Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 0:00
I'm Mike Koser, and this is Lost Ballparks, a podcast that takes you on a journey to the golden age of baseballs lost ballparks, as told by the players, broadcasters and fans who were there and who are here now to give detailed first hand accounts of what it was like to sit in the seats on a summer afternoon at Ebbets Field. What it was like to pitch at the Polo Grounds. Stand in the batter's box at Forbes field facing that beautiful outfield brick wall with Schenley Park in the distance. Broadcast from historic old Yankee Stadium. Walk through the gates at Comiskey Park with transistor radio in hand. Welcome to Lost Ballparks.

Red Barber (Radio Broadcast)  0:36
Join us now for another Brooklyn ball game. Here at Ebbets Field, Brooklyn, USA.

Mel Allen (Radio Broadcast) 0:40
Greetings baseball fans this is Mel Allen greeting you from Yankee Stadium in New York City.

Gene Osbourne (Radio Broadcast)  0:44
Hello everyone with Bob Prince and Nellie King, this is Gene Osbourne speaking to you from Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

(Radio Broadcast) 0:50  
Well friends here we are back at the Polo Grounds in New York City.

Ernie Harwell (Radio Broadcast) 0:53
We’re underway in the first of twi-night double header at Tiger Stadium.

(Radio Broadcast) :57
And it’s baseball here at Crosley Field.

Vin Scully (Radio Broadcast) 1:00
Just the start of things so pull up a comfortable chair. If you want to take your shoes off, go ahead wiggle your toes and we hope you'll have a cool Schaefer (beer) or two throughout the evening.

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 1:07
Our guest today on the Lost Ballparks podcast is a multi Emmy winner, iconic ESPN Sports Anchor, one of the originals of the network joining ESPN three days after its launch in 1979. And prior to his retirement in 201, he was ESPN’s longest tenured on-air employee. He was the host of the groundbreaking program “Outside the Lines” and a longtime host of SportsCenter. Bob Ley is our guest today on the Lost Ballparks podcast and Bob This is actually a full circle moment for me because back in 1994 I was a college senior and you were kind enough to come on my show at the college radio station. And now here 27 years later, you're extending your generosity once again, so thank you.

Bob Ley 1:44
Thank you. Its…As we're teaching our students at Seton Hall is knock on every door and you never know when it will be opened for you.

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 1:51
Well, I'm grateful and it's great to catch up with you again. So let's start with your first major league baseball game, Yankee Stadium 1961.

Radio Broadcast Audio 1:59
“It’s Yankee baseball time again, this is Bob Delaney welcoming you to another baseball game brought to you by the makers of Ballentine Beer.”

Bob Ley 2:08
I was six years old. And I remember my dad taking me over to Yankee Stadium. And I remember us trying to find a parking spot on the streets. And my dad getting a guy to keep an eye on the car. And it was a weekday afternoon game, you'd never see those things now midweek might have been ladies day for all I know, I still to this day. And it's my gosh, 60 years later, can remember walking up the ramp on the third base side, kind of behind the plate. And suddenly now you're underneath the stadium and you're six years old, and you're that tall and everything else is so huge, but it's dark and it's dank. And all of sudden, there it is. And we owned a black and white television and did still for another long time. So I'd never seen a baseball game in color. Ever. And there it was, it was green and it was like Ohhh it took your breath away literally the size of the…this is the original Yankee Stadium with dimensions, was it 463 to dead center. The monuments were in play and Death Valley out to the left and that little low wall and right field where Luis Arroyo that year would hop over the bullpen fence when he would come in and it was real and it was astonishing. And we were sitting on the third base side and I remember this and my dad said, “it’s batting practice, go down to the railing and see what happens.” The game couldn't have drawn, and I have to go look it up, I’m sure I could find the paid attendance that day, it couldn't have been 20,000 people. And so during batting practice, and I knew enough about Roger Maris, I mean, I knew something big was going on with Roger Maris that year. I can still remember you know, the chase with with Mantle and Maris for the 60 home runs…

Radio Broadcast Audio: 3:41
“There’s a drive…that might carry all the way…and it’s #58 for Roger Maris. His 58th home run of the year!”

Bob Ley  3:53
And leaning over the third base, as much as I could with the size that I was, the third base line, Roger Maris was up in the cage and somehow a ball came skittering down the line came in that close to actually getting a BP ball from Maris in the 61 season. You know, I assume the Yankees won because they want pretty much everything that year obviously.

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 4:12
109 wins that year.

Bob Ley 4:14
Yeah, a number of years later I mentioned this experience the first time and the only time actually got to sit and spend some time with Tony Kubek. It's spring training and we're working on a story. And I told him that story. He's a fan of the poetry of the game and what it means and I don't know whether he was being polite, which it certainly was in Tony's character to be that or whether he actually says “you know, I think I remember that game. We used to play a lot of those, you know, midday midweek, afternoon games that season.” Those images just stick in your mind forever. And I still remember watching that season… Listen, growing up in North Jersey being a Yankee fan until I saw the light.

Laughter

Bob Ley  4:54  
When the Mets became very interesting, you thought it was not only your birthright to have the World Series in your home market every year, but you thought it was on Channel 11 WPIX, The Yankee station every year. You didn't realize NBC was doing it as well or on Channel Four. And I remember watching that season a review program, they're showing their respective “hunts for 60 home runs” , and they had this little digit in the upper corner, you know, there's 51, there's 52 that season, you know, it made a hell of an impression on me.

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 5:22
Yeah, and that's a pretty familiar refrain from folks who follow Lost Ballparks or have been a part of our website for any period of time. Looking back at the first time, they went to say Shibe Park or Ebbets Field or the Polo Grounds, back then you watch the games on a black and white TV, and to see a stadium a ballpark, especially as you come up a ramp, and there's that vibrant green grass.

Bob Ley 5:46
Well, fast forward a couple of years. And the Yankees were the dregs of course, in the mid 60s, and you know, ownership change and things had passed them by but Mantle was still there. And I can still remember being a young kid actually trying to pick up a a wiffle bat and hit left handed because the Mick hit left handed and right handed, of course, as a switch hitter. And somehow my dad got a hold a tickets from somebody who knew somebody. They were not hard to get a hold of in those days, because Yankee tickets were hardly in demand. Again, it’s the old original Yankee Stadium, and I believe it was 67/68. And Mantle was a fixture in the lineup, maybe but increasingly, he was breaking down. And if you went to a Yankee game, you weren't sure you're going to see the Mick and of course we get the seats right behind the dugout. They’re two rows behind the Yankee dugout. And the on deck circle is directly in front of me, I think I might be 10 or 11, or 12, at most. And the on deck circle is right there. And we're watching the game and I mean, as you're sitting you know, at field level watching a major league game and nothing is better than that in appreciation of the skill and speed of the players and the pitchers. Mantle didn’t play that game, but it's the seventh inning and these Yankees of course were sucking and inevitably they were going to have to pinch it for the pitcher. And there he was. And he comes out, Mantle, in the on deck circle, leans down, kneels down, and that big number seven, I mean, it could not have been more than six or seven feet, maybe eight feet in front of me. I just remember staring at this broad back. And these pinstripes and there is the number seven. The shoulders were expansive. And I remember, “remember this moment.” I mean, this is pretty neat. And I don't know what he did when he got up there. He certainly didn't homer because had he homered I certainly would’ve remembered  that and I never had an opportunity to meet or interview Mantle while he was alive - he passed away, what? In 1985 following his liver transplant. And I was there the day in 1969, at the old stadium when they retired his number they were playing a doubleheader. I don't know I think might have been the White Sox, or the Tigers or the angels or…those teams are stuck in my mind. And this massive ceremony between games at the old Yankee Stadium myself, my best friend, his father and his grandfather who lived on Grand Concourse in the Bronx. I’ll always remember going over to pick up my buddy Bernie's grandfather who remembers watching Ruth play in this ballpark, which is right down the street from his apartment. And we're sitting in third base mezzanine level between games and they brought out Mel Allen.

Voice of Mel Allen: 8:15
“This is one of the proudest moments I've ever had those hallowed baseball ground. And I'm terribly privileged to have the honor to once again, call from the dugout, one of the all time Yankee greats, the magnificent Yankee, the great number seven, Mickey Mantle.”

Bob Ley 8:39
And they just brought out every great living, Yankee, all the championship teams of Mantle's career from the early 50s, through the early 60s were recognized.

Broadcast Audio from that day: 8:50
“Here’s his good friend and longtime teammate, Whitey Ford.”

Bob Ley 8:55
And of course the last person before the guest of honor, Mel Allen brings out Joe DiMaggio, who looked like, you know, $2 million in a nice, not uniform an immaculately tailored suit. And then they brought out Yankee great Mickey Mantle. And the place to this day, I'll still remember is like an eight minute standing ovation, beyond belief. He gives the speech and he and my recollection, and I think if you look at the tape, I think it's born out, he spoke without notes. Never the most comfortable of public speakers.

Mickey Mantle audio: 9:27
“I don't have words to describe how I felt then or how I feel now. But I'll tell you one thing, baseball was real good to me. And playing 18 years in the Yankee Stadium, for you, folks, is the best thing that could ever happen to a ballplayer.”

Bob Ley 9:43
This hero to millions. And I remember thinking I think I was 14 at that point and listening to Mantle and putting into perspective remembering my Yankee history and Ruth and Gehrig in those epic scenes in the late 40s, and in Lou’s case, the 30s when he had his speech. And Mantle references Gehrig in his speech, he says, “I can understand how Lou Gehrig felt.”

Mickey Mantle audio: 10:07
“I’ve often wondered how a man who knew he was gonna die could stand here and say that he was luckiest man in the world. But now I think I know how Lou Gehrig felt.”

Bob Ley 10:17
And I remember making this leap in my mind. Oh my god, Is he? is he to fatally...? Oh, no, he wasn't. But the construction of Mantle’s sentence there even had me as a young teenager that you see, oh, yeah, he's okay. But he drew the parallel between his experience in his own and as we know very human and flawed and aren't we all, life and the experience that Gehrig had and then they drove him around the ballpark in a golf cart. They used to bring the Yankee relief pitchers in in those those golf carts. The perimeter of that old Yankee Stadium took forever to get around because of the size of the outfield. He just waved to 65-66,000 people there. I have a lot of old tickets but I don't have the ticket stufb and I don't have the program but I do have the memory.

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 11:01
You were fortunate enough to see Yankee Stadium pre renovation. It underwent these massive renovations in 74 and 75. The iconic metal frieze that ran along the stadium’s roofline was replaced and then painted white, the original wood seats were replaced with plastic ones. Looking back now, what else do you think the stadium lost? It was heartbreaking to a lot of Yankee fans.

Bob Ley 11:20
We were there, check me again, a bunch of us from college went over from Jersey, July 4th of 73. We sat in the right field bleachers, and they let you bring in all sorts of your own food and whatever and drink and even adult drink if you could smuggle it in and they were playing the Red Sox, a twin bill that day July 4, single admission by design.

Radio Broadcast Audio: 11:41
“The Yankees throwing the ball around the infield, we're just about ready to get underway in this first game of a doubleheader.”

Bob Ley 11:47
Which would never happen now, in the avarice of baseball. Everybody knew that this would be the last season for the that original Yankee Stadium from 1923. That they were going to close it for a couple of years, the Yankees would play at Shea. And then they would have a new ballpark and to sit out there on July 4, and the place was packed. I'm sure it had at least 50,000-45,000 people playing the Red Sox. And when you sit in the bleachers, that iconic imagery of the huge upper deck and that frieze that just wrapped around you it was there and it's burned into my memory. Thinking to myself “boy, you're never gonna see this again. This is it.” There are poets and there are mechanics among us, right? Poets, mechanics and economists.

Laughter

Bob Ley 12:30
And the economists will say Well, yeah, you know, and you know, Steinbrenner could buy the club shortly thereafter and then refurbish stadium and their new revenue streams. Yeah, okay. But you know, the old Yankee Stadium was good enough from what 23 to 73. And then the refurbished Yankee Stadium lasted from what 75 or 76, to whatever. The half life of these new ballparks that have replaced the original iconic Lost Ballparks Mike that you chronicle so well, it’s decreasing. Some of these ballparks, the newer ones are almost disposable. Doing away with a cookie cutters of the 70s. Yeah, that's a public service that should be you know, rewarded in heaven. Some of these other you know, ballparks that just come and go and it's like, really already the Braves have a new ballpark because I remember going down there to Atlanta to interview for a job actually at CNN during the 1996 Olympics and the Olympic Stadium which was then turned into the Braves new ballpark, which replaced Fulton County, how long did that live?

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 13:28
Like 20 years?

Bob Ley 13:29
Yeah, exactly.

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 13:30
Like an actual blip-same thing with ballpark at Arlington. I mean, its just…so you grew up a Yankees fan, but then you some point transition to a Mets fan,  how did that come to be?

Bob Ley 13:40
Well, God visited my forehead and pounded some smarts into it. (Laughter) You know that after that first Yankee game, which was in 61, we're driving home and I remember, you know, sitting in the passenger seat, and we're driving over the Harlem River. And my dad says,”look down there. That ballparks called the Polo Grounds. There's going to be a team playing there next year.” And I still remember, I never got to a game there. But looking out and seeing this huge green structure that looked like a factory from the outside. And of course had been empty since the 19 what 57 season. And kind of planted the suggestion in my head that indeed there was another team and I remember following and watching the Mets in the early seasons and certainly by the mid 60s, they were far more interesting, entertaining. Yes. I remember watching the game, I was visiting my grandparents and they said, yeah there’s this ballgame on if you want to watch it so we watched the Mets. I think I recall watching a Mets game when they put the national anthem on at the wrong speed before the game. (Laughter) and I don't remember whether it was chipmunk speed or slow you know Paul is dead speed. You know these disparate moments that stick in your head and then of course it all crested when it all came together. You know watching by late 60s That you know these good young players, the pitching all came together obviously Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman. It was a thrill to be at Citi Field this past year when they retired Koos’ number.

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 15:05
Yeah, 69. What a season. Right? Okay. So by the time you're 14 years old, you make a trip to Baltimore to Memorial Stadium because you had relatives I think you mentioned to me, right?

Bob Ley
Yeah.

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks)
In Baltimore.

Bob Ley 15:117
I'd actually been there earlier the 60s like 63-64 visiting some family and my Uncle Don and my Aunt Doris took me to an Orioles game. And we're sitting in the upper deck. It was pretty neat. I forget who the O’s were playing. So I had been there at least once before. And now come October, we're going out to visit family again. It just happens to be the Mets World Series.

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 15:35
And it happens to be that year, ’69…when they…

Bob Ley 15:38
I know, what are the odds of that? And a cousin, my cousin Mike who owned a dealership down there tells my dad I've got four seats to tomorrow's game. I have that ticket stub someplace, I don't have it handy to flash it to you on the webcam right now. 4  bleacher seats in left field for the World Series in 1969 game 2.

Radio Broadcast Audio: 16:00
“From Baltimore's Memorial Stadium, this is Jim Simpson with Ralph Kiner and the second game of the 1969 World Series is about to take place.”

Bob Ley 16:08
I remember watching game one. Orioles lead off with a home run. Seaver lost the game and I'm thinking to myself, “oh, if Seaver can't win the game, this could be short and ugly.” You gotta remember that Orioles team was Palmer and Cuellar and some of the best pitching you've ever seen and that infield Boog Powell, who lives about three miles from me down here in Florida actually,  Davey Johnston, Mark Belanger, Brooks Robinson who next year would have the greatest defensive World Series of anybody short of Tommie Agee. And then you know Frank Robinson in the outfield anyway, so the Orioles were just insanely good team but 4 seats in the bleachers. You want to hazard what they cost?? 10 bucks each.

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 16:47
for 4?

Bob Ley 16:48
10 bucks - 40 whole bucks to go to game two of the 1969 World Series and watching - again Jerry Koosman…

Radio Broadcast Audio: 16:57
“a 17 game winner who won 19 A year ago in his rookie season, is the pitcher…”

Bob Ley 17:02
Pitching masterfully and were sitting out there and it's you know it's only like 309 down the line if I recall correctly that that so you're right on top of the action. Gil Hodges had Jerry Koosman pitches into the ninth inning, you know they win it on an Al Weiss double down the line I believe.

Radio Broadcast Audio:  17:19
“The Mets go ahead. Single to left field on the first pitch from Dave McNally. 2-1 New York.”

Bob Ley 17:27
So I saw the first World Series victory - game victory by the Mets and years later just before they got around to tearing it down in the mid 80s I broadcast a soccer match - USA had a friendly there I think it was against Ecuador, and then as a fully formed adult you get to go back to the neighborhood. Having seen the movie “Diner” and appreciated you know, just the the whole sports ethos of the city of Baltimore and just you know it stuck in your adult memory how it is right in the middle of a neighborhood. Years later, even after that I had an opportunity to have Barry Levinson on “Outside the Lines.” He had done a 30 for 30 movie. Of course, he was the writer and director of “Diner”, that great movie and he had done a movie about the Colts marching band - go online at ESPN plus and watch it - if you wonder why these things matter to people and what it was like when they had their team taken away from them - masterful. And Barry and I are they talking about that ballpark, which is neat, because you know, nobody loves your team more than people love their O's. And they deserve a better team. Hopefully they'll they'll get it together.

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 18:28
Yeah, and that is one of the things that I loved about Memorial that, like so many ballparks from that era. And even before that era, they literally were part of the neighborhood surrounded by homes and I often think about when I go back and look at the videos from the 69 World Series and others what it would have been like to live in one of the homes say beyond like centerfield and watch a towering Frank Robinson or Boog Powell or Brooks Robinson home run - you hear it on TV right and then you hear the crowd roar feels like probably an oncoming train right through your you know the parking lot and into your front screen door. I can't imagine!

Bob Ley 19:01
Oh, just to this day to live near Wrigley, right. You know, put it on Addison you know, rolling down the street or the day that Kingman hit three.

Radio Broadcast Audio: 19:10
The pitch to Kingman, long towering drive to deep left field. Way, way outta here! A mighty home run by Dave Kingman. There was no doubt about it from the moment it left his bat!”

Bob Ley  19:25 
Speaking of Wrigley, I was broadcasting Cosmos games as a side job back in the mid 80s. This would have been the 84 season so to be the last regular season game on the schedule for the Cosmos. So we had the game at Comiskey Park that night, so I had to get to town early in the day. And my producer on the games Danny Regan also had done Mets games and the Mets were playing that day at Wrigley. It’s one of the great doubles in my sporting life but we got a chance to go to Wrigley watch the Mets and the Cubs from the booth with Tim McCarver for a few innings which was neat and go back to our hotel, put on our union suit and go out to Comiskey Park. Now, you know Wrigley that day probably had 25-35,000. Gorgeous day. Now we're on the south side. It's September. It's cool, it's chilly. It's the Chicago Sting and the Cosmos. There might have been 15,000 people in it, but being in both Chicago ballparks on the same day, working in one and spectating in  the other that was pretty neat.

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 20:24
Yeah, imagine, do you think there's any chance that knowing what we know now that we lose a Wrigley or a Fenway Park or Dodger Stadium anytime soon?

Bob Ley 20:33
I would doubt it because I think the other streams of revenue have grown to the point. Look, it's all about the dead presidents, every owner, every player, every agent, every network, every announcer, you know, it's about the last dollar, it doesn't have to be,but that's the imperative. That's the system. And, you know, that's how the wheels are greased. I want to believe it's a little bit different in baseball, there's an understanding of the unique nature of what they have. And because places like Wrigley and Fenway to a lesser extent, Dodger Stadium, it's still, you know, a modern ballpark, they're attractions unto themselves. And so you can scale them and price them accordingly. As long as you keep putting a ball team on the field that is going to be competitive every year. I remember interviewing John Harrington, one of the major officials, this goes back 20-25 years, of the Red Sox, and he was showing me his plans. There have been more plans for relocating the Red Sox down on the water in Boston that, you know, you can imagine that they've all gone up in smoke, none of them worked. And at the end of the day, the last generation of success for the Red Sox, the last 20 years, probably is, has done more to keep Fenway where it is where you're sitting in seats, designed for posteriors of 1912 not 2012. Right?

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 21:49
Right.

Bob Ley 21:50
I do want to believe that the economics of tourism will allow some of these older ballparks to somehow continually be retrofitted after I've checked on and moved on to the to the league in the sky if they can, they can do what they want, but I hope it doesn't have before that.

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 22:03
I want to jump back to Shea stadium for a second. I don't think it's widely known, but after the I think it was after the 64 season, there was some extensive talk about adding a dome. Research went into it. (Laughter) Yeah, trying  to figure out whether or not to be plausible. Of course, it wasn't because the current stadium pilings wouldn't support it. But I often wonder, like what would have changed about the team's history had a dome been put on Shea Stadium, for instance, is their turf? Does Bill Buckner not miss that ball? (Laughter) Right? I mean, it could have had some impact.

Bob Ley 22:35
Yeah. Oh, my Yeah. But you know, Shea - Shea never got enough love until after it was abandoned and torn down. I mean, you'd sit upstairs in the 70s, when it was still a fairly new ballpark, and general admission was still a buck/30, you get a contact high from everybody who was doing their Jerry Garcia number upstairs (laughs) I've got a whole bunch somewhere of old ticket stubs, from Shea - the ticket pricing, I mean, we were well into the late 70s, it was still like $6.50 for a box seat, that this gets back to what I was talking about the economics of you know, classic ballparks and just the game itself. I mean, now you got to multiply some of these prices by 50 to 100 from what they used to be. I remember being in Shea either 64 the season it opened, because we had gone to the World's Fair, which is right next door, a couple of class trips, and my family went over there once we got Mets tickets, but I remember seeing Masanori Murakami, the Giants Japanese pitcher come in, I think he was in relief that night and throwing absolute bullets. He may have been the first native born Japanese player in Major League Baseball. And back in those days, Shea would be packed when the Dodgers and Giants came to town because there was still this latent reservoir, of course, Dodger and Giant fans who felt betrayed by O'Malley and Stoneham taking their respective teams out to the West. So that was always full. But there was a lot of love to be had for Shea. I mean, I saw a lot of games there. And as a kid growing up in Jersey, it was the world being what it was, then, you know, your folks would let you get on a bus in North Jersey at the age of 14, a couple of your friends into Port Authority, then you just follow the blue arrow signs for it turns out the 7 train and, you know you make the trip by yourself when you're in junior high school. Now you wouldn't do that I don't think necessarily but…and you get to the ballpark and there were the Mets who were no threat to do anything until 69.

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 24:30
You know, it's easy to you know, to poke fun at some of the cookie cutters, but I think especially Shea when it opens up, I mean, it's the future. I think at the beginning, it had some charm.

Bob Ley 24:39
Oh, a huge scoreboard. You know, it was sleek, it was modern. They had the color tiles on the outside. And just think the name itself. I mean the cronyism of the 60s of the way the world worked. power brokers, Robert Moses, Bill Shea, you know, these were the guys that made New York run a bunch of wealthy and well connected white guys. It's one thing to start out naming the stadium after him, but that name persisted for all the years. I mean, you couldn't name an after, you know, Gil Hodges at some point? Yeah, not that you would of course now that name would be pushed aside wouldn't even be on the table because you'd be - I have no idea what the Citi Field naming rights are, but I can guarantee you that got more digits than they earned from naming the stadium after Bill Shea.

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 25:19

Right. (Laughs)

Hey, so one final question for you if you had a chance, in your illustrious broadcast career to broadcast a baseball game from one old Lost Ballpark, what would it be?

Bob Ley 25:31
It would be the original Yankee Stadium. Without a doubt. In fact, let me tell you a story about that. I was working at WOR radio in the mid 70s. I was in college just gotten out. Marv Albert was still doing sports on Channel Four in New York. And he had a little feature. It was called “What's your favorite sports fantasy?” And I wrote in, it's probably snail mail, but certainly there's no email again we're talking like 76-77. And I was just either getting out of college or just out of college, writing in and saying that my sports fantasy would be to broadcast an inning from the Yankee Stadium press box. Now admittedly, this was the reconstructed stadium, but that's still you know, was on the same foundations as the old ballpark. I'm sitting at work at 1440 Broadway on what was it the 40th floor there? And the phone rings. Production desk. Pick it up. “Production, Ley.”


(Imitating Marv Albert) “This is Marv, I'm looking for Bob.”

(Laughs)

Bob Ley 26:25
You know, you got to remember that growing up in in the New York City area back in that time and having an interest in sports and broadcasting, Marv Albert was and still is the state of the art. And he says, “this is very interesting.” We made a date to the next night to meet at Yankee Stadium outside the gate, and they wanted you to actually film this for their feature. And wow, this is insane. So I'm all ready to do it the next day. I'm at work, I'm just going to head up on a subway afterwards. Phone rings, and it's somebody from the sports department. “There’s been a change of plans.” And I don’t know - whatever it happens. So we never got a chance to do it.

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 27:00
Ohhh!

Bob Ley 27:01
I know!

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 27:02
To have a taste of it to be able to look forward to it.

Bob Ley 27:05
I know. But you know what I got in the deal. I got a chance to work with Marv, who I subsequently got a chance to meet and I worked closely with his wife Heather on a number of things on “Outside of the Lines.” So long winded answer to your question, but it would be to you know, go back in time to a point where, you know, it was 463 to dead center, the monuments in play. You know, was it 295 down the right side? And you know, that frieze around it. And yes, there would be obstructed seats, too because t here'd be girders and call the game like that. That would be neat.

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks ) 27:34
And be able to look out from your desk and see the Bronx County Courthouse.

Bob Ley 27:38
Yep. Ballentine on the scoreboard. “No Betting Allowed”.

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 27:43
Yeah. Been a real pleasure. And I'm so appreciative of your time, you know, not just today, but obviously going back to my  college days, 27 years ago, when we first were able to talk. So thank you so much for the time today.

Bob Ley 27:54
This is a real pleasure, Mike and what you're doing is more than a public service. It's an act of love. And it's a cultural gift. Keep it up.

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 28:03
Thanks so much, Bob. Have a great day. Have a great week.

Bob Ley 28:06
Take care. Thank you. I appreciate this.

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 28:08
Okay, that was the thrill. That was a thrill for me, that guy, incredibly generous human being and then just one of the great sports broadcasters of all time - great storytellers. So again, my thanks to Bob Ley for joining us here on Lost Ballparks. Thank you so much for tuning in to episode number two of Lost Ballparks. Please take a minute to subscribe on whatever platform you happen to be listening on. As we said last week, subscriptions are incredibly important. The more folks that we have who listen to the podcast, the more opportunities that will have to bring you some of baseball's all time greats. And you can also follow us if you haven't already on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Okay, next week on Lost Ballparks. Hall of Famer Mike Piazza will join us. You'll never believe who came to Mike Piazza’s house to watch him take batting practice in his backyard when he was in high school!

Mike Piazza 28:53
“and he came out watch me hit and he said ‘I didn't look as good as you do at your age.’ And he said, ‘there's absolutely no doubt you're going to hit in the major leagues.’ That's what he said that day. Crazy!”

Mike Koser (Lost Ballparks) 29:03
It’s an unbelievable story. And it's coming up next week on Lost Ballparks Have a great rest of your week. We'll talk to you then.