Red Barber | |
|---|---|
 Barber in 1955 | |
| Born | Walter Lanier Barber (1908-02-17)February 17, 1908 Columbus, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Died | October 22, 1992(1992-10-22) (aged 84) Tallahassee, Florida, U.S. |
| Other names | The Ol' Redhead |
| Alma mater | University of Florida |
| Occupation | Sports announcer |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 1 |
| Awards | Ford C. Frick Award (1978) |
| Sports commentary career | |
| Team(s) | Cincinnati Reds (1934–38) Brooklyn Dodgers (1939–53) New York Yankees (1954–66) |
| Genre | Play-by-play |
| Sport | Major League Baseball |
Walter Lanier "Red"Barber (February 17, 1908 – October 22, 1992) was an Americansports announcer and author. Nicknamed "The Ol' Redhead", he was primarily identified with broadcasts ofMajor League Baseball, callingplay-by-play across four decades with theCincinnati Reds (1934–1938),Brooklyn Dodgers (1939–1953), andNew York Yankees (1954–1966). Like his fellow sportscasting pioneerMel Allen, Barber also developed a niche calling college and professionalAmerican football in his primary market ofNew York City.
Barber was born inColumbus, Mississippi. He was a distant relative of poetSidney Lanier and writerThomas Lanier Williams. The family moved toSanford, Florida in 1918, and at the age of 21, he hitchhiked to Gainesville and enrolled at theUniversity of Florida, majoring in education. During Barber's first year, he worked at various jobs including part-time janitor at the University Club. It was there in January 1930 that Barber got his start in broadcasting.
An agriculture professor had been scheduled to appear onWRUF, the university radio station, to read a scholarly paper over the air. When the professor's absence was discovered minutes before the broadcast was to begin, janitor Barber was called in as a substitute. It was thus that the future sportscaster's first gig was reading "Certain Aspects ofBovineObstetrics".[1] After those few minutes in front of a microphone, Barber decided to switch careers. He became WRUF's director and chief announcer and coveredFlorida Gators football games that autumn. Then he dropped out of school to focus on his radio work. After four more years at WRUF, he landed a job broadcasting theCincinnati Reds onWLW andWSAI whenPowel Crosley Jr. purchased the team in 1934.
On Opening Day 1934 (April 17), Barber attended his first major league game and broadcast its play-by-play, as the Reds lost to theChicago Cubs, 6–0. He called games from the stands ofCincinnati's renamedCrosley Field for the next five seasons.
Barber had been hired byLarry MacPhail, then president of the Reds. MacPhail became president of the Dodgers in 1938, and in 1939, he brought the play-by-play man to the Dodgers. InBrooklyn, Barber became an institution, widely admired for his folksy style. He was also appreciated by people concerned about Brooklyn's reputation as a land of"dees" and "dems".
Barber became famous for his signaturecatchphrases, including these:
To further his image as a Southern gentleman, Barber would often identify players as "Mister", "big fella", or "old" (regardless of the player's age):
A number of play-by-play announcers includingChris Berman have adopted his use of "back, back, back" to describe a long fly ball with potential to be a home run. Those other announcers are describing the flight of the ball[citation needed] but Barber was describing the outfielder in this famous call from Game 6 of the1947 World Series.Joe DiMaggio was the batter:
The phrase "Oh, Doctor" was also picked up by some later sportscasters, most notablyJerry Coleman, who was aNew York Yankee infielder during the 1940s and 1950s and later worked alongside Barber in the Yankees' radio and TV booths.
In Game 4 of that same 1947 Series, Barber memorably describedCookie Lavagetto's ninth-inning hit to break upBill Bevens'no-hitter and win the game at once:
In 1939, Barber broadcast the first major-league game on television, on experimentalNBC stationW2XBS. In 1946, he added to his Brooklyn duties a job as sports director of theCBS Radio Network, succeedingTed Husing and continuing through 1955. There, his greatest contribution was to conceive and host theCBS Football Roundup, which switched listeners back and forth between broadcasts of different regional college games each week.
Barber called Dodgers broadcasts over New York radio stationWHN (later WMGM) at 1050 on the AM dial, teaming withAl Helfer from 1939 to 1941, followed by Alan Hale in 1942 andConnie Desmond beginning in 1943. When he developed a severe bleedingulcer in 1948 and had to take a leave of absence from broadcasting for several weeks, Dodgers presidentBranch Rickey arranged forErnie Harwell, the announcer for the minor-leagueAtlanta Crackers, to be sent to Brooklyn as Barber's substitute; in exchange,Cliff Dapper, the catcher for the Dodgers' farm team inMontreal, was permitted to go to Atlanta to serve as the Crackers' new player-manager, thereby effecting the first player-for-announcer "trade" in major league history. Harwell would remain as a third man in the Dodgers' booth with Barber and Desmond through the 1949 season.
While running CBS Sports, Barber became the mentor of another redheaded announcer. He recruited theFordham University graduateVin Scully for CBS football coverage, and eventually invited him into the Dodgers' broadcast booth to succeed Harwell in 1950 after the latter's departure for the crosstownNew York Giants. That same year, the Dodgers began airing regular television broadcasts overWOR-TV, Channel 9 in New York, with the trio of Barber, Desmond, and Scully now alternating play-by-play for the team's games on both radio and TV.
Barber was the first person outside the team's board of directors to be told by Branch Rickey that the Dodgers had begun the process of racialdesegregation in baseball, which led to signingJackie Robinson as the first black player in the major leagues after the 1880s. As a Southerner, having lived withracial segregation as a fact of life written into law, Barber told Rickey that he was not sure he could broadcast the games. As was related in a biography of Branch Rickey byJimmy Breslin, Barber left the meeting with Rickey and walked for hours trying to decide his future. Having been raised in the racially segregated South, and having attended theUniversity of Florida, which, at the time of his attendance was limited to white male students,[2] he had in his words, "been carefully taught", and the thought of broadcasting games played by a Negro player was simply too much for him to agree to. He arrived home and informed his wife of his decision to quit that very night. She, also being from theDeep South, had become accustomed to a much better life in a toney neighborhood of Westchester County. She convinced him that there was no need to quit then, and a few martinis into the evening, he said he would try.[3] After observing Robinson's skill on the field and the way Robinson held up to the vicious abuse from opposing fans, Barber became an ardent supporter of him and the black players who followed, including Dodger starsRoy Campanella andDon Newcombe. (This story is told in Barber's 1982 book,1947: When All Hell Broke Loose in Baseball.)
During this period, Barber also broadcast numerousWorld Series forMutual radio and in 1948 and 1952 forNBC television, frequently teaming with Yankees announcerMel Allen. He also calledNew York Giants football from 1942 to 1946, as well as several professional and college football games on network radio and TV, including theNFL Championship Game,Army–Navy Game andOrange Bowl.
Prior to the1953 World Series, Barber was selected byGillette, which sponsored the Series broadcasts, to call the games on NBC along withMel Allen. Barber wanted a larger fee than was offered by Gillette, however, and when Dodgers ownerWalter O'Malley refused to back him, Barber declined to work the Series and Vin Scully partnered with Allen on the telecasts instead. As Barber later related in his 1968 autobiography,Rhubarb in the Catbird Seat, he was rankled by O'Malley's lack of support, and this – along with a dispute over the renewal of Barber's $50,000 a year contract – led to his departure from the Dodgers' booth later that October.[4]
Soon afterward the crosstown Yankees hired Barber.[5] Just before the start of the 1954 season, surgery resulted in permanent deafness in one ear. In 1955, he took his long-running television programRed Barber's Corner from CBS to NBC. It ran from 1949 until 1958.
With the Yankees, Barber strove to adopt a strictly neutral, dispassionately reportorial broadcast style, avoiding not only partisanship but also any emotional surges that would match the excitement of the fans. He'd already had a reputation as a "fair" announcer while with the Dodgers, as opposed to a "homer" who openly rooted for his team from the booth. Some fans and critics found this later, more restrained Barber to be dull, especially in contrast with Mel Allen's dramatic, emotive style.
Barber described the ways they covered long fly balls as one of the central differences between Allen and himself. Allen would watch the ball. Thus his signature call, "That ball is going, going, it is GONE!", sometimes turned into, "It is going ... to be caught!" or "It is going ... foul!" Barber would watch the outfielder, his movements and his eyes, and would thus be a better judge whether the ball would be caught. This is evident in his famous call of Gionfriddo's catch (quoted above). Many announcers say "back, back, back" describing the ball's flight. On the Gionfriddo call Barber is describing the action of the outfielder, not the ball.
Curt Smith, in his bookVoices of Summer, summarized the difference between Barber and Allen: "Barber was white wine, crepes suzette, and bluegrass music. Allen was hot dogs, beer, and the U.S. Marine Corps Band. LikeMillay, Barber was a poet. LikeSinatra, Allen was a balladeer. Detached, Red reported. Involved, Mel roared."[6]
Under the ownership ofCBS in 1966, the Yankees finished tenth and last, their first time at the bottom of the standings since 1912 and after more than 40 years of dominating the American League. On September 22, a paid attendance of 413 was announced at the 65,000-seatYankee Stadium.[7] Barber asked the TV cameras to pan the empty stands as he commented on the low attendance. WPIX refused to do so, on orders from the Yankees' head of media relations. Undeterred, Barber said, "I don't know what the paid attendance is today, but whatever it is, it is the smallest crowd in the history of Yankee Stadium, and this crowd is the story, not the game." In a case of exceptionally bad timing, that game was the first for CBS executiveMike Burke as team president. A week later, Barber was invited to breakfast with Burke, who told him that his contract would not be renewed at the end of the season.
After his dismissal by the Yankees in 1966, Barber retired from regular baseball broadcasting. He authored a number of books, including hisautobiography,Rhubarb in the Catbird Seat; contributed to occasional sports documentary programs on radio and television, includingKen Burns' documentaryBaseball; and from 1981 until his death made weekly contributions toNational Public Radio'sMorning Edition program. Each Friday Barber, speaking from his home inTallahassee, Florida, would talk with hostBob Edwards, usually about sports but frequently about other topics, including theflora around his home.[8] Barber would address Edwards as "Colonel Bob", referring to theKentucky Colonel honorific given to Edwards by his native state.
Red Barber died on October 22, 1992 atTallahassee Memorial Regional Medical Center inTallahassee, Florida.[8] Edwards' bookFridays with Red: A Radio Friendship[9] based on hisMorning Edition segments with Barber, was published in 1993.
TheNational Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association inducted Barber into its Hall of Fame in 1973. In 1978, Barber joined former colleague Mel Allen to become the first broadcasters to receive theFord C. Frick Award from theNational Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. In 1979, he was recognized with a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Florida, given a Gold Award by the Florida Association of Broadcasters, and inducted into theFlorida Sports Hall of Fame. In 1984, Barber was part of theAmerican Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame's inaugural class which included sportscasting legendsDon Dunphy,Ted Husing,Bill Stern andGraham McNamee. Barber was given aGeorge Polk Award in 1985 and aPeabody Award in 1990 for his NPR broadcasts, and in 1995 he wasposthumously inducted into theNational Radio Hall of Fame.
In 1993,TV Guide named Barber the best sportscaster of the 1950s.[10]
In 1994, two years after his death, Barber was seen several times throughout theKen Burns seriesBaseball as he recounted memorable episodes of baseball history, especially of theBrooklyn Dodgers.
The Red Barber RadioScholarship is awarded each year by the University of Florida'sCollege of Journalism and Communications to a student studying sports broadcasting.
A WRUF microphone used by Barber during the 1930s is part of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum's collection. It has been displayed in the museum's "Scribes and Mikemen" exhibit, and from 2002 to 2006 it was featured as part of the "Baseball as America" traveling exhibition.[11]
Barber is mentioned in "The Catbird Seat", a 1942 short story byJames Thurber. A female character in the story likes to use the titular expression as well as such phrases as "tearing up the pea patch" and "hollering down the rain barrel", prompting another character to suggest that she picked them up from listening to Barber's Dodger radio broadcasts. (Ironically enough, according to Barber's daughter, her father did not begin using the "catbird seat" phrase until after he had read the story.)
In 1957, Barber appeared as himself in "Hillbilly Whiz", a third-season episode ofThe Phil Silvers Show.
In the 2013 film42, which dramatizes Jackie Robinson breaking the major leagues' color barrier with the Dodgers, Barber is played byJohn C. McGinley.
In the 2015 television seriesManhattan (Series 1, Episode 11), a character asks another if they have "been watching Red Barber" after the latter's foreign accent has improved to sound more American, suggesting that is where she learned to improve it.
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