What Ralph Kiner means to me

Four days have now passed since the passing of the legendary original Mets broadcaster Ralph Kiner at the age of 91.

Since then, there have been numerous tributes written by bloggers and spoken by broadcasters in remembrance of the beloved baseball lifer.

I’m only 21 years old.  I don’t remember seeing more than one or two editions of Kiner’s Korner.  Most of the time I experienced Kiner in the booth, it was during his guest appearances with Gary, Keith and Ron over the past few seasons.

Despite that Ralph Kiner’s impact on my life has been tremendous.

I can’t stress enough that I don’t want this article to be about me – it’s about remembering a legend – but in order to do so, I must self-indulge a little bit.

For those who don’t know, I am an aspiring baseball announcer.  My dream job is to do Mets games on the radio.

Some of the first steps I took toward that goal were watching Mets games and absorbing the wisdom that Kiner imparted.

He was a wealth of baseball knowledge right until the end – I’ve probably learned more about the offensive part of the game from Kiner than anybody else, and that’s no exaggeration.

He translated his brilliant insights into not only the mechanics of hitting, but the strategy of it into a simple, understandable language which provided value to new fans of the game and diehards alike.

A lifetime of baseball experience gave him many great stories to draw upon, and Kiner was one of the best at taking a story and making it just as meaningful and interesting the 10^th time he told it as the first.

Of course, Kiner was famous for his missteps as well: Calling Gary Carter Gary Cooper, referring to Tim Wallach as Eli Wallach so many times the team started calling him Eli, and all of his funny one liners.

The best part about Kiner – and perhaps the greatest lesson a young broadcaster could learn from him – is that he was always genuine in what he said.

As Will Woods wrote on Baseball Prospectus on Friday, if almost any other broadcaster had said some of the jokes that Kiner weaved in, it would be with a forced delivery and over the top fake laughter – trying too hard to be funny – but not Kiner.  His jokes were made with a deadpan delivery, which only served to make them all the better.

But he didn’t use humor to make the broadcast about himself, because he knew it wasn’t.  It was about the game.  Much like the late Ernie Harwell, Kiner treated himself like a guest in our homes – talking with us about the games, not at us.

Broadcasters like Kiner are few and far between these days.  Too many try to be the main attraction, or get off on acting like they know more than the audience.  I’m as guilty of doing that at times as anyone else.

But I aspire to be more like Kiner, like his partner in the early years Bob Murphy, like his partner in the later years Howie Rose.  He never intruded, he never took his job for granted, and he never stopped being one of the good guys in baseball.

Ralph Kiner served as a shining example of what a broadcaster should be.  He wasn’t too shabby at the plate either.

Joe Vasile is the voice of the Fayetteville (NC) SwampDogs.  Follow him on Twitter at @JoeVasilePBP.