Nat Allbright
Nathan Matthew "Nat" Allbright (November 26, 1923 – July 18, 2011) was an American
Early life
Allbright was born in Dallas, Texas on November 26, 1923.[1] As a child, he moved with his family to Ridgeway, Virginia, and would recreate games in his imagination using lineups that he had taken from the local paper.[2] He served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II.[2] After receiving training in radio broadcasting, Allbright hosted musical and dance programs on the air, and covered baseball and other sporting events for stations in the Washington area, producing both live and recreated accounts.[2]
Dodgers game recreation
Walter O'Malley, owner of the Dodgers, wanted to create a radio network to reach fans of the Dodgers located on the East Coast of the United States.[1] Someone who had previous experience simulating games was desired, as such broadcasts were far less expensive than sending announcers and the required support staff to various stadiums.[2] Assigned to find the right candidate, Dodgers president Buzzie Bavasi hired Allbright, who was working at the time for radio station WEAM in Virginia. Invited to spend time with the Dodgers at spring training, he observed the players in action, with an eye for details of each player's mannerisms that he could use in his recreations. Allbright began his broadcasting career with the Dodgers in 1949, and his recreations were presented on more than 100 radio stations by the following season. During his time with the Dodgers, he broadcast 1,500 games from a studio in Washington, D.C., beginning each one with a statement required by the Federal Communications Commission that the contents of the radio program were a recreation of an actual game and then starting each game by stating "This is Nat Allbright, from Ebbets Field!"[1][3]
Allbright maintained notes and pictures in his studio of each National League ballpark to help make his descriptions as vivid as possible.
After Fred Saigh, then owner of 90% of the St. Louis Cardinals, was convicted of income tax evasion and sentenced to 15 months in federal prison in January 1953, Allbright was part of a group of prospective buyers that sought to buy the team from Saigh.[7] A month later, Saigh sold the team to a group led by the owners of Anheuser-Busch, accepting a lower offer of $3.75 million to keep the team in St. Louis.[8]
From 1950 until 1961, Allbright did 1,500 broadcasts of games played by the Dodgers, though he never saw the team play in person.[3] Washington Post sportswriter Bob Addie called Allbright the "king of the baseball re-creators", an art whose practitioners included Ronald Reagan.[2] He was awarded a ring when the Dodgers won the 1955 World Series, their only championship in Brooklyn.[1] Improving technology and the move of the Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1958 cost Allbright many of his fans, with the team's evening home games starting at 11:00 PM in the Eastern Time Zone where his radio stations were located.[2]
Custom recreations
In the years after he retired from broadcasting for the Dodgers, Allbright began a company producing simulated recreations of sporting events, in which he would insert names supplied by customers as part of the recording. One client wanted to have himself inserted as a catcher for Dizzy Dean, pitching for the Cardinals in the 1934 World Series against the Detroit Tigers, while another customer had his father's name inserted into a game in which he supposedly played alongside Babe Ruth for the New York Yankees. Other recordings had couch potatoes playing for the Boston Celtics, boxing at Madison Square Garden and playing golf at the U.S. Open.[3]
During the
Death
Allbright died of
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h Martin, Douglas. "Nat Allbright, Voice of Dodgers Games He Did Not See, Dies at 87", The New York Times, August 15, 2011. Accessed August 15, 2011.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Schudel, Matt. "Nat Allbright, announcer who relied on imagination to re-create ballgames, dies at 87", The Washington Post, August 6, 2011. Accessed August 17, 2011.
- ^ The Nevada Daily Mail, October 16, 1985. Accessed August 16, 2011.
- ^ The Milwaukee Journal, October 29, 1955. Accessed August 18, 2011.
- ^ Timms, Leslie. "Remembering Joe Louis", Spartanburg Herald-Journal, May 2, 1976. Accessed August 16, 2011. "I remember listening to Nat Allbright recreate the Dodgers games from a studio somewhere other than the ballpark, and I remember I kept wondering how the same guy kept yelling 'Cold Beer, Here' in all of the different ballparks."
- ^ Landphair, Ted. "Re-Creations Not Going, Going but GONE", Voice of America, July 26, 2011. Accessed August 18, 2011. "One night when the Dodgers were playing in Cincinnati, Ohio, Heller relates, "the ticker stopped working, and Western Union told Allbright it would take a half-hour to fix the line. No problem. "We had a ‘rain delay,’" Allbright remembered. "There was nothing else I could do. You know, if you take the cellophane off a pack of cigarettes and crumple it up near the microphone, it sounds just like thunder."
- ^ Drebinger, John. "Berra Signs as Yankees Raise Salary to About $37,000; Reynolds Defers Decision on Offer", The New York Times, January 30, 1953. Accessed August 16, 2011.
- ^ Goldstein, Richard. "Fred Saigh, Who Helped Cardinals Stay Put, Dies at 94", The New York Times, January 2, 2000. Accessed August 16, 2011. "Anheuser-Busch, whose owner, August A. Busch Jr., bought the franchise from Saigh in February 1953, would run it for 43 years.... Although he said the $3.75 million bid he received from Anheuser-Busch was lower than offers from interests in Milwaukee and Houston, he accepted it to insure continuing local control."