louis Cardinals began broadcasting on 1120 AM KMOX in 1926. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not long after that time, Mike Shannon was born in downtown St. Louis in 1939. By the time my father could walk and listen to the transistor radio in the living room, Shannon made his major league debut for his hometown team. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1964 he hit a home run at Busch Stadium in game one of the World Series off the Yankees\u2019 Whitey Ford. Three years later, he homered again in the series against the Red Sox, helping the Cardinals to a second world championship in four years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next season, Shannon homered off Mickey Lolich in game seven of the World Series, but it wasn\u2019t enough to keep Detroit from spoiling the Cards\u2019 chances at a repeat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He hit the final home run by any player at the original Busch Stadium and the first one at the new Busch Stadium. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s no wonder my dad loved the Cardinals as much as my grandpa had.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Jim Fuelling, a lifelong Cardinals fan, holds his first grandchild in a Cardinals jersey. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

37 years after Shannon christened the cookie-cutter Busch Stadium many of us remember, I traveled with my father and my grandfather to what could have been the final game ever played there. My grandpa brought my grandma, my dad brought my mom, and I brought my future wife. Luckily, St. Louis won and survived for another series, but it was a memory I will never forget. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three generations of a family intertwined by a voice coming out of a box. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it was so much more than that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sure, we went to St. Louis and saw the games once a year, but it was the other 161 games each year that connected us. Whether in our old farm truck, in dad\u2019s Jimmy or in bed next to the radio (which was only ever set to one station), it was the voice of Mike Shannon, paired with the legendary Jack Buck, who brought me all of the action.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Fuelling’s father, Jim, poses with three of his grandchildren during a visit to St. Louis in 2013. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Shannon brought all of my heroes to action. From Ozzie Smith\u2019s backflips to Jose Oquendo\u2019s defensive magic. Shannon brought laughter to our homes describing Willie McGee\u2019s base hits and Mark McGwire\u2019s long home runs. He salivated over the abilities of Bernard Gilkey, Brian Jordan and the great Ray Lankford. He was giddy when Matt Morris, Chris Carpenter and Rick Ankiel took the mound. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Buck died in 2002, he cried on the air. Four days later, there was no game and the Cards had lost Darryl Kile. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that point one could not have blamed Shannon for walking away from the team and handing it over to someone else. After all, he had already been with the club for 45 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, he put the club on his back and carried it into a vastly new era for 20 more years. For a few years he partnered with Wayne Hagin, but things at KMOX were not good. Not long after that trip to Busch Stadium with my dad and grandpa, the Cardinals made a giant announcement. The club would be changing affiliations and moving to 550 KTRS. Along with this change, John Rooney was to join Shannon on the airways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Rooney was familiar to me because of his association with the White Sox, my wife\u2019s favorite team, it was the change in radio signals that killed me. KTRS did not have anything close to 50,000 watts like KMOX did and that connection that had lasted 70+ years in my family through four generations was suddenly gone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My loyalty to the team led me to following up on a pledge the team made when they made the switch: I bought a subscription to XM satellite radio and the team sent me a free console. While I still had to pay for the monthly subscription, it did allow me to follow the team through an unlikely postseason run. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That October, my dad and my siblings visited me at Butler University and on October 27, 2006, instead of watching the game on FOX, we sat in the car and listened to Mike call the final out of the first World Series victory in my lifetime. While my father lamented my choice of setting for that championship moment, I don\u2019t regret it one bit. In fact, I\u2019ve cherished it. In each subsequent playoff season since, I have denied myself the simplicity of turning on the tv and watching playoff baseball. Instead, I\u2019ve turned on my radio.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Growing up a Cardinal fan, Fuelling has passed his love of the team down to a fourth generation in the family. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 2011, with a nine-month old son sleeping in my arms and a one-year-old daughter sleeping in the room next door (and an exhausted mother of two sleeping in the bed), I listened to the incredible comeback and victory of my Cards in the World Series against the Rangers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The connection that Mike had that October with David Freese, the hero and fellow hometown St. Louisan, will forever be etched in my mind. As I held generation #4 in my arms, I realized all the joy baseball on the radio had brought me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listening to Mike Shannon was like sitting down at a restaurant across from the Gateway Arch and chatting with a native at the neighboring table. He laughed. He giggled. He couldn\u2019t help himself from telling a story and adding that laugh into the middle of that story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He played with Maris. He roomed with Gibson. He was teammates with Musial.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Outside Busch Stadium stands a statue of the great Stan Musial, a teammate and lifelong friend of Shannon’s. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

His personality was bigger than life and with the powerful signal of KMOX, said sometimes to reach the Netherlands and parts of Africa on certain nights in the summer, he reached baseball fans everywhere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They weren\u2019t just stories, they were his life story, and he shared it every single night, 162 nights a year for 50 wonderful years. From his signature plea of \u2018get up, get up, baby\u2019 to the pride he carried for the birds on the bat, he was the quintessential hometown man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And despite it all, from the early end to an all-star playing career due to kidney disease, to Buck\u2019s battle with Parkinson\u2019s, to his wife\u2019s tragic death from cancer in 2007, Shannon never stopped doing what he loved.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Mike Shannon’s Restaurant, located right next to the downtown stadium, was the place to be before and after Cardinal games, with memorabilia and a postgame show on most nights. Fuelling and his wife visited the restaurant before a game in 2007. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As John Rooney grew more into the role of steady play-by-play and Mike took more and more of the goofy storyteller role, he was still the same man. He made you laugh, he made you excited and he made you romantic about the game of baseball. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his final season at the mic last year, it was obvious that it took every ounce of energy the man had to get through a broadcast. At the age of 82, just calling the home games was enough for Mike. He had seen and done everything there was to do in the game. I am thankful that his final broadcasts were scheduled and able to be cherished. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baseball on the radio hasn\u2019t been the same since.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By DANE FUELLING WZBD.com \u201cThe one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1647,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[15,26],"class_list":["post-1646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-featured","tag-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/busch-stadium.jpg?fit=604%2C453&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}