COMMAERNTTARY
SPRING MEANS BASEBALL
MAY/JUNE 2018 | TAMPA BAY MAGAZINE 139
Living in Florida you get
accustomed to people (OK,
Northerners) saying they
would not want to live here
By Dick Crippen
because they would miss the change
of the seasons. Since I’m worn out by
the traffic on the interstate, I decide
not to let them in on a secret. We do
have seasons here.
For instance, I know it’s spring
when I hear baseball talk on the
radio. When I was growing up across
the river from New York City, it was
spring when you got in the car and
tuned the radio to the familiar tones
of first, Red Barber and later, Vin
Scully. They announced the Brooklyn Dodger games, but more
importantly, despite what the weather might be like, when they
took to the airwaves, you knew that spring had started.
In my childhood, I had the opportunity to hear some of the
greatest baseball broadcasters in the history of the game. Along
with Barber and Scully, the then-New York Giants featured Marty
Glickman and Ted Husing, while the Yankees had the almost
immortal Mel Allen. For a Jersey kid growing up outside New
York, life was good.
I remember heartbreak in 1957 when the Major League owners
voted unanimously to allow the Dodgers and the Giants to move
across the country. The Dodgers were going to Los Angeles and
the Giants went to San Francisco. As a child, I didn’t understand
how a team that I loved as my own could leave town, and those
broadcasts that marked the start of spring would be gone. Yes,
we had Mel Allen and the Yankees, but if you were a die-hard
Brooklyn fan, that didn’t really reduce the pain.
One thing the Dodgers did before they left was to turn me
into a fan of the game. Therefore, I was able to tolerate the start
of spring with only the dulcet tones of Mel Allen and his “How
about that!” It was great, and he
kept my interest alive despite my
sense of loss.
Consequently, major league
baseball training marks the start
of spring for me now that I live in
Florida. As much as I enjoy other
sports, none has ever marked the
change of seasons for me as baseball
has. College football comes close,
and that’s probably because the
schedule stays pretty much within
a specific time of year. As much as
I love pro football and hockey, I do
not associate them with any season.
Growing up, I had not thought
about taking my love for sports to a microphone or beyond.
Yet in 1965, I was hired as the first weatherman at a new station
that was going on the air in the Tampa Bay area. I found myself
announcing stock car races at Sunshine Speedway, and I also
co-founded a football team known as the St. Petersburg Blazers.
With those two accomplishments on my resume, the station
owners named me the sports director after the station’s sports
director left to run for Tampa City Council. So that is how sports
became my career.
Through my many years of reporting and broadcasting sports,
I always counted myself blessed to have had such a great career.
I can tell you that when it comes to marking the start of spring,
baseball still does it for me. I enjoy it now on both radio and TV.
Best of all, when I hear the first called strike, I am not shoveling
snow! 9
EDITOR’S NOTE: Dick Crippen, a staple in Tampa Bay broadcasting
for more than 40 years, is a senior adviser for the Tampa Bay Rays,
and works extensively with the military. He is active in the world of
charity fundraising and sits on 11 boards for nonprofit organizations.
Dick Crippen