"The Voice": Mel Allen, 1913-1996

I’m a frustrated fan of the Washington Nationals, as I was the old Washington Senators. As a New York schoolboy in the Fifties, I’d go up to Yankee Stadium to root for the Senators when they were in town, wearing my navy blue cap with the white block “W.” Big, scary Bronx voices would shout: “Hey, kid—the Washington section’s in the bleachers.”

The Senators were perennial heartbreakers, although in mid-1952 they were only three or four games out of first place and considered to be pennant contenders. But they played hard—and in terms of incompetence they didn’t hold a candle to today’s Nationals, now 13-35, a stunning figure which may set a new DC record. (Click here for a website full of DC baseball history.)

Unable to bear modern Washington’s TV announcers Bob Carpenter (“wouldn’t you just like to see…”) and Rob Dibble (“back when I pitched in Cincinnati…”) while the Nats lost again to the Phillies—and with AM 1500 inaudible in darkest New Hampshire—I did a weird thing last night. I watched the video on Direct TV while listening to a CD of the New York Yankees game at Griffith Stadium on 5 July 1960, last year of the original Washington Senators. (Found it on eBay.)

Thus I was spared Washington’s announcer reactions as balls went through legs and over heads in Philadelphia. Instead I heard Phil Rizzuto and Mel Allen (one at a time, no tag-team) call a pitcher’s duel between the Yankees’ Ralph Terry and my hero Pedro Ramos, which the Senators won 5-3 in extra innings. (As Casey Stengel said, “you can look it up.”)

How broadcasts have changed: Allen and Rizzuto called plays and made prescient observations—nothing else. There were no reminiscences of their playing days, no self-deprecating jokes, no ballgirl interviews with Mom in the bleachers while the game was going on, no goofy mascots, no songfests, no fireworks, no instant-replay, no strike-zone reviews (the zone was uniform, the umps impartial). No wishful thinking by Yankee announcers. Just baseball—pure and elegant, as God and Abner Doubleday intended.

How the game has changed: Terry and Ramos (chewing a big wad of ‘baccy) each went eight innings. Relief pitchers came in and stuck—were not pulled after one batter because the next guy was batting from the other side of the plate. The phrase “pitch count” didn’t exist. (I realize that since 1980, there is reliable evidence that you can blow a young pitcher’s arm forever by leaving him in too long.) There were no “Designated Hitters.” From sluggers to pitchers, everybody knew how to bunt and run bases. No balls went through legs or over heads.

“Rhubarbs” (Red Barber’s term) were similar: José Valdivielso charged the mound when Terry brushed him back (Phil mentioned his “Latin temper,” which he wouldn’t do nowadays). The next inning Pedro hit Mantle while “Meekie” took his base with a big grin, and the umpire fined Pedro $50 and warned him not to do it again.

Senators pitchers loved to razz Mantle. In 1956, Mick had hit a Ramos pitch almost out of Yankee Stadium. And it was Chuck Stobbs, the winning pitcher in this game, who had served the ball Mantle hit 565 feet out of Griffith Stadium in 1953, the second-longest home run on record. (The longest was by Babe Ruth, who hit one 575 feet against the Tigers in 1926.)

I was struck by the clean baseball both teams played. Aside from a hit batter and a wild pitch, there were no gaffes. The typical inning ended “nothing across” (a medieval term meaning no Yankee runs or hits and no Senator errors, or vice versa). Today’s Nats fans would pay big money to hear “nothing across” after an inning.

Hits were scattered, even from the vaunted Yankee lineup. Decisions on relievers, pinch hitters and runners by the managers (Casey Stengel and Cookie Lavagetto) were foxy and smart; nobody could argue with them. The Washington crowd booed José when he charged the mound, knowing Terry wasn’t purposely trying to hit him.

Even the advertising was fun. The sponsors were the Atlantic Refining Company (Atlantic Imperial, “the gasoline that cleans your carburetor as you drive”—remember carburetors?) and Ballantine Beer (the Crisp Refresher). There were no ads for patent medicines designed to ward off RLS, DES, PID, HIV or the dreaded ED. Mel and Phil would have been embarrassed to talk about such stuff.

Ah, the summer of 1960. The Yankees went on to win the pennant, the Senators played close to .500 and finished 5th before packing up for Minnesota. What a wonderful, entertaining game that was—managed, pitched and announced—now nearly fifty years ago. Before the rot set in.

Listening to the old broadcast, I didn’t have to hear about tonight’s blatant ineptitude and managerial incompetence—not bunting our pitcher with a runner on third and the right side back in the 4th—or laments about Adam Dunn’s embarrasing fielding, or the excuse for Anderson Hernandez missing a grounder: “the way the grass was cut.” (So help me, that’s what the Nationals’ manager said.) But the view on TV was all the more depressing.

“How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!” —II Samuel 1:27

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