Friday, February 04, 2000
Marty: Great broadcaster, lousy golfer
BY PAUL DAUGHERTY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
All he needs now is a driver. A 1-wood. As a noted local, Escort-driving philosopher once said, “We've got the money, we've got the rings, we've got it all.” Marty Brennaman, new baseball Hall of Famer, has it all. All but the driver.
The truth is (and, lord, how I hate to admit it) Marty is a chronic and mediocre golfer but one heck of a baseball announcer. Now that he has been chosen for the broadcasters' wing of the Hall, the biggest hope is that Marty's head will shrink sufficiently by Opening Day to fit through the door of the radio booth.
“Do I have to call you "Hall of Fame Broadcaster Marty Brennaman' now? Or can it still be "Very Big Handicap Marty Brennaman?'” I wondered.
“You can treat me with the same abject disrespect you've treated me with all these years,” he said.
The Hall called him Thursday morning at precisely 11:05, and now the rest of the country will learn what we in Cincinnati already know: Nobody calls a game better.
The good ones are easy on the ear. They give you more than ball-one, strike-one. They open the clubhouse door a crack. They are fans without being cheerleaders. They don't patronize their audience with idle rah-rah when the home team stinks. They treat their listeners with respect.
He's a classic and a pro
Marty Brennaman isn't just an announcer. He is on a short list of radio men who do their homework, then share it with you. Over the years, he has offered difficult, credible opinions on players as starry as Joe Morgan, Eric Davis and Barry Larkin.
In the summer of 1989, when the world wondered about Pete Rose, Brennaman had Rose's ear every day. He never backed off a question, even at the risk of a good friendship.
Brennaman is a broadcast journalist, in the best sense. But he still can't hit a sand wedge.
Baseball is the last, best radio game. Its pace still plays well from the transistor in the garage or the AM/FM on the deck or the dashboard of the rental car.
I've spent lots of nights in rented automobiles. Lots of games, lots of voices wavering and crackling from Atlanta and Pittsburgh and Detroit and New York. If you travel enough, you'll hear them all, eventually: Vin Scully in L.A., Jack Buck on the blowtorch KMOX in St.Louis, Skip Caray in Dixie. Ernie Harwell who, I believe, invented the Detroit Tigers. John Sterling calling the Yankees.
But he still needs a driver
A few are as good as Marty; other than Scully, who is erudite, poetic and divine, none is better. Brennaman and Joe Nuxhall may not be the best baseball tandem, but they are the easiest to listen to. “We have been able to convey to people that we are just as human as they are,” Brennaman said.
Joe sounds like baseball. Slow and lolling and what's-the-rush. Marty sounds like your next-door neighbor talking about baseball, provided your next-door neighbor knows what he's talking about.
Marty is smooth. (We're talking radio, not backswing.) He knows what he knows. For the last 17 years, nobody in the Reds front office has tried to muzzle him. They know he does his research and that his criticisms are valid. (The nine years before that, he was either too new to offer his opinions or restrained by the meddling, unfortunate presence of Dick Wagner.)
The kid growing up in Virginia listening to Chuck Thompson in Baltimore and Nat Albright, re-creating Brooklyn Dodgers games, now has an audience all his own. Brennaman's is an earned and worthy stardom.
By now, he's as cherished here as Skyline and Graeter's. But still, he's no better than 175 yards off the tee. Even with the very nice clubs his friends give him for free. The Hall of Fame won't change that.
That's where the driver comes in. The last time I endured Marty's company, we were at a golf show, seeking truth in the form of a Callaway driver. We didn't find it that day. But I found some Thursday. Marty is the best, and that's the truth.
Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at 768-8454. Fair Game, a collection of his columns, is available at local bookstores.
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