Radio Days

Driving back from Austin this weekend, I frantically searched for the Louisville-Michigan State game on my radio dial. As you may know, yours truly had picked the Cardinals of Louisville to win the entire shootin’ match, as they say. As you may further know, Louisville went on to lose that game and my interest in the Final Four has, as a result, waned. Anyway, I never found the game on any radio station AM or FM. However, in Belton, I managed to pick up the Rangers-Angels spring training game on the all-powerful KRLD. It came in loud and clear, I could have possibly picked it up even further south had I been surfing the radio dial earlier.

Every year when I hear my first broadcast of the season, I am flooded with so many reminders of youth. For as long as I can remember, we have listened to Ranger’s baseball. It is a part of who I am. I can remember as a very young child, laying in bed and hearing my dad’s radio barely audible over the window unit. Mark Holtz and Eric Nadel there with me until I would fall asleep. I can remember leaving a game early because my Uncle Mike wanted to beat traffic and Texas was losing badly so we listened to the end of the game on the way home. The Rangers batted around and Odibe McDowell won the game for the Rangers in the home half of the ninth by belting a grand slam. I also recall listening to Nolan Ryan getting Ricky Henderson looking for his 5,000th career strikeout – we were on our way home from Six Flags at the time.

I would lay in bed at night (while I was supposed to be asleep – I usually had to be in bed by the 7th inning stretch) with my earphones on listening in as Bo Jackson feasted on Rangers pitching; and I recall the hope and enthusiasm of an organization conveyed through its broadcasters when they would mention young Ranger prospects and how they were faring in the minors – Rodriguez, Gonzalez, and Sosa. It was a sad day when Mark Holtz left the radio booth for the TV gig. We were still able to hear “Hello Win Column!” but it just wasn’t the same for some reason. Now Holtz is gone, of course. No one has ever sounded as good next to Eric Nadel. I don’t know what I’ll do the day he leaves the broadcast booth for the last time. That to me will symbolize the final great passing of my youth. Listening to him call baseball games serves as somewhat of a soundtrack for my summers and a backdrop for the re-living of sweet memories from days gone by. It’s a shame the Rangers have never made it to the World Series – I would like to know how the boys of summer sound in autumn.