Friday, February 04, 2000
Humble start to Hall career
Brennaman started in prep football
BY JOHN ERARDI
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Marty Brennaman's first play-by-play job was high school football in Salisbury, N.C., in 1965.
“There I was, sitting in the press box — no radio booth — and I was mortified,” Brennaman said. “I was right there in the middle of all the writers and coaches. I didn't even want to do it.
“But (play-by-play) is what I wanted to do for a living, so of course I did it. I was thinking, "Damn, no radio booth? All these people listening to everything I say, and I've never done a game before!' It was awful.”
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MARTY AT THE MIKE
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1965: Salisbury, N.C., high school football.
1965-70: Catawba College basketball and football.
1968: American Legion Baseball, Rowan County, N.C.
1970: Began doing Virginia Squires of the ABA.
1971-73: Tidewater Tides, Triple A Baseball.
1972: William and Mary Football.
1973: Virginia Tech football.
1974 - Present: Reds baseball.
1982: Indiana Pacers on TV.
1984-86: ACC basketball.
1987: Began doing NCAA Basketball Tournament Regionals.*
1987-88: UK Basketball.
1989: SEC basketball.
* Brennaman has broadcast 13 NCAA regionals and seven Final Fours.
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From those humble beginnings, a Hall of Fame career was born. Brennaman received word Thursday he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame as the recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award.
He'll never forget a stint doing American Legion Baseball in Rowan County, N.C.
“They won the state championship in 1968, on a home run in the bottom of the ninth inning by Randy Benson, whose dad, Vern, was a one-time coach under Dave Bristol right here in Cincinnati.”
Despite all of Brennaman's non-baseball work early in his career — Catawba College basketball and football, Virginia Squires basketball (Charlie Scott, Julius Erving, George Gervin, coached by Al Bianchi), William and Mary football and Virginia Tech football — he always liked baseball best.
“Even when I was doing professional basketball, I enjoyed doing Triple-A baseball games just a little bit more,” Brennaman said. “But I realize I was lucky starting with Triple-A baseball. A lot of guys start in A ball and have it tough. In Triple-A, we flew everywhere except bus trips to Richmond.”
If it wasn't for Tidewater General Manager Dave Rosenfield recommending Brennaman to the Reds' Dick Wagner during a chance conversation at baseball's winter meetings in 1973, Brennaman isn't sure where his career might have wound up.
“The only reason I applied (for the Reds job) was out of courtesy to Dave,” Brennaman said.
But then, the winnowing process began. Two-hundred and twenty one applications, “down to 50, down to 25, down to 10, down to 3 — that's when I decided I wanted the job,” Brennaman said, smiling.
He said that as a boy he went to sleep at night in Virginia listening to baseball games on the radio broadcast by such legends as Chuck Thompson of Baltimore, Bob Prince of Pittsburgh and Arch McDonald of the Washington Senators.
Brennaman now joins all of them in the broadcasters' wing of the Hall.
“I think subconsciously the idea began to germinate in my mind back then that this is what I wanted to do,” Brennaman said.
He said that as long as baseball is played, there will always be a place for radio.
“If ever there were a marriage made in heaven, it is the game of baseball and the medium of radio,” Brennaman said.
Other sports, especially basketball and ice hockey, are so fast-paced that broadcasters are calling the action non-stop, he said.
“You don't have a lot of time to talk about a lot of extraneous stuff,” Brennaman said. “In baseball, if you can't ad-lib cogently, then you're sunk. Nothing happens until the pitcher throws the ball.”
Brennaman called broadcasting baseball “a challenge.”
“I like that,” he said. “I enjoy doing the games.”
He said that short of working for a network, “which has never been an aspiration of mine,” he believes that broadcasting big-league baseball is “the highest calling you can have in my business.”
Just look at the people who have done major-league baseball who have gone on to work at the networks, he noted.
“Twenty years ago, so many of those guys (at the networks) were former big-league baseball announcers,” Brennaman said. “Curt Gowdy, Joe Garagiola, Vin Scully, Dick Enberg, right on down the line.”
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