Let's Play Ball!

Talk of the Nation host Neal Conan talks about his love of baseball
Edited by Mary Eileen O'Connor

With baseball season now in full swing, Neal Conan, host of Talk of the Nation, heard weekdays at 2 p.m. on WHYY 91FM, talks about one of his favorite pastimes:

Conan discovered the game of baseball through the earpiece of a cat's hair whisker radio that was broadcasting the voice of the New York Yankees. The year was 1956. Conan was six years old and had received the build-it-yourself crystal set as a present. He could only tune in certain parts of the AM dial, but the signal from Yankee Stadium came in strong, and he was hooked. It is the first year he remembers caring about the World Series. He played baseball all the time in the neighborhood. As he puts it, "the game was everywhere."

Just as baseball emerged through radio in Conan's childhood, it was again through radio that he immersed himself in the game later in life. During the summer of 2000, he took a leave of absence from National Public Radio to become the play-by-play announcer for the Aberdeen Arsenal, a professional baseball team associated with the independent Atlantic League and based in Aberdeen, Maryland.

Why did he do it? In addition to being a lifelong fan of the game, Conan candidly explains that he was a little bored with himself and needed a challenge. Although he recognizes that he didn't stray too far afield (no pun intended) as he moved from radio studio to announcer's booth, he found that his rookie season with the Arsenal brought him back to his early days in radio.

"Most of us get our starts at small stations -- at least I sure did -- where one of the great parts of radio is that you do it yourself. In a way, it was so nice to get back to schlepping my own equipment, being my own producer, and just getting back to an elemental level of radio," he remarks.

The Atlantic League could also be considered elemental. Uncorrupted by money, as many believe today's Major League to be, the independent Atlantic League is largely made up, according to Conan, of "the unlucky, the guys who are a step slow or a couple of miles per hour short on that fast ball. There are as many reasons why they continue to do it as there are guys in the league."

It could be that it's all that they know how to do, or maybe they just play for love of the game. For rookie announcer Neal Conan, it was clearly for love of the game. Doubling as announcer and anthropologist of unaffiliated baseball in 2000, Conan filed a series of commentaries for Morning Edition with Bob Edwards.

He explored the rhythm of baseball, the social function of road trips, a team's batting slump and a historic stadium. As announcer, he traveled on the team bus, ate at fast- food restaurants, slept in roadside motels, and set the stage and called the action for 140 games, home and away.

His experiences are also recounted in his new book Play by Play: Baseball, Radio and Life in the Last Chance League.

Now back in his office at NPR, Conan subscribes to at least two baseball magazines, has run a baseball segment on Talk of the Nation and warmly admits that Mickey Mantle is still his hero.

Talk of the Nation with Neal Conan airs weekdays at 2 p.m. on WHYY 91FM.

Read On
In his new book Play by Play: Baseball, Radio and Life in the Last Chance League, Neal Conan shares his passion for the game and relates the story of his summer as a baseball announcer. Here are some additional titles that explore not only baseball history, but also the profound affect this simple game has had on people's lives. -- Mary Eileen O'Connor

Eight Men Out by Eliot Asinof
Wait Till Next Year by Doris Kearns Goodwin
For Love of the Game by Michael Shaara
Baseball: An Illustrated History by Geoffrey C. Ward
Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball by George Will