I Loved Budweiser
Songs, that is. I loved Budweiser songs.
It was 1967-68, and I went to bed most evenings those summers listening to Harry Caray and Jack Buck on KMOX, broadcasting the games of the St. Louis Cardinals.
My brother and I would go down to our bedroom in the basement, turn on the transistor radio, and fade off listening to those magical voices. And the Budweiser songs, of course. I’m not even sure we knew they were advertising beer. They were just the songs of the Cardinals.
Some people like to fall asleep to complete silence. Me? I’ve always liked a little noise — especially the sound of a ballgame. I think it goes back to 617 Reid Road in Neosho and the voices of Caray and Buck.
How about you? What do you remember falling asleep to? Music? TV? Radio?
In high school I would fall asleep to music, mostly rock & metal. Of course I would also wake up when the cassette tape finished, but I usually fell right back asleep. In college, my roommate & I had REO Speedwagon’s Greatest Hits on CD and used the repeat button. Now I mostly sleep with earplugs in so I don’t have to listen to snoring, but I’m considering getting a white noise machine!
In this muli-multi-media age, the beauty of listening to a baseball game on the radio is a rare delicacy. When I tried to explain this to my twenty-something son, he looked at me the same way he did when I told him that I grew up with a 12″ black-and-white TV with no remote control – somewhere between amused and perplexed. Among other things, some of the fondest memories of my childhood growing up in rural Indiana were getting together with my younger brother around a small transistor radio and listening to the golden tones of Marty Brennaman and the old lefty Joe Nuxhall as they called the Cincinnati Reds games on WLW. The beauty of listening on the radio was using my mind to create the picture of what was happening on the field as described by this hall of fame duo. And to hear such lines as “this one belongs to the Reds” or “rounding third and heading for home” would bring such a sense of inexplicable joy that continues to marinate my heart to this day. Strange that listening to a baseball game on the radio could bring such a reaction, but the connection that my brother and I felt was indescribible. And I can’t hear a Marathon commercial – either on radio or television – without thinking of those warm summer nights huddled around the radio to “see” the best part of hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet.
JamesD:
Where is your blog? I’d love to read what you think is “useful”, especially since what you wrote above certainly isn’t.
I remember falling to sleep listening to the big attic fan in the living room–before we got a/c. Now, every night, I fall asleep to a box fan.
Has there ever been a better broadcast combo than that one? Wow! Listening to two legends every day and night. I know why you remember them so well.
I too listened to Harry and Jack quite a bit. But in my teenage years I used to put on a BTO record on my stereo record player (yes, they had those back then) and fall asleep to “Takin’ Care of Business” and “Let it Ride.”
I was always a Coor’s man, especially after Bob Lilly bought the Waco distributorship and appeared on the cover of Texas Monthly “pouring a cold one!”
I now can hardly wait for lunch, and it is only 9:15!
It was listening to Vin and Jerry…with the opening….It’s a beautiful day at the ballgame…..life was simple then. Of course Vin was and is Vin…now Jerry….It’s a long fly ball to deep left center field…back….back…..back….Davis catches it shy of the warning track. No depth perception for Mr. Doggett. We rode around town in the back of our pickup, though Dad made us stay off the hump. Remember getting a nail in my foot playing backyard baseball barefoot. How we could get 12 people in the backyard in Long Beach is beyond me. Oh nobody liked to hit a home run because you had to go get the ball from the Cemetery and they had wild dogs and shot you with rock salt or at least that was the legend.
I fell asleep at night to natural violins and the Three Tenors, also known as Crickets and the Budweiser Frogs.
Silence, eh? I need(ed) silence to fall asleep…
Even though I was raised a Yankee fan, when I was about twelve I descovered that I could pick up the Texas games in Memphis at night on my radio. I listened to every game for a year or two, and drifted off to sleep listening to the games. There was this teenage pitcher who joined the Rangers right out of high school. He got a SI cover, but never amounted to much. I remember wanting him to make it so bad after I read the article about him. Could someone help me out with a name?
Still go to sleep watching old black and white “Perry Mason” reruns.
RC,
His name is David Clyde, and I think there may be an article about him and some other “straight-to-the-majors”pitchers in this week’s issue of Sports Illustrated.
I remember falling asleep on a youth group trip with Led Zeppelin in my headphones (pre-iPod era) and having some very strange dreams. Possibly involving Jimmy Page and the Maytag repairman. It kinda freaked me out.
Charles S.
Thanks so much. His name has been on the tip of my tongue all day. Thanks also for the heads up on the SI article.
While I’m currently a sound machine & earplugs kind of gal, the best naps of all time are taken when my mom & dad watch football games. My mom, a Corpus Christi native, married a handsome Yankee Bible student while at ACU and has spent her entire adult life away from her beloved TEXAS (and Dallas Cowboys and A&M Aggies).
No one gets more excited during a football game than my mom, and you can be in another room of the house and still know exactly how her team is doing. Much to Mom’s consternation, neither of her daughters like football, and she is absolutely *bewildered* when we fall asleep to the sounds of the game once the nachos & popcorn are gone!
Do you remember Neale Pryor preaching right there in College Church that if he drank beer, he’d drink Busch Bavarian Beer – because of its jingle?
I used to listen to WLS from Chicago while falling asleep. I thought it was so cool to be in south Alabama listening to something from so far away!
When that didn’t work, I listened to my 8-track of Willie Nelson’s “Red Headed Stranger” — the 4th track in particular.
Like Matt Elliott, I listened to “DoubleU-L-Ssss…In Chi-caa-go” in the dark before falling asleep. That, & hearing my Dad in the den laughing at something Johnny Carson said on “The Tonight Show”. Oh, and the train’s whistle…..
I grew up outside of St. Louis listening to Harry Carey call for the Cardinals during the late 60’s. One of my favorite memories however was the 1985 I-70 World Series, which is why now that I live in Kansas, I can never be a Royals fan. But my father, the son of a Preacher from NE Arkansas would never root for the Cardinals and promised never to spend a dime with that “guzzler Auggie Bush.” We often argued about Christians and alcohol, so I find great irony that he died of cirrhosis of the liver while never partaking.
I was too young and naive to understand why Harry Carey was fired in 1969. I had other concerns like my brother being sent to Vietnam and a nasty car wreck with a drunk driver. It was many years later that I heard the story of how he had an affair with Bush’s daughter in law. So after bouncing around with the White Sox, Harry Caray became the voice of the Cubs. By that time, Auggie found out that marriages come and go but drinking buddies remain. Harry was now known as a “Bud Man and a Cubs fan.” His drunken seventh inning renditions of “take me out to the ball game” and “Holy Cow” became legendary.
Tonight even the seagulls got into the act of sabotaging the Kansas City Royals as they lost to the Tribe. Their annual self-destruction must be payback for Don Denkinger stealing game six of the 85 series from the Red Birds.
I came along later, so I missed Caray when he was with the Cards, but Jack Buck, Bob Starr and Mike Shannon helped raise me back in the late 70′s. I fell asleep to the Scoreboard or the Star of the Game interview.
I tried going to sleep listening my Motorhead, Metallica, AC/DC, and Motley Crue cassettes…the funny thing is, they never put me to sleep (imagine that) but only caused me to make enough noise that my mother would come and confiscate my little “boom-box.”
Grace and peace,
K. Rex Butts
In Germantown, it was the trains coming down the tracks about 100 yards from our house. That and the Whippor-wills.
In Africa, all of the hundreds of sounds in the African night. That and the rain on the tin roof during rainy season.
Everywhere else, some record on the Hi-Fi Stereo or the opening music to Johnny Carson.
Many the night I drifted off listening to DJ “John R the Hoss Man” on WLAC, Nashville, Tennessee, under the covers with the earphone(mono). Listened to R&B artists, not heard on the local stations, eg Albert King.
Irrigation motors
Wow! Guess I’m all by myself on this one. My go to sleep music has always been and still is the classical genre. However, guess my redeeming memory is of listening to the World Series via transistor radio – I’ve even been known to have taken sick days in order to hear the Series. For shame, for shame. lol
Merle, back in the day; these days, Mark Levin!
qb