Broadcast Voice Gowdy Loved Radio

Curt Gowdy died Monday at age 86.
The Washington Post described him as “among the last of the great baseball announcers to work in radio.” It quoted him on working in the medium. Regarding his first broadcast, covering a high-school football game: “I asked the coaches for the team rosters, but they didn’t have them. … The next thing I knew, the whistle blew and the game had started. I ended up making up the whole game and all the names of the players. I used names of players I played basketball with and guys who were with me in the Air Force.”
He told the Los Angeles Times in 1972 that radio play-by-play was “the most fulfilling job in sports. You’re like a wild bird. You can just take off and soar. You can talk about the weather or the fat lady in the stands. You can paint a picture of that game. You’re not chained to a monitor or a big crew. It’s you and your ad-lib ability and a pencil and a scoreboard.”