Three recent events have brought to mind the late Walter Lanier “Red” Barber.
Last month I watched with my grandchildren “42” a movie on Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier of major league baseball. On Aug. 2, legendary Los Angeles Dodgers baseball announcer Vin Scully died. Last Friday was the anniversary of the first live television broadcast of a Major League Baseball game in 1939.
Barber was the radio announcer for the Brooklyn Dodgers when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. All of the Brooklyn fans waited to see how the Mississippi born announcer would handle it.
He handled it by treating Robinson no differently than any other player. It was simply “Robinson at the plate” or “Robinson in the field”. Barber’s calls treated Robinson as an equal and the same as all the other players. That act from a native Mississippian, who was expected to oppose the entry of a Black man into the majors, helped bring Robinson acceptance from many fans.
For more than 60 years, Vin Scully was an announcer for Brooklyn and then Los Angeles Dodgers baseball games. The Hall of Fame announcer is recognized as one of the greatest baseball announcers of all time. He got his professional start when Barber, then head of the CBS Sports Radio Network, recruited him to announce college football games and later enabled him to become a Brooklyn Dodger announcer. Scully once said of Barber, “Red Barber was the most influential person in my broadcasting career.”
The first MLB game to be televised was the Brooklyn Dodgers playing the Cincinnati Reds on Aug. 26, 1939. The announcer who called the game was Red Barber.
Barber called play-by-play for Major League Baseball for more than 30 years, first for the Cincinnati Reds (1934-38), then the Brooklyn Dodgers (1939-53) and finally the New York Yankees (1954-66). He also called play by play in football for the New York Giants. From 1946 to 1955 he was sports director for the CBS Radio Network. His last radio program was with National Public Radio where during the Morning Edition program on Friday mornings, he would have a four-minute conversation with Bob Edwards. The program ran from 1981 until Barber’s death in 1992. It covered topics ranging from baseball to camellias.
In 1978 Barber and his former colleague Mel Allen were the first broadcasters to receive the Ford Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame. He is also in the National Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame and the National Radio Hall of Fame. He won a Peabody award for his NPR “Fridays with Red” broadcast. T.V. Guide named him the best sportscaster of the 1950s.
He may be best known for his use of southern phrases to describe events during a game. Some of my favorite include; “slicker than boiled okra” when a player couldn’t handle a ball, “rhubarb” for an argument or fight on the field, “walking in tall cotton” when things were going good and “sitting in the catbird seat” when a player or team was in a real good position.
About 45 years ago Barber, a lay reader in the Episcopal Church, came to Columbus to speak at St Paul’s. Karen and I went and for about an hour were transfixed with everyone else as Red with a magical voice wove stories and a message into a spellbinding evening. Red had returned home. He had been born in Columbus in 1908 and lived on Fourth Avenue North. At the intersection of Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street North there is a state historic marker honoring him.
He spent his first 10 years here. His father was an engineer with the Southern Railroad and his mother was a schoolteacher who had graduated from the W. At the end of World War I Barber’s father got a railroad job in Florida and the family moved there.
Barber’s coming here to speak especially to the youth of the church was in character for his whole life. Commenting on Barber, Vin Scully had also said, “He was demanding, but fair, deeply religious, highly principled, sensitive, and caring of others.” That was the Red Barber I heard speak. He was also the best speaker I have ever heard.
For those interested in Barber or just wanting a good read I would suggest Bob Edwards’ book Fridays with Red, A Radio Friendship, Simon & Schuster, 1993.
Rufus Ward is a local historian.
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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