A Long Cold Winter

I guess I have no choice but to accept the facts.

Baseball season is over.

And while I'm still upset that my team lost in the first round of the playoffs - AGAIN - I'm more disconcerted by the loss of those wonderful voices. For seven months, they kept me company, just about every day. John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman when the AM signal from WCBS New York boomed across Delaware Bay and into my SuperRadio. Jim Hunter and Fred Manfra, when I would listen to the Orioles games to get the score of the Yankee game. And, best of all, once the post season got underway, the great Jon Miller and Joe Morgan, must-hear listening even when the radio signal is out of whack with the TV pictures.

Then, after the Red Sox completed their sweep of the Rockies on Sunday night, they're all gone. I feel bereft.

Baseball, especially on the radio, may have been designed for people who have to do a lot of reading. The rhythms of the game allow a diligent reader to concentrate on the page, while keeping an ear cocked for the tell tale shift of the crowd response and the excitement in the play by play man's voice. The game swims into consciousness for however long is necessary - the brief triumph of a strikeout, the extended celebration of a homer, or - and I get to use best of all twice in one post - that moment when the play by play shifts down to build tension as the game is suddenly on the line.

There is no dearth of baseball news and the annual spate of awards starts next week, I guess, but it's going to be a long, cold winter.

Neal Conan

Tags: baseball | orioles | red sox | rockies | yankees