It was after Joe Garagiola stopped playing pro baseball that his fortunes took off.
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Joe Garagiola, who turned a lackluster professional baseball career into a star turn in the broadcast booth, on the set of the “Today Show” and in a variety of ads for everything from Doan’s Pills to the Dodge Dart (“I own a Dart!”), died yesterday at 90 in Scottdale, Ariz., where he lived.
It all started, as so few broadcasting careers do, with an appearance in the U.S. Congress. Per The New York Times’ favorable review of the book, by that time, Garagiola had “made a new reputation in sports broadcasting, as a dinner speaker and as a general raconteur”.
The committee chairman, Sen.
Garagiola had a modest pro career and still holds a record for youngest catcher to drive in runs in a game in a World Series- set back in 1946. In the end, he is someone who will be remembered and will have a place in baseball history.
“‘Senator, how can you tamper with a. 250 hitter?’ Garagiola said”.
He also was co-host of the Today Show from 1967 to 1973 and again from 1990 to 1992, and did some guest stints as host of Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show”.
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.
Little Rock construction executive Jack Pickens, the Hall of Fame’s first president, was a friend of Garagiola’s and arranged for him to be the first master of ceremonies, according to the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame website. But baseball wasn’t his only broadcasting talent. “Instead of saying, ‘A runner nearly slid into the shortstop, ‘ Joe’d say, ‘He nearly stapled him to the bag'”. It’s no easy task for most people, but Garagiola is one of the individuals who make it seem like the transition would be easy.
As he had done in his congressional testimony years before, he continued to find humor in his own foibles. “The older I get, the more I realize that the worst break I had was playing”.
Joseph Henry Garagiola was born in St. Louis on February 12, 1926, and was raised on the Hill, an Italian working-class neighborhood, where his father, Giovanni, was an immigrant laborer. “He said of Berra: ‘Not only was I not the best catcher in the Major Leagues, I wasn’t even the best catcher on my street!'” In 1951 he was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates. “His impact on the game, both on and off the field, will forever be felt”. As he told Smith, “I used to sit in the bullpen and say, ‘Why the hell doesn’t he throw the curveball?’ Well, all I had to do to become an announcer was take out the ‘hell'”. He began his broadcasting career by calling Cardinals games on the radio. He later did play-by-play on NBC’s weekly ballgame. The team marked Garagiola’s passing, in this tweet. He and Berra, who died September 15, were lifelong friends, with Berra often the subject of Garagiola’s wit.
As rough as Garagiola could be on umpires during selected Diamondbacks’ telecasts, he’s also made a point of stating that he was defending the Diamondbacks because his son, Joe Jr., was the general manager. “My prayers are with Joe’s wife Audrie, their three children and eight grandchildren during this hard time“. In the late 1960s and early ’70s, he worked with Barbara Walters, Hugh Downs and Frank McGee, and in the early 1990s he appeared with Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel. He co-hosted the “Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show” for USA Network from 1994 to 2002. Mr. Garagiola was not amused. “I thought I was modeling uniforms for the National League”. He served baseball as a leader in the fight against smokeless tobacco… traveling to each major league camp during spring training to educate players about the dangers of tobacco and oral cancer.
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In 2013, he received the Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award by the Hall of Fame for his contributions to the game.
