Brooklyn Esthete

Sportscaster Walter Lanier ("Red") Barber, official announcer over Mutual's WOR of all games of the Brooklyn ("Them Bums") Dodgers (see p. 46), served as commentator with the New York Philharmonic-Symphony this week. He broadcast from the Lewisohn Stadium (where the Philharmonic played) Composer Robert Russell Bennett's Symphony in D for the Dodgers (TIME, May 26). In the Fourth Movement, "The Giants Come to Town," Red Barber chanted, against a rising crescendo:

Here comes Hub's pitch,

Camilli swings,

He gets a hold of it.

It's a long one.

Ott is going back to the fence,

But the ball is over.

It's a home run!

That's the ball game.

The Dodgers win.

To Red Barber, fascinated by high-toned music, the idea of a baseball announcer turning up with the Philharmonic was not at all incongruous. He is convinced it takes culture to handle a play-by-play account of a ball game and he earnestly delves into such works as The Rise of American Civilization to give himself background for his job. Clinical in his attitude toward sport, he has charted the records of each big-league player, has memorized most of the data of the Spalding Guide Book all the way back to 1899.

Unlike the Brooklyn fans whom he ad dresses, Sportscaster Barber is never moved to murder or mayhem when the Dodgers lose. "With me," he says, "base ball is a business. I cannot afford to get too emotional about it."

Born in Mississippi, reared in Florida, Barber picks up about $15,000 a season for announcing the Brooklyn games, adds another $15,000 to his income with a 15-minute sportscast five times a week, and a sports commentary for Pathe News. His Southern accent used to baffle Brooklyn listeners, but they have decided that he knows his stuff.

His fan mail runs to about 500 letters a week. The letter he likes best came from a man who wrote: "My wife was a semi-invalid. She enjoyed your broadcasts. Yesterday she began to sink, but she heard the last out. She died happy."

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