Gil Santos "retiring"

[Howard Glazer]

----- Original Message -----
From: Kevin Vahey <kvahey@comcast.net>
To: Roger Kirk <rogerkirk@ttlc.net>
Cc: (newsgroup) Boston-Radio-Interest
<boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 7:27 PM
Subject: Re: Gil Santos "retiring"


> Sadly it is basic stuff like what down and yards to go he is getting
> wrong. Sometimes mis-calls what receiver was thrown to.
>
> Football you can not cover your tracks like you can in baseball as too
> much is happening.
>
> Curt Gowdy was a disaster when WHDH hired him to do the Pats and it
> was even worse when WBUR hired Ken Coleman to do football in the early
> 90's. Poor Ken kept calling BU Boston College.
>

It happens to just about everyone once they reach their 60s or 70s, whether
you talk for a living or not. Dick Stockton's work during the baseball
playoffs was painful to listen to, and he's definitely lost a step as an NFL
play-by-play man too. As with Santos, the voice is still there, but the
sharpness isn't.

Can radio or TV force out a senior play-by-play man who still has the pipes
but is not as quick on the uptake as he used to be without facing an age
discrimination complaint? I'm wonder if that's why so many play-by-play
announcers remain on-air into their 60s and 70s, even after their decline is
audibly under way.

Howard