I don’t get star struck.
Once you’ve been in the radio industry for awhile, you assume you’re going to meet or talk to a lot of famous people.
I’ve met Presidents, television and movie stars, famous chefs, even a man who dresses as a chicken mcnugget for a living. None of that really phases me. Except for maybe the chicken guy.
But when we had Bob Gibson on the air a few weeks ago, I have to say, nostalgia got the better of me.
When my dad was a kid, before the Royals made their way into the hearts of Kansas City, the Cardinals were the team. Sure, a few folks rooted for the A’s. But let’s face it, the tradition of the St. Louis ball club spread well beyond the borders of the city with the arch. So it should make sense when I tell you that I was literally put to bed as a child with stories of Tim McCarver, Lou Brock and the great Bob Gibson.
My dad grew up without a father. The circumstances surrounding that are private, but when it came to learning how to be a man, dad had to find other heroes to look up to. One of those heroes was Gibson. He was hard-nosed on the mound, with a competitive streak rarely matched by the players in the game today. And off the field, as his interview with KMBZ indicated, he was and is the picture of the true gentleman. He speaks with wisdom without coming off as arrogant.
For me, the mystique that surrounds the game of baseball begins with those stories of Bob Gibson and the Cardinals of the 1960’s. I think my love for the game, at its deepest measure, comes from the passion with which my father described those teams.
It was radio, and the broadcasts of Harry Caray and Jack Buck that caused Dad to fall in the love with the game. More than 40 years later, it was radio that brought his son closer to those memories.