Actor Ken Howard, the strapping, versatile character actor who starred in the 1970s television drama “The White Shadow” and served as president of SAG-AFTRA, has died at age 71.
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When his son, Joe Garagiola Jr., was general manager of the Diamondbacks, Garagiola Sr. became a part-time color analyst.
My generation, especially those who followed baseball as kids, will pause and sigh.
Mr. Garagiola, who was near the end of his playing career, had been looking for a radio job in St. Louis.
“Not only was I not the best catcher in the major leagues, I wasn’t even the best catcher on my street”, Mr. Garagiola often said.
FILE – In this May 31, 2003, file photo, baseball Hall-of-Famers Joe Garagiola, left, and Yogi Berra share a moment after throwing out the first pitch before a game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals, in St. Louis. Download the new Sports Illustrated app (iOS or Android) and personalize your experience by following your favorite teams and SI writers.
“These guys – the Phil Rizzutos, the Dizzy Deans, the Pee Wee Reeses – they can talk about baseball from the star’s point of view”, he said. “I wobble a little bit”. But watching or listening to him espouse his beliefs made many of us wiser. His finest hour as a player probably came at the outset of his career, when, at 20, he started at catcher and batted. He spent 27 years at NBC and was paired with Tony Kubek as the lead broadcast team from 1976-82 and then with Vin Scully from 1984-88.
Garagiola called several World Series for NBC radio beginning in 1963 and replaced Mel Allen on Yankees broadcasts from ’65 to ’67, but it was in the ’70s that he became one of the omnipresent voices of the game. It’s about the game and the people who put on the uniforms, ” he told Arizona Republic columnist E.J. Montini in 2007. He was the 2014 Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient and 1991 Ford C. Frick Award victor.
Here’s a story about Garagiola by The Associated Press that was published on February 21, 2013, when he retired.
“The Baseball World of Joe Garagiola”, an NBC pregame show, won a Peabody Award in 1973.
In 1968 Garagiola served as replacement host on the Tonight Show for Johnny Carson. He also dabbled as a game show host for shows such as He Said, She Said, Joe Garagiola’s Memory Game, Sale of the Century, and To Tell the Truth. From 1995 to 2002, he hosted USA Network’s coverage of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, offering layman analysis that actor Fred Willard studied for his role in the comedy Best in Show (2000).
“I don’t deserve a lot of things that have happened to me”, he said, “but I remember Jack Benny saying he had arthritis, he didn’t deserve that, either”. Edwin Johnson of Colorado, chairman of the subcommittee on monopolies, “sponsored a bill to make corporate ownership of baseball teams illegal and was targeting one of Garagiola’s former teams, the St. Louis Cardinals, who were owned by the Anheuser-Busch brewery”. The rookie catcher would win a World Series ring with his hometown team that very season.
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“It was a dream every kid has, to be in the Series”, Me.
