Baseball, radio still go hand in hand

It's why Phillies fans complain so vehemently about national broadcasters and why it takes even the best announcers several seasons to win acceptance.

That loyalty was particularly evident at Dodger Stadium, where fans at that ballpark traditionally brought radios to hear Scully's vivid descriptions.

Phillies TV announcer Chris Wheeler recalled a game there early in Mike Schmidt's career when so many radios were tuned to Scully's broadcast that the young third baseman could hear it as he left the dugout.

"Schmitty said he could hear Scully saying, 'Here comes young Mike Schmidt from Dayton, Ohio, to the plate. The Phillies think he's their third baseman of the future,' " Wheeler recalled. "He said it took a little longer for him to make that long walk from the dugout to the batter's box because he wanted to hear what Scully was saying about him."

But Scully now does television almost exclusively, as did Kalas in his final years. While a team's signature announcer could once be found on radio, they're almost all confined to TV.

That means young radio voices, like the Phils' Scott Franzke, are now looked on as the second string, making it harder for them to develop deep relationships, especially with older listeners.

"Mine might be the last generation to believe that radio is the ideal way to 'watch' a ball game," said Marc Meklir, a Phillies fan living in Columbia, Md. "But with today's technology, a new generation can experience the same thing. Who knows? Someday they might be telling their kids about the long-ago nights when they listened to Scott Franzke and Larry Andersen on their iPod touches as they drifted off to sleep."