Get up baby, get up...or down.

[d-townmike]

Legendary Cardinals broadcaster Mike Shannon dead at 83.

https://www.audacy.com/kmox/local-sport ... away-at-83

His long overdue retirement was last year. He broadcasted Cardinals games for nearly 50 years, 30 of which were alongside Jack Buck.

RIP.

He had gotten to the point of being nearly incoherent on the air and quite possibly fell asleep more than once during games.

Thank God John Rooney (who took over for Jack Buck) was there to eventually be the lead broadcaster and is doing a damn good job.

[Rootbeer]

Rack this thread.

Listening to Shannon's farewell tour last year was physically painful. He sounded older than God but I'm still surprised he passed so soon after.

The old guard are passing on. Harry Caray, Vin Scully, Mike Shannon... geez. How long does Bob Uecker have?

John Rooney is great. You're right about that, mike. Best radio announcers in the game right now are the Rockies guys. Worst are the Red Sox. A's are pretty bad too, but they get scored on the curve because it's the A's. Not a whole lot of baseball to talk about, lol.

[d-townmike]

I remember the Rockies announcers when I lived in Denver. They went through quite a few over the years. Jerry Schemmel has been a long time broadcaster in Denver for decades. He was play by play for the Nuggets back in the 80s and 90s.

But absolutely no broadcast duo could ever hold a candle to Mike Shannon and Jack Buck. Man those games were amazing to listen to and made turning on the radio, even when a TV was right there, very well worth it.

[Rootbeer]

I remember the Rockies announcers when I lived in Denver. They went through quite a few over the years. Jerry Schemmel has been a long time broadcaster in Denver for decades. He was play by play for the Nuggets back in the 80s and 90s.

But absolutely no broadcast duo could ever hold a candle to Mike Shannon and Jack Buck. Man those games were amazing to listen to and made turning on the radio, even when a TV was right there, very well worth it.

Mike Shannon and Jack Buck were great. The biggest mistake Buck ever made was siring Joe Buck and then making sure Joe got all the biggest gigs in sports broadcasting.

What I like about Schemmel and Corrigan at KOA is the way they color the game. They know their listeners are on radio and they are great at giving visual cues to the listener. The color of a guy's sunglasses, how many steps he took to get to the fly ball, where the shadows are on the field, and so on. In contrast, the Red Sox guys don't tell you about the game. They yammer on about stuff and you can hear a pitch hitting the catcher's mitt but they say nothing about the pitch or the count. They are awful.

[Smackie Chan]

KOA

My first radio gig was AM 850, Komedy Radio in Thousand Oaks, CA. Weak little station, couldn't pick it up outside of roughly a 20 mile radius, and we had to reduce transmission power at sundown, so it was really weak at night. KOA is a clear channel (50Kw) station in Denver, and AM signals can travel far. KOA also happened to be at 850 on the dial, so we couldn't even monitor our own station at night in the studio - we'd get drowned out by KOA.

...the way they color the game. They know their listeners are on radio and they are great at giving visual cues to the listener. The color of a guy's sunglasses, how many steps he took to get to the fly ball, where the shadows are on the field, and so on.

Vin Scully was a master at that. Love listening to radio play-by-play announcers who paint the picture.

[Screw_Michigan]

My first radio gig was AM 850, Komedy Radio in Thousand Oaks, CA. Weak little station, couldn't pick it up outside of roughly a 20 mile radius, and we had to reduce transmission power at sundown, so it was really weak at night. KOA is a clear channel (50Kw) station in Denver, and AM signals can travel far. KOA also happened to be at 850 on the dial, so we couldn't even monitor our own station at night in the studio - we'd get drowned out by KOA.

I didn't realize you used to work in radio. Makes sense for how polished TT is.

Where else did you work?

[d-townmike]

I actually used to work in radio myself. From 1998-2000, back when I was college-aged, I worked for a Clear Channel Communications (now iHeart Media) owned 3rd party that only did traffic reports. These days it's Total Traffic.

So I was an on-air traffic reporter for two years and was the official reporter for KOA for a while. No I did not report from the helicopter or the airplane. It was a studio in downtown Denver and not even in the same building as all the other Clear Channel stations. We also did reports for other stations I think it was called Jefferson Pilot Communications at that time.

Pay was crap, had to work split shift during the week and also occasional weekends. Couldn't even get my foot in the door for bigger gigs at other stations. It's a tough industry and you need a whole different level of pride in yourself, even being a little pompous, to do well and that's just something I don't have.

[Screw_Michigan]

I actually used to work in radio myself. From 1998-2000, back when I was college-aged, I worked for a Clear Channel Communications (now iHeart Media) owned 3rd party that only did traffic reports. These days it's Total Traffic.

So I was an on-air traffic reporter for two years and was the official reporter for KOA for a while. No I did not report from the helicopter or the airplane. It was a studio in downtown Denver and not even in the same building as all the other Clear Channel stations. We also did reports for other stations I think it was called Jefferson Pilot Communications at that time.

Pay was crap, had to work split shift during the week and also occasional weekends. Couldn't even get my foot in the door for bigger gigs at other stations. It's a tough industry and you need a whole different level of pride in yourself, even being a little pompous, to do well and that's just something I don't have.

Radio sucks and has for a long time

[Smackie Chan]

I didn't realize you used to work in radio. Makes sense for how polished TT is.

Where else did you work?

Never did radio full time, officially anyway, but was always working weekends and would be the first to be called when a fill-in was needed.

I started at KMDY in May '88 at $4/hr, and there was also an FM Adult Contemporary station there, KNJO 92.7. It was an automated station (except for mornings), and the automation system was this set of two barrel-looking contraptions stacked one atop the other with the ends facing out. Along the inside edges of the barrels were slots into which "carts," which looked like 8-track tapes, were inserted. The carts were recordable and reusable, and they were what was used to record commercials, voice tracks, weather reports, PSAs, promos, etc. The music was contained on large reel-to-reel tapes, with the players located next to the cart barrels. I worked there as well, doing weather, voice tracks (the DJ breaks between song sets), and programming the system. Would do whatever they would let me do and a few things I probably didn't get permission to do.

Left there in '90 to work at 95.9 KZTR, a very cool classic/contemporary rock station in Ventura. It was sold a couple years later and went Spanish, so I went to an oldies station, 102.7 KXBS ("The Bus") in Ventura, stayed there a few months, then went to 99.9 KTYD, the heritage rock station in Santa Barbara. It went thru a few owners, including Clear Channel, and a few different locations while I was there. Started off in Goleta, then a different building in Goleta, then this building in SB that had ramparts atop its facade that was dubbed the Broadcastle. Eventually there were 7 or 8 stations in the building, and I worked at a few of them. Even had my own weekly sports talk show for a while. Worked there for 12 yrs until moving to the DC area in '04.

[Mikey]

Vin Scully was a master at that. Love listening to radio play-by-play announcers who paint the picture.

Vinny is the GOAT IMHO.
And I'm a Dodger hater since the day I was born. But you gotta acknowledge greatness when you see hear it. So smooth and informative. He made you feel like he was talking directly to you, an old friend.

Russ Hodges was pretty damn good doing Giants games when I was a kid in the 60s. He called Bobby Thompson's HR in 1951, but that was a little before my time (and on the other side of the country).



Leo Durocher, coaching third, just absolutely lost it.