No One Called A Game Like Red Rush

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: No one called a game like Red Rush : Rush made Loyola hoops a can't-miss experience in '60s : COMMENTARY BY DAN McGRATH : January 18, 2009 : I'm not sure I would have earned better grades if I hadn't insisted on doing my homework while listening to Red Rush call Loyola Ramblers games, but it's probably one of the lamer excuses I offered my frowning mother. : Latin and geometry were hard enough to comprehend when they weren't competing with mental images of Sir Walter Robertson's tattoo dribble across the time line, Corky Bell ringing the bell with a jumper from the corner or Ajax Tillman going high in the sky to scrape a rebound off the iron. : Red brought Loyola basketball to life for us. To paraphrase colleague Phil Hersh, his colorful, imaginative calls enabled us to see the game on the radio. : All of it, of course, on behalf of Gonnella bread. : Years later I crossed paths with Red when I was a fledgling baseball writer and he was calling Oakland A's games for Charlie Finley in the Bay Area. He was still a larger-than-life presence in my memory, and I approached him with some trepidation, fearful, perhaps, that the real guy would not live up to an idealized version. : No worries. Red could not have been nicer, as interesting and fun to be around in person as he had been on the radio, although he probably made me for some kind of idiot savant with my scary recall of mid-1960s Loyola basketball. : The news of Red's death in California at 81 last week brought back a lot of memories. : "A terrific guy who made everyone feel welcome," said my friend John Hillyer, a longtime Chicago writer who relocated to the Bay Area and knew Red in both places. : The A's teams Red broadcast were light-years removed from their Jackson-Hunter-Bando forebears. Finley had lost interest and was running them on a shoestring while searching for a real buyer, not some "big hat, no cattle" speculator. Meanwhile, the team deteriorated into laughable incompetence, known as the Boat People of Baseball. : But Red didn't care, or he didn't notice. To him, and his small but hardy audience, Mickey Klutts might as well have been Jerry Harkness. : "Red was honest and a great salesman," Hillyer said. "He knew his job was to create enthusiasm and sell the team. He was very good at that." : One reason Chicago is a great sports town is the perceptions created by the people who are our strongest links to the teams: the announcers. Harry Caray and his "voice of the fan" approach is the best-known example, but not the best: While Harry was warbling away in St. Louis, Jack Brickhouse and Jack Quinlan were performing the impossible�making truly terrible Cubs teams sound interesting. : In addition to being a great broadcaster, Quinlan was just plain funny: "Nice play, Frank, it's over your head. Two runs will score." : It continues today. Is there a more pleasant driving companion than Pat Hughes' radio call of a Cubs game? Ken Harrelson's unabashed homerism is a tad annoying if you're not as into the White Sox as he is, but does anyone doubt that the Hawkeroo cares? : And how about his new partner? Steve Stone approaches baseball with "I invented it" self-assurance, but does anyone know the game or break it down better? Bob Brenly, maybe? : A good broadcaster is a salesman, all right. But he's also an educator. : Just like Red Rush. : Thanks, Red. It was always fun. : : (Chicago Tribune)

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