Carl Beane, the Public Address announcer for my beloved Red Sox died on Wednesday after suffering a heart attack. Although I did not know anything about him personally, I certainly knew and loved his voice, which was one of the many great things about the Fenway Park experience. The idea of the sounds of baseball has already been blogged about here, and it is a subject near and dear to baseball diehards. The most primal sounds of the game are the most beautiful (crack of the bat, smack of the mitt, etc.), but a good PA announcer can add a supplementary sound to a game without making it seem unnatural or impure. From the following excerpt from this article on Beane, it seems that he was a man who fully understood his role in the baseball experience:
But, like anything, there are those who think change is inevitable. You can’t blame them. Marketing people in all sports are trying to keep their games interesting and fast-paced. The Red Sox were no different.
Just two weeks ago, Carl mentioned to me that some people tried to convince him to go a little more NBA in his presentation. With great disdain he used phrases like “spice it up,” “more energy,” and “uptempo.”
“That’s not me,” Carl insisted.
More to Carl’s point, that’s NOT Fenway either.
“Mike, I know what Fenway is. It’s a baseball park, not a rock concert, not an amusement part, not an NBA game.”Perfectly stated. That is why we are going to thirty major league ballparks, and not thirty amusement parks, or basketball arenas. Baseball is the most beautiful of all sports in its pure form. Here's to hoping that people in positions like Carl live on with that message close to their hearts.
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