And this one belongs to Marty

I wrote this in 2019, and it was pub­lished in The Winchester Sun.

A week ago today, vet­er­an base­ball announc­er Marty Brennaman called his last game as the voice of the Cincinnati Reds. I lis­tened to that broad­cast, as I have lis­tened to thou­sands more over the last 45 years.

I was 12 years old in the sum­mer of 1974 when Marty joined for­mer Reds pitch­er Joe Nuxhall in the radio booth at the brand-new Riverfront Stadium.

This may be hard for any­one under 30 to imag­ine. There was no Internet, no cable net­works, and no 24-hour news cycle. My insa­tiable appetite for news and infor­ma­tion about my beloved Reds came from the news­pa­pers, mag­a­zines, and the Reds Radio Network.

It was the radio that my friends and I turned to hear about the exploits of the Reds. These were not the hap­less Cincinnati teams so famil­iar to any­one fol­low­ing major league base­ball over the past three decades. This was the era of the dom­i­nant Big Red Machine.

We couldn’t watch them most of the time, but we could see it all in our minds. And it was Marty and Joe who deft­ly paint­ed those pic­tures for us with their words.

Pete Rose scratch­ing out anoth­er hit or run­ning to first base at full speed after draw­ing a walk. Joe Morgan steal­ing yet anoth­er base. Johnny Bench crank­ing out anoth­er home run or cut­ting down a run­ner at sec­ond base with his mis­sile arm. Dave Concepcion mak­ing a spec­tac­u­lar play at short­stop. Don Gullett’s fast­ball. Tony Perez, George Foster, Ken Griffey, and all the rest.

Warm sum­mer evenings were accom­pa­nied by the vivid descrip­tions and com­men­tary, deliv­ered by those gold­en voic­es and punc­tu­at­ed by com­mer­cials for Marathon Oil and Hudepohl beer.

I like to say that Marty and Joe were the nar­ra­tors of my youth.

We lost Joe in 2007 at the age of 79. He had been most­ly retired for three years, although he nev­er could stay away from the mic entire­ly. I’ll always remem­ber how he signed off from every broad­cast: “This is the old left­hander round­ing third and head­ing for home. Goodnight, everyone.”

That was my cue to turn off the radio and go to bed.

Marty Brennaman is noth­ing if not opin­ion­at­ed. He’s nev­er been accused of being a “homer” — some­one who nev­er crit­i­cizes the home team. Whether call­ing out the front office or the man­ag­er, or even indi­vid­ual play­ers, Marty spares no one.

Whether Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame — he should be, says Marty — or whether the game is get­ting too long and too dull with its empha­sis on strike­outs and home runs — also yes. (He’s right on both counts.)

Marty’s catch­phrase was “…and this one belongs to the Reds!” He would utter that phrase many times dur­ing the reign of the Big Red Machine, as the good guys won lots of games.

During his time behind the mic, Marty called many his­toric moments. Three World Series Championships for the Reds. Hank Aaron’s 714^th career home run, which tied the immor­tal Babe Ruth. The 4,192^nd career hit of home­town hero Pete Rose, which broke the record of the emi­nent Ty Cobb. Tom Seaver’s only no-hit­ter and Tom Browning’s per­fect game.

All of these feats are as much a part of my ado­les­cence as they are part of base­ball his­to­ry. It’s a shared expe­ri­ence that tran­scends our dai­ly human existence.

Not sur­pris­ing­ly, there isn’t much in my life that hasn’t changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly since I was a boy lis­ten­ing to those broad­casts. Other than my sur­viv­ing sib­lings and life­long friends, Marty Brennaman may be the last major link to that time I have left.

Those lazy, care­free sum­mers are long gone. The inno­cence and wild-eyed opti­mism of my youth have large­ly been sup­plant­ed by the day-to-day real­i­ties of life. Baseball is not the same game — and Reds are a pale shad­ow of those great teams of the 70s.

But until last week, I could still tune in to the sound­track of my youth and hear that same famil­iar voice. Like hear­ing from an old friend, it could trans­port me back to an age of bicy­cles with base­ball cards pinned to the spokes, com­ic books, mod­el cars, play­ing Wiffle ball with my friends, and telling lies about our exploits with the girls we had crush­es on.

True to recent form, the Reds closed out their last home­s­tand of the sea­son and Marty’s career with a loss to the Milwaukee Brewers. He did not get a chance to say his famous catch­phrase one last time.

Marty’s smooth voice crack­led with emo­tion as he closed out his last broad­cast by thank­ing the Reds com­mu­ni­ty and the city of Cincinnati for the love and sup­port he received over the years. It wasn’t the most elo­quent thing he’s ever said, but it was straight from the heart. I might have choked up a bit myself.

This game, like 86 oth­ers dur­ing this long sea­son, did not belong to the Reds.

But my youth large­ly belongs to you, Marty Brennaman.