Tuesday, July 8, 2008

The beauty of basketball on the radio

A friend of mine emailed me a link to a post on Monday about listening to the Yankees-Red Sox game on an old transistor radio the other night.  It's a pretty touching story about a father bonding with his son while listening to a ballgame.

Growing up in San Diego, I used to listen to every Lakers game on the radio.  I loved listening to Chick Hearn while I studied the stats on the back of my basketball cards.   On many nights, my Dad would sit and quiz me on the stats.

I'm not sure that my kids have ever listened to a game on the radio.  With ESPN, TNT, NBA TV, NFL Network, etc., there's almost always a game on.  And that's fine -- I like having video to go along with the audio, too.

But back then, the Lakers game was only available via tape at 11 p.m., so radio was the only option if you wanted to catch it live.  Besides, there's something to be said for painting the picture in your mind of what's happening on the court or field as the play-by-play announcer describes the action.