Santos’ final call
Perfect celebration of broadcasting legend
BRIDGEWATER — Somebody left the radio blaring at Gil Santos’ wake yesterday afternoon at the Prophett-Chapman, Cole & Gleason Funeral Home.
Nobody asked to have the radio turned down.
This is because while wakes can be sad, solemn occasions, requiring heads bowed, hands folded and the quiet of a library reading room, this was not one of those occasions. Gil, a sports broadcasting legend, lived to be 80. It would have been nice had he hung around a few more years, and we’d all have been the better for that, but he had a fine run, both in his chosen profession and in his family life.
This, then, was a celebration of Gil’s life.
This, then, is why the radio was left blaring as hundreds of people waited in line to pay their respects, sure, but also to share a story, maybe a laugh.
Technically, it wasn’t a “radio” that was playing; it was a seemingly endless loop of Gil being Gil, calling Pats games, calling Celtics games, doing morning-drive sports segments on WBZ.
Let’s be grown-ups about this: Wakes can be tedious — the lines long, the awkward small talk. Yet to stand there and listen to Gil shout out a touchdown pass from Jim Plunkett to Randy Vataha was to be whisked back in time, to the days when Tom Brady was not yet a glint in his father’s eye and Robert Kraft was just another well-heeled Patriots season ticket-holder.
Listening to Gil’s call of that Plunkett-to-Vataha touchdown — I only caught the very end of it, but I’m pretty sure it was the 88-yarder against the Baltimore Colts in the final game of the 1971 season — it was clear that he really did bring panache and meaning to every play of every game of every season. Yes, the Pats won that game, toppling a Colts juggernaut that would advance to the AFC title game before losing to Miami, but the Pats of those days — even after the NFL/AFL merger, even after Schaefer Stadium had sprung from the weeds in Foxboro, even after Heisman Trophy winner Plunkett had burst upon the scene (with Stanford buddy Vataha joining him) — were not nearly as popular as the Celtics, Red Sox and Bobby Orr and the Big, Bad Bruins.
As much as Plunkett, Sam Cunningham, Steve Nelson, Mike Haynes and those other 1970s stalwarts, Gil Santos helped give the Pats their first dose of legitimacy. To stand in line yesterday was to be reminded of this.
“Grogan to Francis . . . touchdown!”
“Sam Bam goes in from a yard out with 16 seconds to go!”
“Tony McGee just bowled his man over right there!”
“Marangi back to pass ... intercepted by Tim Fox!”
I had to look that one up, since my Gary Marangi memories are generally limited to the quarterback’s Boston College days, not the 19 games he later played for the Buffalo Bills over parts of three seasons. But, yep, it happened just as Gil said: Fox made a 29-yard interception of a Marangi pass in the Pats’ 20-10 victory over the Bills at Schaefer Stadium on Nov.7, 1976.
Gil kept going, kept giving us names. Darryl Stingley. Reggie Rucker. Sam Hunt. Sugar Bear Hamilton — it was Gil’s call of the infamous roughing-thepasser call with Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler.
The Gil Santos highlight reel was not limited to Patriots games. He had a nice run doing Celtics games, so there was lots of basketball being heard — meaning lots of Larry Bird, one play firing up Gil’s burners to the degree that he punctuated his call with a Ned Martin-like, “Mercy!”
We heard Gil’s call of the Boston Marathon, and a live read of a commercial for Narragansett beer. There was some kind of novelty bit in which Gil, reading from a script, mixed a cast of characters from different sports, using different positions, different terms, in a zany play-by-play call that culminated with something along the lines of Jason Varitek hitting a pass to center field that Tedy Bruschi skated in and caught.
Gil did years and years of those morning-drive sports reports on ’BZ, and yesterday we were treated to the news that Jim Rice had been elected to the Hall of Fame and that he’d soon be joining fellow Red Sox left fielders Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski in Cooperstown.
It was like listening to a documentary on the history of Boston sports.
Gino Cappelletti, a Pats legend and Gil’s longtime color analyst, made an appearance. He was impeccably dressed, as always, but he is 84 now and that’s why it was cool to see Frank Mendes, a retired state trooper and former Pats security chief, decide to stand watch over him for a while in much the same way he used to stand by Bill Parcels on the sidelines.
Gino was told about the Gil Santos highlight reel and displayed a wide smile.
In getting that smile out of Gino, the highlight reel had done its job. It was Gil Santos’ last touchdown call.