AUDIO - Ned Martin and Curt Gowdy call the 12th inning of Game 6 in 1975

TDFenway

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Aug 21, 2016
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@jacklamabe65 - This post is dedicated to you.

Ned Martin and Curt Gowdy calling the 12th inning of Game 6 in 1975 on NBC Radio and the quality is pristine.




NBC in New York decided to move the broadcast to FM so Cousin Brucie could do his thing on WNBC-AM. The entire game is available but I have it cued to the top of the 12th.


Before the game started something of note happened and I have cued the clip.

The scheduled singer for the anthem Kate Smith was unable to make it to Fenway and the Red Sox asked organist John Kiley if he knew anybody who could cover. Kiley called a student at the nearby New England Conservatory of Music to get to Fenway Park. The student who was not a sports fan said how do I get there and Kiley said to take the T to Kenmore and follow the crowd.




He was then invited to sing at a Bruins game and kept the gig for 42 years :)
 
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jacklamabe65

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@jacklamabe65 - This post is dedicated to you.

Ned Martin and Curt Gowdy calling the 12th inning of Game 6 in 1975 on NBC Radio and the quality is pristine.

View: https://youtu.be/23oNTo38Tyg?t=14920

View: https://youtu.be/23oNTo38Tyg?t=14858



NBC in New York decided to move the broadcast to FM so Cousin Brucie could do his thing on WNBC-AM. The entire game is available but I have it cued to the top of the 12th.


Before the game started something of note happened and I have cued the clip.

The scheduled singer for the anthem Kate Smith was unable to make it to Fenway and the Red Sox asked organist John Kiley if he knew anybody who could cover. Kiley called a student at nearby Berklee College of Music to get to Fenway Park. The student who was not a sports fan said how do I get there and Kiley said to take the T to Kenmore and follow the crowd.

View: https://youtu.be/23oNTo38Tyg?t=894


He was then invited to sing at a Bruins game and kept the gig for 42 years :)
Thank you so much, my friend. Nedly and Curt again. Mercy.
 

Al Zarilla

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Dec 8, 2005
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That is cool. I forgot that Rick Wise pitched the top of the 12th of that game 6 and picked up the win. He was also the starter and winner in the game 3 clincher of the ALCS (best 3 of 5!), a game I attended in Oakland.
 

RG33

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Nov 28, 2005
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Fisk’s home run is at the 4:24:20 mark or so for the record. Thanks for sharing this.
 

bankshot1

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Feb 12, 2003
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Listening to Gowdy and Martin, the voices of my Sox youth, doing the call, and not heard in years, was awesome.

And I got goosebumps at 4:24:20

thanks for posting
 

Otis Foster

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Jul 18, 2005
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The memories come rushing back, hearing those voices from long ago - "one of the greatest World Series games of all times" - what an understatement! I was in the third base grandstand, craning my neck to follow the flight of the ball as it disappeared in the clouds of mist and smoke, an amalgam of tobacco and humidity, Fisk waving it fair, the park exploding. We drove home to NH through Audubon Circle, and people were hanging out windows and dancing on the roof of their apartment house. I never got to sleep that night, and still 47 years later,, can replay the high points of this game in my mind.
 
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RoDaddy

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Thank you so much, my friend. Nedly and Curt again. Mercy.
Mercy is right! I have no memory of them teaming up for this game - what a treat to hear them together again - but my earliest memories of listening to the Sox were the two of them along with someone named Art Gleason
 

jaytftwofive

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Jan 20, 2013
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Drexel Hill Pa.
This was Curt's last play by play game for NBC on radio. Game 7 would be his last of course for TV play by play. I was reading tonight on Curt's bio that officially he was fired because Chrysler demanded Joe Garagiola replace Curt because he was......."The better voice". We know that's B.S. It was because he criticized the Umps for the Armbrister/ Fisk no call. Great memories though. I was a senior in high school and after Doyle got thrown out at the plate I got upset and went up to my bedroom and watched it on my little black and white TV. I fell asleep and my Dad told me they won but I don't remember him telling me or the home run. A big regret but a happy ending at least till Game 7.
 
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TDFenway

New Member
Aug 21, 2016
53
The tape from Game 7 also exists but I will share only this - Sherm Feller introducing the 1975 Red Sox ( clip is cued )

View: https://youtu.be/ShJRb4bNexQ?t=510


Red Sox radio for the 1975 postseason was a disaster. The Red Sox ended their almost 30-year relationship with the old WHDH-AM (850) and gave the rights to WMEX starting with the postseason. Daytime games were not an issue but at night WMEX had a signal that was erratic. You could hear it fine in Newfoundland but not in West Newton. The NBC signal on WCOP was even worse at night. The games were also on FM but in 1975 most cars only had AM.



It is shameful that Ned Martin has not been honored in Cooperstown and I smiled when Ken Harrelson recalled Ned fondly when he was honored last year and made it clear that saying Mercy on the air was his way of honoring Ned.

He became a Marine in 1942 and wound up in one of the bloodiest battles of WWII

Martin enlisted in the US Marines in 1942, and later fought with the 4th Marine Division at the Battle of Iwo Jima in February 1945. “I’m not one of the guys you see raising the flag. I don’t think we were there thirty minutes before we came upon a shell-hole. I looked in and saw it filled with dead Marines; I mean blown-up Marines, with entrails and … oh God, I’d never seen anything like that before. Then I started looking around and pretty soon death got so common.”

On Day 26 of the campaign they rejoiced when word of US victory came. Martin rejoiced, “The flag was flying on Mount Suribachi—our flag! What a feeling!”


https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/ned-martin

For us older fans the 5 years Ned and Jim Woods did radio (1974-1978) was as good as it gets.

@jacklamabe65 There isn't much out there of the Martin/Woods era except the last game they ever did before both were fired the next day by WITS. The quality is so-so but that was the nature of telco lines in the 70's. This tape was recorded off a station in IOWA that picked up the WITS feed.- Yes it is painful to listen to but it documents how good they were.

View: https://youtu.be/y0VGRUM9AJA


What prompted the firing happened a year earlier. WITS had a promotion called the 'Home Run Inning' and every Red Sox batter in that inning could win a Plymouth Volare for a listener selected for each batter. Usually, Woods did it in the 4th of 5th inning and if a homer was hit Woods milked it- ALICE SMITH FROM ABINGTON YOU'VE WON A VOLARIE. Ned was bemused by it and on a Friday night in 1977 Woods declared the FIRST inning would be the Home Run Inning and Ned would do it. WITS signed off on it figuring Catfish Hunter was starting for NYY - what could go wrong :)

RED SOX 1ST: Burleson homered; Lynn homered; into Red Sox
bullpen; Rice struck out; Yastrzemski popped to shortstop;
Fisk homered; Scott homered; CLAY REPLACED HUNTER (PITCHING);
Carbo flied out to center; 4 R, 4 H, 0 E, 0 LOB. Yankees 0, Red
Sox 4.
 
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ledsox

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Nov 14, 2005
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Great to hear these. Agree on Woods and Martin, the best! Thanks for the posts.
 

TDFenway

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Aug 21, 2016
53
Hard to believe Joe Castiglione is in his 40th season and exclusively on radio.

Joe replaced Jon Miller who left to take the Orioles and WPLM which owned the rights was looking at a cheap replacement. Joe was not well received at first as Miller was very popular.

WPLM held on to the contract until 1989 and then WRKO took over and promised to upgrade the broadcast. Everybody including Joe thought he was finished but instead, it was Ken Coleman who was not retained and former Pats announcer Bob Starr was hired.
 

lexrageorge

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Jul 31, 2007
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Hard to believe Joe Castiglione is in his 40th season and exclusively on radio.

Joe replaced Jon Miller who left to take the Orioles and WPLM which owned the rights was looking at a cheap replacement. Joe was not well received at first as Miller was very popular.

WPLM held on to the contract until 1989 and then WRKO took over and promised to upgrade the broadcast. Everybody including Joe thought he was finished but instead, it was Ken Coleman who was not retained and former Pats announcer Bob Starr was hired.
Castiglione has some interesting connections to past Sox greats in the broadcast booth.

As noted, Ken Coleman was his broadcast partner for a number of years. Coleman worked on the TV broadcasts with Ned Martin until 1971, and subsequently with Johnny Pesky until the pair was replaced with Dick Stockton and Ken Harrelson in 1975 (not my favorite pairing, btw).

Castiglione also taught the sports broadcasting course at Northeastern; one of his students and eventual interns was none other than Don Orsillo.
 

BaseballJones

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Oct 1, 2015
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That was so cool to listen to. Classic Red Sox though - had bases loaded with nobody out in the bottom of the ninth and, as they pointed out, "failed to score". Ugh. But it allowed for the dramatic Fisk homer so it's all good.
 

Jim Burton

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Thanks for that. I'm still listening to the postgame. The next game was not the best for my namesake. He had given me tickets for game 7, and Carbo's homer, then Fisk's, had my 15 year old self jumping for joy.