Remembering a Sportscasting Legend

Bob Wolff, whose sportscasting career spanned Babe Ruth to Aaron Judge, passed away Saturday at age 96. Run those bookends through your mind one more time to gauge his durability and productivity.
Thoughtful, energetic and insightful, he made his mark in four sports -- landing in the broadcasters' wing of two Halls of Fame, baseball and basketball. He also excelled in football and hockey, painting the word picture of classic games. The native New Yorker interviewed the Babe as a young broadcaster, spent 15 years with the Griffith family's Washington Senators and Minnesota Twins, and decades more associated with Madison Square Garden, as a voice of the Knicks, Rangers and the Westminster Kennel Club dog show. If you grew up in New York, his voice seemed to be part of the landscape. As good and consistent as he was, three of Bob's broadcasts rise above his thousands of others:

  • The network radio call of Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series. A former collegiate ballplayer at Duke before a broken ankle landed him before the microphone, Bob often spoke about "pitching that ninth inning along with Don," without falling into the trap of being a homer or allowing his broadcast to outshine the event.
  • The Baltimore radio call of the Colts 1958 overtime victory for the NFL championship. "Ameche scores!," in what many consider the greatest game ever played.
  • The New York Knicks telecast on November 28th, 1969, when the team rallied from six points down with 16 seconds left to defeat Bob Cousy's Cincinnati Royals.
An equally enduring part of his legacy are a treasure trove of interviews he recorded with icons such as Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Jackie Robinson. Bob donated them to the Library of Congress in 2012, where the tapes have been digitized to be preserved forever.

Bob didn't ride off into the sunset at 65 or 70. He remained active into 2017, delivering sports commentaries for suburban New York's News 12 cable channel.

After listening to his work for decades, I had the honor of meeting Bob for the first time in 2011, when he published Bob Wolff's Complete Guide to Sportscasting. Our paths crossed several times since, including Yankee Old Timers Day, where he provided play-by-play for fans on the stadium's in-house audio system. 

When I interviewed him in 2011, he told me, "I've often thought, 'What is that we do to make a living?' Well, just to have fun, because sportscasting is fun." For 78 years, Bob Wolff had fun -- not only for himself but for millions of listeners and viewers with whom he shared countless magical moments.

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