BUCKLEY: SANTOS ALWAYS LEFT MARK,
Pats announcer gave full effort each game
You’re going to hear and read a lot of wonderful things over the next couple of days about Gil Santos, the legendary play-by-play voice of the Patriots who died on Thursday.
But how about this: Let’s relay a comment that Gil himself made to fellow broadcaster Dale Arnold during the 1990 season. After you read what the veteran voice of the Patriots said to the rookie voice of the Patriots, I guarantee you’ll be coming up with your own superlatives to describe Gil Santos.
Arnold, a Maine native who listened to Santos doing Patriots games, wound up in the Foxboro Stadium broadcast booth because WBZ lost the radio rights to the old WHDH. For that reason, and for that reason alone, Gil was no longer doing the Pats, with another legend, Curt Gowdy, coming out of semi-retirement to do the games in 1987. Arnold, who had been the radio voice of the New Jersey Devils, took over in 1988. Arnold met and gabbed with Santos here and there during his first couple of seasons doing Pats games. It should come as no surprise that Gil, even though he was in the company of the man now doing the only job he had ever wanted, was friendly and gracious.
But it was something Santos said during the Patriots’ epically bad 1-15 season in 1990 that Arnold has never forgotten.
“I ran into Gil Santos at some event during that season,” Arnold said. “Now you have to understand that I was taking over for
two legends — Gil and Curt Gowdy. No pressure there, right? So I’m talking to Gil, and he said something to me that stays with me to this day.”
And Santos said: “Dale, whether the team goes 0-16 or 16-0 they pay you just the same. But whatever happens, you owe the same effort.”
There’s greatness in every syllable of that quote. For one thing, the line about how they pay you the same, 16-0 or 0-16, reveals Santos to be treating Arnold as a peer, an equal, and not some broadcasting novice who for no other reason than because of a change in radio rights fees had taken his job. This is not unlike what you’d expect from a veteran big league slugger standing around at the batting cage, talking with a young up-and-comer. It was classic Santos, sharing with Arnold the realities of the business.
And he was right: A paycheck is a paycheck is a paycheck.
And then there’s the second part of that quote. You owe the same effort.
Is that Gil Santos or what?
This was a man who had all the tools of a great play-by-play barker — the extraordinary pipes, the precision timing, perfect cadence, knowledge of the game, an understanding of the significance of a given moment. He was also a sweet, down-to-earth man with a hearty laugh who never changed his demeanor whether in the company of football superstars or schleppy sportswriters.
(In the days of Foxboro Stadium, Gil and Gino Cappelletti, his dear friend and longtime color analyst, would hang around the press box after games until the traffic settled down. They could have sat behind laptops and started banging out copy and not looked out of place.)
Re-read that last paragraph. Those are some of the reasons Gil Santos lasted so long in the playby-play business. They’re not the main reason. No, the main reason Gil lasted so long is that he followed his own advice: He always gave the same effort. Man, did he ever. Santos eventually returned to the Patriots’ playby-play booth when ’BZ got the rights back, and he remained behind the mic during the years the games were on WBCN. On a personal note, it always made me smile when Gil reminded us we were listening to “the Patriots’ Rock Radio Network.”
Santos stepped down after the 2012 season, meaning that in his later years he was blessed to cover those thrilling Tom Brady-led Super Bowl seasons.
Alas, he also covered some Patriots seasons best left forgotten.
Didn’t make a lick of difference to Gil Santos. You owe the same effort. And year after year, he delivered just that.