The end of a Baseball Broadcasting Era…

Pete Van Wieren died this weekend at the age of 69.  To many fans who listened to him on WSB-AM radio or watched him on WTBS back in the 1980s, he, alongside Skip Caray & Ernie Johnson Sr., formed the heart of the Atlanta Braves’ broadcasting team from the mid 1970s through 1989.  This trio was considered to be among the best in the game.  Ernie was the storyteller, Skip had the quick wit, and Pete was “The Professor”.  Now they are all gone.

All three should be enshrined in Cooperstown next year or soon.  Without these three who transitioned seamlessly for radio to TV and vice versa on a nightly basis for over a decade, baseball might have never graduated from a radio-only sport.  Yes, NBC had a Saturday Game of the Week, and ABC had a Monday night game for a time, but without the innovation of Ted Turner to show all 162 regular season games on TV of one MLB team, I don’t think we would have seen the proliferation of Region Sports Networks.  And you can largely thank Ernie, Skip, and Pete for that. 

There may have been announcing teams that could match the Braves trio.  Marty Brennaman and Joe Nuxall come to mind on WLW in Cincinnati.  Harry Caray & Steve Stone working Cubs games for WGN were another dynamic duo.  Ernie Harwell and Paul Carey on WJR in Detroit.  Jack Buck and Mike Shannon on KMOX in St. Louis.  And Vin Scully in Los Angeles is still his own one-man band, covering Dodger baseball since the Brooklyn days when Jackie Robinson was still playing…

But Ernie, Skip, and Pete were the first to make the transition to TV on a nightly basis, and no one could transition smoothly from a loss to the TBS late night movie like they could.  John Sterling, the current voice of the New York Yankees, knows this firsthand.  He worked with the trio covering Braves games in the mid-1980s.

A couple of years ago, I visited Atlanta and caught a Braves game on radio, listening to the current “deans” of Braves’ broadcasters, Joe Simpson & Don Sutton.  My dad hates these two announcers, and I could understand why.  They were good back in the 1990s when they teamed with Skip and Pete.  Now?  They try to be a comedy act more than calling the game.  Ernie, Skip, and Pete knew how to struck the balance.

Today, Ernie Johnson’s son, Ernie Jr., works with the NBA & the NCAA tournament on TNT Sports.  Skip’s son Chip works as a Braves’ Broadcaster, just like his father & grandfather before him.  Ernie Jr. is more showman than his dad was.  Chip seems to have found a nice niche after a show stint as host of Fox’s Saturday Baseball.  The shadows of their ancestor’s still loom large over them, but they are finding their own way.

Ernie Sr., Skip, and Pete may be gone, but they will never be forgotten.  It is my hope that when John Smoltz goes into the Baseball Hall of Fame next year, he won’t be the only long-time Atlanta Brave going into Cooperstown… Time to honor three Broadcasting pioneers posthumously.