Listening to Curt Gowdy and the Red Sox on Halcyon Summer Days
His voice made you think all’s right with the world
My Boston childhood still resonates with the memory of being outside in my backyard and hearing sportscasting legend Curt Gowdy giving his play-by-play calls of Red Sox games on the radio.
Everyone listened to his voice as the game carried on, mixed in as it was with the sound of lawnmowers in someone else’s yard and the smoke from barbecues or grills.
Shouts of delight would rise up when a home run was struck or disbelief when a play was foiled by the opposing team. The umpires were never right. Gowdy brought a feeling of being there so vivid it felt like maybe we were. The television broadcasts held the same enchantment.
Gowdy would describe the “Green Monster,” once known as “The Wall”— that great green left field wall of Fenway Park that was so high it blocked home runs and turned them into doubles.
That is, unless Ted Williams came to bat, or his successor Carl Yastrzemski (Yaz), and then no one spoke, everyone in those backyards holding their breath as Gowdy’s voice began to hover…
