Red Barber
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Walter Lanier "Red" Barber (February 17, 1908, Columbus, Mississippi – October 22, 1992) was an American sportscaster.
Barber, nicknamed "The Ol' Redhead", was primarily identified with radio broadcasts of Major League Baseball, calling play-by-play across four decades with the Cincinnati Reds (1934-38), Brooklyn Dodgers (1939-1953), and New York Yankees (1954-1966). Like his fellow sports pioneer Mel Allen, Barber also gained a niche calling college and professional football in his primary market of New York City.
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[edit] Early years
Barber grew up in Mississippi, and was a distant relative of poet Sidney Lanier and writer Thomas Lanier Williams. He got his start in broadcasting in the 1920s while studying English education at the University of Florida. He filled in for an absent reporter on WRUF, the university's radio station, and read a scholarly paper on the air. After those few moments in front of a microphone, Barber decided to switch careers. The radio station hired him as a full-time employee in 1930, and during his tenure he announced Florida football games. Barber promptly dropped out of school to focus on his radio work. He held his position at WRUF for the next four years, eventually landing a job with the Reds.
On Opening Day in 1934, Barber broadcast his first play-by-play for a major league game, as the Reds lost to the Chicago Cubs 6-0. It was also the first major league game Barber had ever seen in person. He called games from the stands of Cincinnati's newly-named Crosley Field for the next four seasons.
[edit] Brooklyn Dodgers
Barber had been hired by Larry MacPhail, then president of the Reds. When MacPhail moved on to become President of the Dodgers in 1938, he took Barber with him.
At Brooklyn, Barber became an institution, widely admired for his folksy style of play-by-play and his signature catchphrases, which included:
- "They're tearin' up the pea patch" -- used for a team on a winning streak.
- "The bases are F.O.B. (full of Brooklyns)" -- indicating the Dodgers had loaded the bases.
- "Can of corn" -- describing a softly hit, easily caught fly ball.
- "Rhubarb" -- any kind of heated on-field dispute or altercation.
- "(Sittin' in) the catbird seat" -- used when a player or team was performing exceptionally well. This expression was the title of a well-known story by James Thurber. According to a character in Thurber's story, the expression came from Red Barber. But according to Barber's daughter, her father did not begin using the expression until after he had read the story.
- "(Sittin' in) the tall cotton" -- also used to describe success.
To further his "Southern gentleman" image, Barber would often identify players as "Mister," "Big Fella" or "Old" (regardless of the player's age):
- "Now, Mister Reiser steps to the plate, batting at .344."
- "Big fella Hatten pitches, it's in there for strike one."
- "Old number 13, Ralph Branca, coming in to pitch."
A number of play-by-play announcers, including Chris Berman, picked up on his use of "back, back, back" to describe a long fly ball with potential to be a home run. Oddly, those other announcers are describing the flight of the ball, whereas Barber was describing the outfielder, in this famous call from the 1947 World Series with Joe DiMaggio at bat:
- "Here's the pitch, swung on, belted... it's a long one... back goes Gionfriddo, back, back, back, back, back, back... heeee makes a one-handed catch against the bullpen! Oh, Doctor!"
The "Oh, Doctor" phrase was also picked up by some latter-day sportscasters, most notably Jerry Coleman, who was a New York Yankees infielder during the 1940s and 50s and later worked alongside Barber in the Yankees radio and TV booths.
In 1939, Barber broadcast the first major-league game on television. He later added to his Brooklyn duties a job as sports director of the CBS Radio Network, succeeding Ted Husing, and called college football and other events. For most of his run with the Dodgers, the team was broadcast over radio station WHN at 1050 on the AM dial. From the start of regular television broadcasts until their move to Los Angeles, the Dodgers were on WOR-TV, New York's Channel 9. Barber's most frequent broadcasting partner was Connie Desmond; for a time in the late '40s they were joined by Ernie Harwell.
While running CBS Sports, he became the mentor of another redheaded announcer -- a young Vin Scully -- recruiting the Fordham University graduate for CBS's football coverage, and eventually inviting him into the Dodgers' broadcast booth to succeed Harwell (after the latter's departure for the crosstown New York Giants).
Barber was the first person, outside of the team's board of directors, to be told by Dodger president Branch Rickey that the Dodgers had begun the process of racial desegregation in baseball, a process that led to the signing of Jackie Robinson as the first black player in major league baseball since the 1880s. As a Southerner, living with segregation as a fact of life written into law, Barber told Rickey that he wasn't sure he could broadcast the games, but said he would try. 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 Robinson and the black players who followed him, including Dodger stars Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe.
[edit] New York Yankees
Barber was determined to be a fair broadcaster, and not a "homer" who would seem to be cheering for his employer. By the end of the 1953 season, with Walter O'Malley having a controlling interest in Dodger ownership, Barber was pressured to become more of a homer. According to the baseball-broadcasting historian Curt Smith, however, Barber resigned from the Dodgers because O'Malley refused to back Barber in his demand that Gillette pay him a higher fee for telecasting the 1953 World Series. Barber declined Gillette's fee and was replaced on the series telecasts by Vin Scully, who partnered with Mel Allen. In 1954, Barber was hired by the crosstown Yankees. The Yankees would usually be on radio station WINS, 1010 AM, and their television station for most of their history was WPIX-TV, New York's Channel 11.
With the Yankees, Barber increasingly strove to adopt a strictly neutral, dispassionately repertorial broadcast style, avoiding not only partisanship but also any emotional surges that would match the excitement of the fans. Some fans and critics found this later, more restrained Barber to be dull, especially in contrast to the more dramatic, emotive delivery of his famous Yankee colleague, Mel Allen. Nevertheless, both he and the occasionally partisan Allen both eschewed the rank homerism of former Yankee shortstop Phil Rizzuto, who joined the Yankee broadcast team in 1957.
Barber described one of the central differences between himself and Allen as how they described potential home runs. Allen would watch the ball, resulting in his signature call of "That ball is going, going, it is GONE!" sometimes turning 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 have a better idea of whether the ball would be caught. This is evident in his famous call of the Gionfriddo catch. Many announcers say "back, back, back" describing the ball's flight. It is clear from the Gionfriddo call that Barber is describing the action of the outfielder, not the ball. Curt Smith, author of Voices of Summer, summarized the difference between Barber and Allen in these words: "Barber was white wine, crepes suzette, and bluegrass music. Allen was hot dogs, beer, and the U.S. Marine Band. Like Millay, Barber was a poet. Like Sinatra, Allen was a balladeer. Detached, Red reported. Involved, Mel roared."
Late in 1966, a season in which the Yankees finished in tenth and last place, their first time at the bottom of the standings since 1912 and after more than 40 years of dominating the American League, a paid attendance of 413 was announced at the 67,000-seat Yankee Stadium. Barber asked the TV cameras to pan the empty stands as he commented on the low attendance. Although denied the camera shots, he announced that the attendance was the lowest in the stadium's history. He was fired at the end of the season for it.
[edit] Later life
After his dismissal by the Yankees in 1966, Barber retired from baseball broadcasting. He wrote several books, including his autobiography, Rhubarb in the Catbird Seat; contributed to occasional sports documentary programs on radio and television; and from 1981 until his death made weekly contributions to National Public Radio's Morning Edition program. He would talk to host Bob Edwards about sports or other topics, including the flora at Barber's home in Tallahassee, Florida. Barber would call Edwards "Colonel Bob", referring to Edwards' Kentucky Colonel award from his native state.
In 1993, Edwards' book Fridays with Red: A Radio Friendship (ISBN 0-671-87013-0) was published, based on his Morning Edition segments with Red Barber.
[edit] Honors
In 1978, Barber joined former colleague Mel Allen to become the first broadcasters to receive the Ford C. Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame. 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 the Florida Sports Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1995.
The Red Barber Radio Scholarship is awarded each year by the University of Florida's College 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 2002-2006 it will tour as part of the "Baseball as America" traveling exhibition.
[edit] External links
- Red Barber at the Radio Hall of Fame
- Fan essay on Red Barber
- Baseball Hall of Fame - Frick Award recipient
- Red Barber Collection at University of Florida's George A. Smathers Libraries
- Red Barber Radio Scholarship
- Baseball as America Traveling Exhibition
- Red on the Phil Silvers Show
| Preceded by None |
Ford C. Frick Award 1978 |
Succeeded by Bob Elson |
