Quote:
Originally Posted by BretMan
@ASA/NYSSOBLUE
I didn't know that Paul O'Neill was doing broadcast work. O'Neill lived about a mile from me when we were growing up in Columbus and went to my high school. He came in the year after I graduated. When I was there, his older brother was the star athlete and quarterback of our football team.
I wonder who the first former athlete broadcaster really was. Last weekend I was watching "The Pride of St. Louis", the old biographical film about Dizzy Dean. Dean was broadcasting games back in the 1940's. He had to be one of the earliest former players in the booth. Radio wasn't around much too long before that!
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O'Neill is very irregular in his YES appearences, so he alomst does not count. And I forgot about Tony Kubek, who was excellent when he was a Yankee announcer - but he was almost tooo good, and got in trouble with Steinbrenner.
One would also be remiss in not mentioning Uecker. Once you get past the Lite Beer/Major League/Mr Belvedere stereotype, you realize that he is one fine announcer - who does his portions of the game SOLO.
There have been only two umpires that I know of who ever did any announcing - Luciano, of course, and.... Brent Musburger, who graduated from the old Al Somers school, and worked minor league ball briefly