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Congratulations Eric Nadel

Jim Cowsert-USA TODAY Sports


I am one of those baseball fans that some of you younger folks have heard about. Where I grew up in southern Illinois, we were on the outer fringes of the St. Louis Cardinals television territory. So, we were lucky to get one game out of WPSD-TV in Paducah, Kentucky. Of course in that area, at that time, we only had 3 channels to watch on the black and white TV. For baseball on TV, I watched the Saturday Game of the Week, which most of the time was a Yankee game of the week and then a Cardinals road game on Sundays.

For a little kid that loved baseball, buying baseball cards and calling out names of players for backyard wiffle ball games, to get some daily baseball, it was the radio. It was a small transistor radio and it gave me KMOX out of St. Louis with Harry Caray and Jack Buck. This was long before Harry had become the butt of jokes and impersonators. And of course, Jack Buck was Jack Buck. Both Harry and Jack painted great pictures for me listening to the games. I especially loved those late night games from Los Angeles and San Francisco. The transistor under the pillow so Gus and Mitz would think that I was asleep. I had to hear Gibson pitching to Mays or Koufax pitching to The Man. First time I saw Sportsman's Park in color was a game there in the early 1960s, I remember to this day thinking "wow, it looks just like Harry described it." And what do you know, Harry was wearing Budweiser shorts.

Baseball on the radio got me interested in broadcasting. My career took a different path, I always wanted to do some play by play, did some high school games back in the day, but I ended up playing the hillbilly hits and announcing at the Grand Ole Opry. Not too bad, but I loved baseball.

I met Eric Nadel for the first time in 1983 when I came to the Rangers. I remember listening to Eric and thinking that this guy describes the game exactly the way Harry and Jack did, where I can see in my mind everything happening in the game…from the style of the uniforms to the cut of the grass to a ball being history.

To this day, I still prefer listening to a ballgame on the radio…just the way I was raised and what's great about now, I get to listen to one of the best in Eric Nadel. I know times have changed, I just hope that at some point kids around our area, every once in awhile, listen to Eric Nadel broadcast a ballgame. It doesn't get any better than sitting out in the yard with one of Harry's Budweisers and listening to Eric.

I feel very fortunate to get to listen to Eric Nadel, but even better to have him as a friend.

Congratulations to Eric Nadel, the National Baseball Hall of Fame's 2014 Ford C. Frick Award Winner for excellence in baseball broadcasting.