New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
A pair of Conn. Yankees call history
And you couldn’t go wrong including Mel Allen’s phrase that has been mimicked by every generation of 8-year-old announcers calling play-by-play at a Wiffle ball game: “Going, going, gone.”
Let’s imagine how Mel Allen would call Aaron Judge’s 62nd home run.
Allen, whose voice never lost its Alabama seasoning, and current Yankees announcer Michael Kay, who hails from the Bronx, are Connecticut Yankees of a sort. Allen died in his Greenwich home at age 83 in 1996. Kay currently lives in the town. (Yes, Mets’ fans, so did Ralph Kiner, Bob Murphy and Tom Seaver.)
And though Kay has been in the Bombers’ booth for three decades, Allen will forever be known as The Voice of the Yankees.
Any modern fantasy baseball game announced by Allen would involve other nicknames. Nothing literal like BAJ (“Big Aaron Judge”). Allen came up with monikers such as Joltin’ Joe and The Scooter (if I have to identify their names you’re not a baseball fan). He once told me he liked nicknames with a sense of majesty, such as The Yankee Clipper, Iron Horse, Ol’ Reliable (aka, right fielder Tommy Henrich, one of Allen’s favorites).
So Judge would likely have been dubbed with a sobriquet worthy of his 6-foot-7 silhouette that defines the skyline of the East 161st Street outfield.
So let’s go with “The Empire.” (Feel free to substitute your own. That’s all I got).
Then, of course, there’s the catchphrase. Did anyone doubt Kay would summon his trademark “See ya!” as he documented Judge’s 61st dinger that tied Roger Maris for the American League season record Wednesday night?
Yes, Phil Rizzuto somehow forgot to slip in a “Holy Cow!” when he broadcast Maris’ 61st homer Oct. 1, 1961. Even that seemed so Scooter-like.
So let’s script in at least one “How about that?” from Allen. Mercifully, the era of sponsoring a round-tripper as a “Ballantine Blast” or a “White Owl Wallop” (as Allen did 70 years ago) has passed.
And you couldn’t go wrong including Allen’s phrase that has been mimicked by every generation of 8-year-old announcers calling play-by-play at a Wiffle ball game: “Going, going, gone.”
But there’s another line I suspect Allen might use. Back when he called the shot of Maris’ 60th homer that tied him with Babe
Ruth on Sept. 26, 1961, he repeated one essential phrase three times.
He used the words as soon as Maris made contact.
“There it is.”
That first take was delivered with the casual enthusiasm of a mom who just found her misplaced iPhone in the cushions.
“There it is,” he repeated, his tone rising with the ball’s arc. “If it stays fair. THERE IT IS! Number 60!”
Allen remained mum as Maris circled the square, finally punctuating his call of a home run that seemed impossible: “How about that?”
Maris would wait another five days before blasting No. 61. When he did, the TV call went to Allen’s broadcasting teammate Red Barber. Barber did to “back, back, back” what Allen did to “going, going gone.”
But Barber was a reporter, and Allen couldn’t resist being a fan. So the Ol’ Redhead’s anointment of a new home run king lacked a certain enthusiasm that has been mocked over time. It’s most memorable for his chatter about who would get rich off the ball and his opening words, which just happened to be “There it is.”
He finally welcomed Allen into the conversation. “Well, you’ve never seen anything like this, have you?”
If Mel Allen could ever be accused of sarcasm, this might have been that moment.
“Nobody ever has, Red. Nobody has ever seen anything like this.”
The best-remembered call didn’t come from Allen or Barber, trained broadcasters who became the first two recipients of the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s Ford C. Frick Award. Instead, that honor belongs to a certain former shortstop who was hardly known as a poet in the booth.
“Hit deep to right, this could be it!” Rizzuto exclaimed on radio. “Way back there! Holy cow, he did it! Sixty-one for Maris! And look at the fight for that ball out there! Holy cow, what a shot! Another standing ovation for Maris, and they’re still fighting for that ball out there, climbing over each other’s backs. One of the greatest sights I’ve ever seen here at Yankee Stadium!”
In documenting Judge’s record-tying 61st Wednesday, Kay did a gracious tip of the cap to Rizzuto.
“This could be it,” he repeated 61 years later. “See ya! He’s done it. He’s been chasing history and now he makes it.”
In mulling over how Allen would handle Judge’s moment, I revisited a winter day I interviewed him in February 1993 at his Greenwich home. My recordings are four hours long. Mel, who was turning 80, reminisced until he confessed, “I’m about to run out of voice.”
But it reminded me why you could play “Two Degrees of Mel Allen.” He knew everyone, from comics who roasted him ( Jack Benny,
Milton Berle, Phil Silvers) to bandleaders (Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong) to every U.S. president of his heyday. He fished with Ted Williams and got to know Hall of Famers from earlier generations, such as Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner.
Allen stopped by the Greenwich Time newsroom one day. A rookie journalist greeted him with “Mr. Allen, I think you knew my uncle.” It took a moment for us to process that her uncle was legendary player and manager Leo Durocher. The second issue of Mad in 1952 featured the fledgling magazine’s first spoof of celebrities, namely Durocher, Allen and Yogi Berra.
I met Yogi at Mel’s funeral at Temple Beth-El in Stamford in 1996, where he and Rizzuto shared an umbrella as they joined other members of the all-time Yankees lineup, including Joe DiMaggio and Whitey Ford. Their morning suits put the Yankees in pinstripes again. Longtime team owner George Steinbrenner was there too, a reminder that it was The Boss who brought Allen back into the fold a decade after the Yankees cut him from the roster without explanation in 1964.
Allen would have loved adding Aaron Judge to his lineup of Gehrig, DiMaggio, Berra, Mantle, Ford, etc. So it’s not hard to imagine the words The Voice would conjure for No. 62.
How about this?: “There it is ... going, going, gone. No. 62 from The Empire. Aaron Judge stands above the rest. How about that?”
OK, he would have come up with a better nickname.