Reviews

Homage to Waldman and Russo…and Radio

7/26/2022

Chris Russo

Suzyn Waldman

Suzyn Waldman speaks Bostonese.
Chris Russo speaks Rabid Canine.
Congratulations to both icons of the New York ear (and head, and heart) who have just been voted into the Radio Hall of Fame.

Their endurance has demonstrated the power of the spoken (or sung) word, for people driving a car or working out or just lazing in a chair. Radio lives. And Suzyn Waldman and Chris Russo have endured for decades, from their early days on WFAN.

Waldman is the radio compañera of John Sterling, the long-time play-by-play mainstay of Yankee games. Sterling, bless his heart, provides shtick and nicknames and operatic exaggeration to back up his long career of calling games.
Suzyn Waldman (from Newton, Mass., and Simmons College; but you could hear that) had an earlier career in musicals – most notably playing Dulcinea in “Man of La Mancha.” Then she gravitated to talking about sports and was hired by WFAN.

Was she a novelty act? She blew up that stereotype by doing what the best reporters do, on any beat. She hung out. She asked questions. And she won the respect of players, managers, coaches and the informed beat writers.
From her time in the clubhouse, she knew what player was favoring a sore leg, or was in the doghouse, or had a weakness for a slider. The listener came to rely on her commentary, always politely but authoritatively following Sterling’s calls. Plus, she can follow the fickle bounces in distant corners of a stadium.

Yankee fans soon realized: Suzyn Waldman knows her stuff.

Not only that, but Waldman became such a moral force that she brokered a reunion between George Steinbrenner and Yogi Berra, who rightfully harbored a grudge against The Boss for having fired him. Blessed are the peacemakers, like Suzyn Waldman.

Christopher Russo materialized as a sports reporter on the radio spectacle called “Imus in the Morning” – dominated by the equally brilliant and vicious Don Imus.
Your ear could not miss Russo’s babbling patter that resembled Daffy Duck in the cartoons.

When the station morphed into all-sports WFAN, he was paired with the opinionated Mike Francesa. (Imus called Francesa and Russo “Fatso and Froot Loops.”) In 1991, I wrote a column about Russo in which I unearthed his secret life: his mom came from England and was reportedly horrified by his diction; he had attended colleges in three different countries – England, Australia and the U.S., and before that he had attended a private school in New York State.

Away from the live microphone, I detected a pleasant, centered, educated and ambitious kid who had taken speech therapy and did not mind admitting it.
My headline (columnists got to write their own headlines in those days) was: “Mad Dog Is a Preppie.”

He and Francesa were wired, babbling about game strategies the night before or pending trades or players who had popped off; I will admit there were times when I needed to see if the odd couple could flush out an owner or a commissioner or an agent. Nobody wanted to be hectored by Mike and the Mad Dog.

It was compelling radio, in its way, as long as they lasted together. These days Russo is on Sirius. Sorry, a lot of new things like Sirius and podcasts are outer space to me. I’m a child of radio.

I can still remember Edward R. Murrow scaring the hell out of me with his war dispatches from London when I was 4 and 5, and when we managed to survive that war, I found Arthur Godfrey’s jovial variety shows and Red Barber’s erudite calls of the sainted Brooklyn Dodgers.

I discovered music on the radio – from Crosby and Sinatra to Aretha and Bob Marley and The Band and Dolly Parton, disk jockeys from the long-ago Jack Lacy on WINS-AM to William B. Williams on WNEW-AM (until I heard him destroying a vinyl record, live, on the air, by some new shaggy-haired kids from Liverpool.)

Radio: Garrison Keillor, NPR, Jonathan Schwartz and Peter Fornatale on WNEW-FM, the doomed classical station WNCN, and nowadays an upgraded WQXR-FM particularly Terrance McKnight from Morehouse, 7-11 PM weeknights, the eclectic John Schaefer on WNYC and the great interviewer Brian Lehrer, WNYC, both AM and FM.

Baseball? It was invented for the radio, or vice versa, never more than when the grubby forces of Major League Baseball condemn Mets or Yankee games to other networks.

Radio is a vibrant medium, all on its own – and Suzyn Waldman and Chris Russo are deservedly in the Radio Hall of Fame.

Alan D Levine

7/26/2022 01:46:53 pm

George, it's a very rare occasion when I disagree with you, but they both annoy me. Was it Russo or Francesca who once told you, on a TV panel you were both on, that someone who wore a Red Sox cap to a Yankee game should expect to be assaulted?

George Vecsey

7/27/2022 09:10:04 am

Alan, I don't remember that but it could have happened. I know that a friend of mine brought her nephew to a 1986 WS game in Shea and he was wearing a Red Sox cap and got it knocked off his head by obstreperous Mets fans. (Yes, some of them exist...) Maybe that was it, Long time ago. Be well, GV

Walter Schwartz

7/26/2022 05:37:26 pm

Speaking of radio, George, my friend, I'll never forget about ten years ago in one of the many times you were interviewed on radio by Brian Lehrer, that time mostly about soccer, when a caller at the end of the program threw you a pitch far out of a left field and asked, "If you met God, what would you ask him?" After pausing ever so slightly, and surely without any script, you replied, "I would ask God why he or she didn't give me better answers when I covered religion." You're the best! And your tributes to those who do their jobs well certainly always shows it.

George Vecsey

7/27/2022 09:20:34 am

Chief, you and your track-team pal are testing my memory today. Did I say that? One never knows what might get blurted out on live radio. Not a bad response, if I did say that. I covered religion for four years and never tried to pretend that I knew anything, It got a lot of great responses, from the Dalai Lama to Jerry Falwell to Archbishop Romero to Lubavitchers on Eastern Parkway. Brian Lehrer is a great interviewer. Sitting across from him in the studio, I could see his face/intellect at work as he processed what I said, or what listeners asked over the phone. Another great interviewer is Charlie Brennan of KMOX in St. Louis, who just retired in May. But nothing worse than being interviewed by somebody who is already formulating the next question while you answer the current stock question, I won't name names. GV

Altenir Silva

7/26/2022 06:23:12 pm

George: Thank you for sharing your thoughts about the radio. Radio is the literature of the media. Sterling and Suzyn bring a special color to the Yankee games. I love listening to them. I can get a beat of New York listening to WNYC (Radiolab, All Of It, All Things Considered, The New York Radio Hour), and from Chicago, Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me!

Recently, Tony Guida made a great interview with Bill Diehl, a man that has a deep passion for the radio. Very inspiring.

Be well/Altenir

George

7/27/2022 09:25:34 am

Dear Altenir: You know more about US media than I do. You can get these programs in southern Brazil? Your selections are spot-on. Tony Guida is a terrific interviewer, so involved in the subject and the guest.
GV

Altenir Silva

7/27/2022 12:22:37 pm

George: Yes. I hear these radio shows on my laptop. You're right. Tony Guida goes so deep into the stories of his interviewers, it's amazing. He's incredible.
Stay well/Altenir

Andy Tansey

7/27/2022 08:20:55 am

George, I must admit that my recent experience leaves me unqualified to comment with much insight, but I wholeheartedly agree about baseball on the radio. I seem to remember (but am not checking the Internet to confirm) an almost no-hitter by Mike Mussina vs. the Red Sox broken up with 2 out in the ninth while my young family was stuck in traffic on I-95 near New Haven; a first-inning grand slam by Joe Pepitone batting clean-up - the ideal prototype of the clean-up hitter strategy - only to have the game rained out before the bottom of the fifth in the late 60's when the Yankees were between dynasties. Did these things really happen?

Lately I don't listen as much, very partially bothered by an audible, droning, electronic interference noise on AM radio. However, I agree that Waldman sounds knowledgeable and authoritative, but Sterling - as good as he is - seems too dominant for the wrong reasons, e.g., silly nicknames which are more about him than the players or their homers. I wonder what others think about the trend I perceive from my limited experience - that the role over the years of announcers like Sterling has become more self-indulgent relative to the news they report.

George Vecsey

7/27/2022 09:36:47 am

Andy, three Queens guys and a Brazilian in the first four respondents, As a Queens kid from Molloy, you know that word "shtick." I think that covers John.
You are right about epic games on the radio. I heard the long strikeout of Reggie Jackson by Bob Welch (before I became friends with Bob and helped him write his book about alcoholism.) Whoever called that sequence did a great job. I was driving our kids back from Boston area where one of them had a few interviews at the great colleges up there.
I also remember a Cardinal-Phillies game, maybe 1965, as I drove from NY to St. Louis to cover a Mets series, I wanted that game to go on forever,..and as I recall, it did go 10 innings, Brock homer? Something like that.
Old radios were easier for finding far-off stations. New digital setup makes it hard to finagle fuzzy distant stations -- WSM and the Opry in Nashville, or driving around Appalachia, early 70s, able to get Reds games on WLW with a young Al Michaels, plus a great disk jockey named Jim LaBarbara. Plus......Tuesday night full-court basketball qames at the JCC when I lived in Louisville...driving home, getting Marv Albert from MSG clear as a bell. Radio Days! GV

Andy Tansey

7/27/2022 10:03:57 am

Oops! I almost forgot, due to the psychological angst of a 10-year-old Yankees fan living in northern Queens, betraying loyalty to any-team-that-opposes-the-Mets and jumping on the frenzied bandwagon then: Swoboda's catch in the 1969 Series, on the radio in fifth grade at St. Luke's in Whitestone, courtesy of Sister Joan.

Now tell me it was a night game or a NL playoff - that's how twisted my psyche is.

7/27/2022 10:33:24 am

Andy, nope, God's own bright daylight, baseball as it oughta be.
Back page of my 1970 Mets book,"Joy in MUdville:" small photo of Rocky on his back holding up his glove w/ball,. his right arm and lifted left leg casting a shadow.
We remember where we were: Oct. 3, 1951. Shop class. Junior High 157 Rego Park. Dodgers ahead. Classmate (Yankee fan) says: "How will you be able to come to school tomorrow if they lose?" I take the subway home...and the rest plunges into permanent darkness GV.

Alan D Levine

7/27/2022 12:20:15 pm

George, let me shine a light on some of the darkness. We were getting to (and, I think) from school in our first term at Halsey on Louis Oppenheimer's chartered bus. I had told you that I would make a crying towel for you if the Dodgers lost. True to my word, the following morning I presented you with a crudely-drawn picture of Bobby Thomson hitting THE home run.

George Vecsey

7/27/2022 07:08:14 pm

Alan: I'm sorry, I don't remember your drawing. I know who made that comment to me in shop class..wasn;t you. I remember that charter bus. Parents arranged it -- from Fresh Meadows along UnionTpke and Horace Harding to Rego Park. Guy was like a failed Catskill comic, always late or didn't show -- mechanical failure, etc. I don't think he lasted til New Year's. Subway was better anyway. Great people on that bus -- Neil Pilson, Ken Iscol, Steve Jelinek, our Jamaica Estates buds, and a beautiful young woman with a great drawl who moved back South after one year.

Laura Vecsey

7/27/2022 11:53:24 am

A big fan of Suzyn here! Having worked in the same field -- and many games / clubhouse / press boxes near her -- it made me proud to know a woman could be such a pro. Baseball more than most sports relies on trust or at least truces between reporters and players/managers. Everyone knows Suzyn is there to bring baseball to life. Good post!!

7/27/2022 07:15:48 pm

Parental Pride: Laura Vecsey was a sports columnist in Albany, Seattle and Baltimore before her hitch as a political writer in Harrisburg. She was in a lot of clubhouses and dugouts -- Pedro Martinez let her inside the yellow police zone tape he set up in crowded clubhouses. Players talked to her. She, like Suzyn, knows the game. It all started when I took her to a ballpark before kindergarten. Casey and Edna Stengel bought her a ginger ale in hotel bar in spring training. How many sportswriters can say that?

Randolph

7/27/2022 07:49:46 pm

George,
Casey and Edna Stengel, ginger ale and Laura Vescey…..
What a beautiful picture you painted George.
Thanks,
R

Alan Rubin link

7/27/2022 03:38:51 pm

George—I grew up listening to the radio from about age four or five. I was in bed with scarlet fever, which was very dangerous at that time. No medicine for a cure and complete bed res was required. My father and sister moved out of the house for about three months.

I had to lie still, but my weird-shaped green Emerson radio was my savior. I put it under my pillow and listened to Henry Morgan, who was on after my bedtime. He was a humorist who was one of the first to knock sponsors

He was fired by Adler Shoes when listeners were told to say that “old man Adler” sent me when they went into the stores. Henry was quickly rehired when customers did just that—old man Adler sent me.

He also did a controversial Gillette razor commercial showing how their new super speed hand safety razor saved time. A man was two minutes ahead of his normal schedule and was killed by a car crossing the street to get his bus. “If that man did not save the two minutes shaving, he would be alive today”.

Some other radio great that I loved were “Bob and Ray” “Klavan and Finch”; both shows combined music and comedy.

Gene Sheppard was another innovative radio personality. When NYC was debating whether they could afford chest protector vests for the police, he suggested they put the Sunday NYT under ttheir uniform. “Everyone knows that it takes all day to get through the Sunday Times”.

These were humorists in the tradition of Mark Twain and Will Rodgers.

George’s blog is one of the joys of the internet, but he cannot be watched while while driving. in the car.

A great show on Netflix for soccer fans is “Sunderland ‘Til I Die. The play is real and the fans are a joy to watch.

moprganMy drive time today is split between two local NPR stations and Audible books.

I’m convinced that crime in NYC increased after the fifteen-minute radio serials that were popular in my youth (about 1943-1948) went off the air. They started at 4:45 and went to 6:15 pm.

I loved listening to Suzyn Waldman and Criss Russo. It was refreshing to hear a female expert on sports.hear

Alan Rubin link

7/27/2022 11:13:03 pm

Ed, I was very fortunate to have befriended Tony DiCicco during the last few years of his life. He said that Scurry was the best goalkeeper he had ever coached and that included some of the best women ever.

I have two 3-disc DVD GK training sets with Scurry that were made several years apart. She was super amazing even as a teenager.

Keepers need not be crazy, but daring and a lack of fear is essential. However, good ones are not reckless.

A friend’s brother is a high school keeper who has had two concussions. It is difficult to compare different times, but I do not recall any of my contemporary keepers having gotten concussions.

The worst that I had during my ten year career was a sprained thumb on my throwing hand and the pain of having my fingers slammed against a square wooden crossbar during a game. Luckily it wore off fairly quickly.

7/28/2022 03:00:02 pm

Alan, gang, if you can find the pod cast, of Fresh Air, it is interesting. She discusses the save Andy mentioned, combination as I heard it of developing predictive skills, e.g. kicker distance from point, part of foot to be used, etc….and intuition. She felt, she says, in that split-second assessment, she knew where the kick would be aimed. Confirms Alan’s comment.

Ps. Our goalie at Muhlenberg lost a Spleen after a kick in the scramble. Fortunately, not life ending, loss of spleen. Think heading will be banned? Kids?

George

8/1/2022 08:28:51 am

Great references to Briana Scurry. Her save in the 99 final was epic....There was a lot of talk that she had moved forward prematurely, but the referee did not call it. I remember there was talk about Tony DiCicco, himself a fine keeper in his day, reaching "anticipation," but others saw it as bending the rules, testing the ref, or in another word, cheating. I know that Donna LoPiano, pioneer athletic director and head of the Women's Sports Foundation, used the word "cheating"... I respect her as much as anybody in sports....but I preferred to call it "gamesmanship" -- i.e., let the ref call it. Cutting the baseball with a belt buckle or a tack in the glove, now that's cheating. I know players who did that....Anyway, Scurry was the best goalie the WNT has had....on merit. GV

Alan Rubin link

8/1/2022 09:01:12 am

Cheating is generally described as various actions designed to subvert the rules.This can include acts of bribery and where individuals are given preference using inappropriate criteria.

I was always taught by my various coaches during my school years--play on and let the ref call it.

As a soccer goalkeeper, I never looked down on a save to see if it was over the line. It might just tip an undecided ref to allow a goal. I emphasized this when instructing young goalkeepers.

The referee could also be an ally. A quick comment about opponents roughing you up usually resulted in a warning or a penalty if it continued.

I always believed that the goalkeeper, whether designated or not, was the team captain. I'm not surprised that a significant number of goalkeepers were also baseball catchers. There were so many to choose from, but Yogi Berra was my favorite. He was very creative and also a bad ball hitter. My coaches would want me to wait for better pitches, but I always thought--if Yogi can do, so can I.

My favorite Yogi story was when he dropped a foul pop-up behind the plate that would have clinched Alli Reynold's no-hitter. Yogi went to the mound, handed the ball to Alli and commend--don't worry, you will get your no-hitter". No better way to break the tension. Yes, Alli got his no-hitter.

Alan Rubin link

7/28/2022 06:32:02 pm

I used to listen Marv Albert regularly before he was removed for some ethical issues. I could tell by his voice whether the Rangers or the Knicks were ahead or behind. The difference was so subtle that it was almost imperceptible .

At age 9-11, Saturday night was family radio night. The Grand Ole Opry came between the two family favorites, so I was introduced to country music, which eventually led to folk music.

At Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA, the local stations went off the air at midnight. This was not bedtime for most engineering students, so I began listening to WCKY in Cincinnati and a Wheeling WV station. They were particularly strong on cold winter nights when the signal skipped along the atmosphere.

I am still a country music fan to this day, but I'm partial to music of the British Isles and the blues from the Mississippi Delta.

Some of my favorites were Josh White, Joan Baez and the Clancy Brothers. They appeared at Gerde's Folk City which was on Forth Street in the Village at the time. Gerde's was where new folk talent was introduced, so we saw them in their first NYC appearances.

One night was a gravely voiced Bob Dylan. He is a great talent, but I did not like him then or now.

I have not heard her is a longtime, but the Scottish folksinger Jean Redpath had a beautiful voice and a wonderful sense of humor.

It was amazing to sit ten feet from Odette and almost be physically moved by the power of her voice. Her real name was Wilson and was a customer in my store.

My cousins bathroom adjoined her and could hear singing in the shower. Mrs. Wilson commented that she have asked for requests.

Just a lovely lady.

There were many headaches in running a retail appliance business in Manhattan, or anywhere else, the the real joy was in getting to know the customers.

Alan D Levine

7/28/2022 07:05:53 pm

George--The girl with the Confederate cap was named Carmen Sherry(sp?).

George

7/28/2022 07:46:25 pm

Alan: well done, but as I remember, it was Carmen Cherry. She was beautiful, and looked eight years older than the boys.
And that lovely southern accent -- and manners.
From another world.
Looie's bus. Hadn't thought of that in years.
GV

Alan D Levine

7/28/2022 08:18:39 pm

George, I think you've got the spelling of her name correct.

Gene Palumbo

7/29/2022 08:48:36 pm

Baseball on the radio? You bet. I was a certified Dodger fanatic. How much of a fanatic? When I was five years old, a doctor detected the beginning of a cyst above my eye. His advice to my parents: remove it now, before it gets bigger. So they broached with me the subject of going to the hospital (Brooklyn Hospital, of course, about a mile from Ebbets Field) for surgery. There was a problem, though, and I was prepared to take a hard line (I might be embellishing just a little bit here): it was near the end of the 1947 season, and the Dodgers were contenders in the pennant race (I just double-checked this with Google). There was no way I was going to go into the hospital and miss hearing the games on the radio (we didn't have a t.v. and only had one radio). So we negotiated, and reached an agreement: I would go to the hospital, but the family radio would go with me.

Speaking of outstanding radio programs: remember those Saturday nights in the 50s on WOR? Live from the Limelight Cafe in the Village, Jean Shepherd would regale us with stories, some of them about baseball. I'd give anything to hear again the one he told about the aging relief pitcher, on the brink of being sent down to the minors, surely never to return. Whether he's sent, or isn't, will depend on how well he does when he's called in, in the late innings of an important game. Shepherd described him, windbreaker over his pitching arm, trudging in from the bullpen for the make-or-break appearance. Doesn't get any better than that. If anyone has a link for a sacred space on the internet where that tale can be found, I'd be ever so grateful.

Ed Martin link

7/30/2022 04:54:55 pm

Gene, my favorite reading material as a kid were pulp paperback books, also called dime novels. Mostly I read about baseball and sometimes “Westerns.” Era, 40s.

The story you mention was a favorite theme, the old player, not always a pitcher, end of career, about to be released, trudges in to pitch, in tight spot, bases loaded, and with his last strength gets them out!

Theme two is with a batter, gets clutch hit, bottom of ninth, two outs, etc.

So it truth the same as fiction, or? PS I started seeing games in 1946,;Including Playoff loss to Cards, 8-4, off to beat Bosox, with The “Cat” winning.

In 47, saw this amazing rookie, #42….But the damYankees….

Ed Martin

8/1/2022 04:04:19 pm

7/27/2022 08:38:30 pm
Here are some radio memories from the 40s-60s.

Walking back to the LIRR to RVC, from Ebbets Field, listening to the post game show on the many radios sitting on open window sills, while owners sat on “the stoop” having listened to Red, Connie, etc.

Alan mentioned Bob and Ray, they were the kings, for years. Their inept “reporter” Wally Ballou, could have been a sports reporter, but was general coverage.

Jumping to the 80’s GV, mention “Mike and the Mad Dog,” WHN, and on Imus. Here is another radio duo, the other end of the continuum, “The God Squad,” Msgr. Tom Hartmann, and Rabbi Marc Gellman.
“Father Tom” used to have a show on in the early a.m. hours when he offered comfort to those needing it on sleepless nights, before heading LI Diocese TV, and the God Squad.

On a tangential note, today on Terry Gross’ “Fresh Air” on PBS, Terry interviews Briana Curry, Olympic Goal medal goally, twice, beginning in 1996, first Olympics for women soccer. Briana has a memoir out of her traumatic brain injury in a Soccer game and, happily her recovery. She is the only Black Woman in the Soccer Hall of Fame.

I thought of Alan, when she said, most people think goalies are crazy, and they are.

Alan Rubin link

7/29/2022 09:15:02 pm

Gene, great memories. You were right to hold out.

I was ten when I built a crystal radio. You touched a wire to a crystal and could faintly hear a sound. Each crystal has its own frequency and mine was WOR.

It seams that we did more with less back then.

Gene Palumbo

7/30/2022 02:14:17 pm

Thanks, Alan.

8/1/2022 08:38:32 am

I second Alan...good on Gene for holding out for a radio. How many of us smuggled a radio into bed with us at night -- for Dodger games, or WPAT near midnight, classical music, I can't remember the names of the DJs at that hour, but later we had (Harry) Fleetwood, a total character, on WNCN - -I would get him on the FM dial coming home from late basketball or hockey games in the Meadowlands (NJ). Also, the great Nimet, when she is on late at night....And what about the old "Milkman's Matinee" on WNEW-AM with its theme song, "...That's the time the Sandman doesn't have a chance/Although, baby, it's late..." Nowadays, I am a total early bird...GV

Alan Rubin link

7/31/2022 05:19:27 pm

The radio world just lost another great. Larry Josephson's obituary is copied below.

It is amazing how many of those who he cultivated were major forces in the earlier days of radio.

Cynthia Gooding was a force in the 1950's Greenwich Village folk music scene. Her Sunday morning WBAI folk music programs introduced who was appearing NYC (mainly the Village) each week. WBAI was a force in radio back then.

Larry was an in inspiration to so many young singers on the rise.

It may be a stretch, but I consider Audible Books stories a continuation of the radio tradition. It is storytelling on the radio. These stories have replaced most local radio programing for me.

Larry Josephson 1939-2022
________________________________________
- Upper West Side 08/28/2022 (Jennie Josephson)
Dear friends and family,
Larry Josephson has passed away. He died Wednesday, July 27th, 2022, a little before, or after 10pm. (He was never all that concerned with exact start and end times, as those of you who listened to WBAI know.)
Larry, 83, had been suffering from the effects of Parkinson's disease, and was increasingly a prisoner in his own body. His passing is marked by sadness, but also relief. When I arrived at my dad's side Wednesday night, shortly after his passing, there was static on the radio by his bed. Please know that Larry J is at peace, and probably already kibitizing with Steve Post and Bob Fass and the rest of his amazing friends who preceded him to the freeform radio station on the other side of the static.
Larry arrived in this world the same year as The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, and Dark Victory. He grew up listening to the radio—the Lone Ranger, of course, but also late night Los Angeles radio oddball. Wikipedia can take it from here, as I was not yet born.
"Unhappy with his lonely life as an engineer in a cubicle at IBM, he volunteered at WBAI – a listener-supported radio station in New York City. By 1966 he was the host of In the Beginning, the "grumpy" morning program.[5] His unique mix of phone calls, politics, alternative culture, cranky humor, interviews, personal confessions and music while he sipped coffee and ate bagels led him to become one of the station's most popular personalities.[2] His morning shows, like those of late night's Bob Fass and Steve Post, became the archetypes of the station's free-form style, which became the precursor to much of the alternative FM radio programming which started in the 1960s and 1970s.[2][6] Audience members would wake up to whatever caught Josephson's fancy each day. For example, after the release of The Beatles' "Lady Madonna" in March 1968, Josephson liked the song so much that he played it over and over for two hours.[7] He also once played a marathon session of every recording of "Celeste Aida" ever made, taking up two days."
Larry went on to produce many more radio shows: Modern Times, a chronicle of cultural life in the 1980's, Bridges: A Liberal Conservative Dialogue, which explored the roots of the Republican Revolution, and Only in America: The Story of American Jews, in which he interviewed Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Larry's legacy is more than just his radio shows. It is contained in the generations of public radio engineers, producers and talent who he hired, fired and recommended to others. In other words, all of you who have made the public radio airwaves so special. (Informal survey: Please raise your hand if Larry gave you your first job in radio.)
Larry was a complicated man. He was a good dad, a difficult dad, a wonderful friend, a relentless and public nemesis, and a royal pain in the tush. He yelled too much. He ate too much. But you can never love life too much, and at that he excelled.
Larry is survived by his sister Susan Josephson; his two daughters, Jennie Josephson and Rebecca Josephson; his son Gregory Alker and wife Susan Alker, and Larry's grandchildren Brandon and Natalie Alker. In passing, he joins his mother Marian Tyre Josephson, his father Adrian Josephson, and his and Charity Alker's baby daughter Rachel Josephson. I hope that wherever they reunite, he will be nicer to his mother this time.
Special thanks to Valerie Josephson, my mother, who has been at my side all my life, but especially thanks for helping me excavate Larry's apartment this past year.
Please forward this to any and all who knew Larry.
Jennie

Gene Palumbo

8/2/2022 02:56:55 pm

Thanks for this, Alan. Larry's morning program was my introduction to WBAI; I ended up working there as a reporter. One of my colleagues there, longtime NYC radio journalist Jon Kalish [surely you've heard him on All Things Considered, etc.] has posted a fine obit for Larry: https://current.org/2022/07/larry-josephson-pioneering-producer-and-freeform-host-dies-at-83/ As Jon wrote, "[Larry's] 50+ year radio career had a profound impact on independent producers."

Josh Rubin

8/2/2022 03:05:56 pm

I'm late to this going to leave the commentary on goalies and sports announcers to my dad and the rest of the learned commentariat here (except that, as a goalie who had a much shorter career than my dad, my sense, or confession, is every last one of us leaves our feet before the kick on every PT, but the trick is not to leave toooo early, though my dad will correct me if i am wrong about this).

But as an old college radio hand (program director for two years at WOBC-FM) and former WBAI summer intern, I wanted to join the party and to thank George for this celebration of radio. Radio, as an aural medium, has a magic the visual media can't match. The connection is much more personal and intimate between broadcaster and listener, the imagination freer to roam, the speaker more approachable. When I did shows in college (jazz, world music, rock, public affairs, interviews, etc) I always kept a few imaginary listeners in mind, as I think many on radio do, and I think it makes a real difference and people experience it. As an example, I imagine here must be 100,000 people in NYC who would have Brian Lehrer over for dinner in a heartbeat, as a friend, not as a celebrity, because he embodies this so well.

Alan Rubin link

8/2/2022 05:21:13 pm

Josh, goalkeepers must adjust to all the laws of the game designed to make things difficult for the them. Not moving until a PK is taken is one of them.

It is important that the keeper is on the move when the shot is taken. I preferred to react to the shot rather than guess a side. However, I was leaning forward with my body already in motion.

Scurry was many levels above me.

I stopped 4 of 5 PK’s mainly by staying in the center. Three of them were right at me and the forth was a keeper’s highlight—a diving save at the corner.

Andy Tansey

8/4/2022 07:50:33 am

1. The ref says it's okay to leave your feet, Josh, just not the goal line, before the kick. 'Used to be that leaving the line by a yard or less was considered "trifling" and to be overlooked. Now, VAR is stricter. The following cartoon is instructive for 'keepers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-NN1iQhNz8

2. Go left? Go right? I was told by a wiser football fanatic that, statistically, keepers would make more saves by not guessing and just reacting, especially for cheeky kickers who assume a guess and go straight down the middle. He also told me that high level 'keepers dare NOT guess because they would look like they are not trying.

Josh Rubin

8/4/2022 11:05:16 am

I stand corrected by eminent sources.

At 14 in a travel league game, I made a diving save to the lower right corner on a PT and was whistled for leaving early. I then stood my ground on the re-take, trying extra hard to react to the kick and not the approach a split-second before, and the ball was shot straight to me. I do think that, as the foot approaches the ball, it's a fine line between early and not in terms of what the keeper reacts to. But I agree with dad and Andy - reaction is better than guessing.

Andy Tansey

8/4/2022 09:23:53 pm

Sorry. Two-episode plot here. 'Keepers should love this.

youtube.com/watch?v=F8VrwQjSY6s

George Vecsey

8/5/2022 10:10:33 am

Funny, we started with a tribute to two giants of radio baseball...and wound up here in a seminar on soccer goal keepers.
While we are on the subject: I had immense respect for keepers when I bumbled onto the soccer team at the late, great Jamaica High in Queens. (The geniuses who run the city schools ,killed the school a decade ago...now have 4 smaller schools in the building.)
I went out for defender -- which meant I had a keeper a few yards behind me. As a senior, we alternated between Bob Seel, our all-city player, and our leader, and Robert Mindelzun (who had survived WWII in Eastern Europe). One played GK, the other played up front. I marveled at the guts and reflexes they both had -- and both played college ball later. I've seen..and met....Dino Zoff and Gigi Buffon, both World Cup winners for Italy...one calm, the other emotional, both great. Keepers are a different breed. (The US has had a string of great athletes at MNT keeper...plus Briana Scurry on the WNT.) GV

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Homage to Waldman and Russo…and Radio

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