Make a list of the greatest announcers in baseball history, and you could argue four men are at the very top: Mel Allen, Red Barber, Ernie Harwell, and Vin Scully.
Well, get this: What if there was a broadcaster who shared the booth with all of them, in succession?
And what if that man was from Toledo and a former voice of the Mud Hens?
I’m guessing you’d be interested, and I know I’d have a column idea.
Scully’s death this week at 94 evoked an outpouring of tributes the baseball world over, and justly so.
It also marked the end of a golden era of broadcasting, and, at least in Toledo — where we’re never more than six degrees removed — called to mind another notable commentator who was right in the middle of it.
A man who helped show Scully the way, then cleared the path for the young broadcaster’s big break on the national stage.
We’re talking about Connie Desmond.
Except to readers of a certain age — and fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1940s and ’50s — his story might be largely forgotten.
But Desmond’s place in history is secure, even if his demons prevented him from reaching the heights his talent would have taken him.
“I just remembering hearing stories about him,” said Jim Weber, the longtime voice of the Mud Hens. “He was one of the top broadcasters of his time.”
A 1931 graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Desmond got his start in his hometown, first introducing bands on WSPD-AM 1370, then as the play-by-play man for the Hens.
In the latter role, his warm, smooth voice and understated style proved a hit, and, in 1940, he moved on to broadcast the Columbus Red Birds, the top affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals.
That gig, in turn, caught the ear of the right people in New York, and so began Desmond’s remarkable rise. He spent the 1942 season working the New York Yankees and Giants with Allen, then landed a job with the Brooklyn Dodgers, where he worked with Barber (1943-53), Harwell (1948), and Scully (1950-56).
Yep, Allen. Barber. Harwell. Scully.
With respect to Murderer’s Row, there’s little doubt Desmond was part of the best lineup in New York history.
He was surrounded by greatness, and, by all accounts, he more than held his own. (“If you never heard the late Connie Desmond, you missed a great baseball broadcaster,” legendary Detroit writer Joe Falls wrote in the Sporting News.)
That included as something of a mentor to an English major fresh out of Fordham.
The kid — who was as callow as he was talented when he joined Barber and Desmond in the Dodgers’ booth in 1950 — would go on and do OK for himself.
Scully spent 67 seasons with the Dodgers and was on the call for many of the biggest moments in baseball history.
Don Larsen’s perfect game (“The greatest game ever pitched!”) Hank Aaron’s 715th homer (“A high drive into deep left center ... ”). Bill Buckner’s error (“A little roller up along first ... ”). Kirk Gibson’s blast (“She is ... gone!”)
Scully narrated all of them, just as he beautifully narrated all the hundreds of hours in between. I used to have the out-of-market MLB package and would tune into Dodgers games just to hear our pastime’s poet laureate spin yarns that would have been eloquent on paper, let alone off the top of his head.
Simply, he was the greatest to ever do it.
But before all that, he was but a rookie who looked up to the old pros. Scully recalled his four seasons with Barber and Desmond in a 2003 newspaper interview.
“That relationship boiled down to, and came out over the air as the father, Red Barber, the older brother, Connie Desmond, and the kid,” Scully said. “Whatever that relationship brought to the booth, it apparently came out over the air. Those people in Brooklyn who were exposed to it have told me that they don’t expect to ever hear anything like it again.”
The men treated each other like family, too.
Go back to the 1953 World Series between the Dodgers and Yankees.
It was custom at the time for the participating teams’ top announcers to work the series for network TV, meaning Allen (Yankees) would share a booth with Barber. But Barber got in a salary dispute with Gillette, the NBC sponsor that paid the broadcasters, and Desmond declined to take his place.
Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley recommended the young Scully.
“The first thing I did was check with Red and Connie to see if it was OK with them,” Scully told the Los Angeles Times. “I told them I was just a kid and could wait, that I wasn’t going to do it without their blessing.”
Both told him to do it.
“They said, ‘If you don’t do it, then somebody else will.’”
So, at age 25, Scully became the youngest broadcaster to broadcast the World Series, an honor that still stands. He proved a hit and the rest is more baseball history, even as he never forgot his roots.
Months before he passed in 1983, Desmond, then 74 and back in Toledo, sent Scully a Christmas note.
Scully replied, as detailed in The Blade:
Dear Connie,
Bless you for your thoughtful card and note. You are a major part of anything I do. After all, I had the two best teachers on each side of me, you and Red. Merry Christmas,
Vin
As for Desmond, his career never quite reached its potential. No matter that, as historian Ted Patterson wrote in his 2002 book, The Golden Voices of Baseball, many observers thought Desmond rivaled Barber in talent.
“Alcoholism plagued him throughout his career,” Patterson said.
O’Malley gave the popular announcer many chances as his struggles reportedly began to get in the way of his work, before dismissing Desmond for good in 1956.
Desmond later returned home, where he went back to calling the Hens.
It’s hard not to wonder what might have been.
But, today, we’ll stick with what was.
If Desmond is remembered for his place in baseball’s greatest booths and helping along the most towering broadcaster of them all, that’s no small legacy.
First Published August 5, 2022, 2:29 p.m.
