Game Six Read Online Free PDF

Cardinals games as a broadcaster, Garagiola turned a mostly ghostwritten, humorously self-deprecating collection of anecdotes about his mediocre playing years into a surprise best seller, which he then parlayed into one of network television’s unlikeliest success stories. NBC signed him and brought him to New York, where he refined his folksy broadcast personality working as a game show host, moving up eventually to become cohost of the network’s long-running early morning flagship, The Today Show. Recently replaced after nine years on Today —and less than happy about what he perceived correctly as a demotion—the forty-nine-year-old Garagiola had returned to baseball broadcasting in 1975 on the network’s perennial Saturday Game of the Week.
    Belying his on-screen image as an enthusiastic, slightly goofy Everyman—a personality he shared in part with, and perhaps slightly shaded toward, his colorful childhood friend and teammate Yogi Berra, who had gone on to much bigger things as a player—away from the cameras Garagiola was better known for his sharp elbows and insecure ego. Marty Brennaman, who had worked World Series Games Three and Four in Cincinnati while sharing the booth with Garagiola, had tipped Stockton off that, although Tony Kubek had graciously worked him in throughout their broadcast, Garagiola had been less than welcoming, reacting to the addition of a third voice in the booth as a challenge to his turf. Stockton felt fairly certain that another good outing during the game tonight might lead to a network job, but if Garagiola froze him out that could jeopardize his chances. Stockton’s response, as it was to every adversity he faced, had been to double his intense preparation for Game Six.
    After buying a tie—black, with pumpkin-orange and white stripes—Stockton hurried on to Fenway Park for the network’s afternoon pregame meeting. Two long trailers tucked under the ancient right field bleachers near the players’ parking lot served as NBC’s broadcast and command center. Chet Simmons welcomed everyoneback to work, then stepped aside to let his creative and technical producers Scotty Connell and Roy Hammerman run the meeting, and they walked their team through the night’s featured story lines. Having already worked the first two games of the Series from Fenway, much of what they discussed was boilerplate stuff to the most experienced and professional baseball broadcast crew alive. Crew chief Harry Coyle, a laconic World War II bomber pilot, had directed every World Series broadcast for the network since 1947, and these were all his handpicked guys. He spoke only occasionally, chain-smoking brown cheroots, but he got a laugh when he reminded veteran cameraman Lou Gerard that he’d drawn the short straw again and would be working the lonely camera position behind a hole they’d found in the scoreboard on Fenway’s signature left field wall, the Green Monster.
    Stockton walked out onto the field after the meeting and caught up with Tony Kubek as the grounds crew rolled out the batting cage. The tall, striking, square-jawed former shortstop, only thirty-nine but ten years retired from the game, still looked fit enough to suit up and play. Stockton mentioned that for the last two days the mood around press headquarters at the downtown Statler Hilton had been spiraling toward indifference about this Series, and he wondered if the players would be similarly deflated by the layoff. Kubek looked out at the first players who were trickling onto the field for early stretching and warm-ups.
    “In 1962, we flew back out to San Francisco for Game Six with a three-to-two lead, just like Cincinnati has here. Rained for three straight days out there. Ballplayers are creatures of habit; during the season every minute is scheduled and regulated. Something like that breaks up your routine, it’s unnatural, makes you deeply uneasy. It got to the point where everybody just wanted to get it over with and go