McCain, Mocha, Marty and the Cowboy

For some of us, the month of September and the Highland County Fair are almost synonymous with the end of summer.

For those of us who are baseball fans – especially fans of the Cincinnati Reds – the end of summer means the end of warm summer nights, sitting back on the deck, watching the stars appear one by one after dusk, and listening to the Reds’ broadcast from Hall of Famer Marty Brennaman and his on-air partner, former Major League pitcher Jeff “The Cowboy” Brantley.

You may or may not agree with this end-of-summer assessment, but our grizzled black Labrador retriever, Mocha, – who limits her retrieving to canine treats – would.

During the summer months, regardless of the Cincinnati Reds’ official schedule, Mocha expects the game to be on WLW Radio at precisely 7 p.m. each and every evening from April to October. In fact, you can set your watch by it.

Without fail, every summer night, Mocha will leave her spot under a front-yard shade tree and walk up the steps to the deck on the west side of our house. If, for some reason, we have neglected to put the Reds on the radio, Mocha will nose up against the glass deck door and remind us. She’ll continue pacing back and forth across the deck until one of us brings the radio outside and tuned into the Reds game. (She hates day games. It’s too hot on the deck.)

As long as Marty and the Cowboy are covering the game, everything is just fine. But let one of the “fill-in” announcers take over, and Mocha will walk away from the Reds game and the evening deck party. She really has an affinity for Marty Brennaman and Jeff Brantley. No kidding.

Sadly, summer’s almost over. The Reds will not extend their season past the regular schedule. Mocha will be sad. So will I.

On the bright side, the Reds’ Hot Stove League starts up soon after the World Series. Mocha enjoys those evenings in our basement – with the wood-burning stove keeping us warm – almost as much as the ballgames from summer. Almost.

I wonder how many Reds fans – and fans of Marty and the Cowboy – have similar stories.

Personally, some of my favorite memories are from those summer evenings when my dad and I listened to Marty and Joe Nuxhall.

I was lucky enough to meet Joe Nuxhall on the golf course at Buckeye Hills more than 20 years ago. He was the genuine article. The real deal. A class act, 100 percent. In fact, I was there – and so was my former publisher Phil Roberts – on the day that former Hillsboro Indians broadcaster Ernie Blankenship (another Hall of Famer) interviewed Joe at the bar. Thanks to WSRW’s John Barney, I still have a brief audio clip of that interview, which I’ll always cherish.

Mocha would understand.

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• Speaking of Jeff Brantley, another fellow southerner from Mississippi (yes, I realize Brantley was born in Alabama, but he played baseball at Mississippi State University, where he was a teammate of Will Clark, Rafael Palmeiro and Bobby Thigpen) and great Reds broadcaster was the late Red Barber.

Barber, with his comforting Southern drawl, called Major League Baseball radio play-by-play for four decades, beginning with the Cincinnati Reds (1934-38)

Barber had been hired by Reds President Larry MacPhail, but when MacPhail moved on to become president of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1939, he took Barber with him.

It was in Brooklyn (and later with the New York Yankees) that Barber became a baseball and radio legend. He became famous to baseball fans for his signature catch-phrases, such as:

• Can of corn – describing an easily caught fly ball.

• Rhubarb – a heated on-field dispute or bench-clearing brawl.

• Sittin' in the catbird seat – used when team was performing exceptionally well.

• Tighter than a new pair of shoes on a rainy day – used to describe a close game with pennant implications.

I’ve read that Barber would often identify players as "Mister.” From listening to Adams County Common Pleas Court Judge Brett Spencer broadcasting high school baseball games with Don Bowles on C-103 Radio, I’ve noticed that Judge Spencer often calls players “Mister,” as they step to the plate. I wonder if the judge developed that style by reading about Red Barber or listening to some of his old (previously recorded) broadcasts. For the record, Judge Spencer and I are both too young to otherwise remember Red Barber.

Like Marty Brennaman, Barber received the Ford C. Frick Award from the National Baseball Hall of Fame, along with his former colleague Mel Allen in 1978. How about that!

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• Of all the stories I’ve read about the passing of U.S. Sen. John McCain this week, one really stands out: “Meghan McCain and I shared our fathers with America, and America felt our grief,” by Patti Davis, daughter of President Ronald Reagan.

Here is an excerpt from Ms. Davis, published in The Washington Post.

By Patti Davis
September 1, 2018

Days after the services for my father, Ronald Reagan, concluded – so similar to what we saw for Sen. John McCain this week – a woman I didn’t know came up to me and said, “We needed this grief. Our country needed to stop and grieve right now. Your father’s passing gave that to us.”

Of all the things that people said to me in the aftermath, that has stuck with me throughout the years. I thought of it again this week as I watched Sen. McCain’s flag-draped coffin, heard the military bugles and had moments of déja vu as the solemn procession of family members followed the stalwart service members entrusted with carrying his body. Caskets are heavy; it’s not easy being a pallbearer. Grief is heavy too, but it’s also illuminating and transformative. It is, at moments, a quiet place to rest from the noisy chaos of the world.

I laughed through tears when she told the story of her father making her get back on a horse after she fell off. My father did the same thing, although I was less injured than she was. Both my father and John McCain, who were good friends, imprinted on their daughters the most vital of lessons – when you fall down, you get back up. You don’t give in to fear.

My father died in 2004. The country was still broken and trying to heal from 9/11. We had invaded Iraq in 2003, and war still hung over us. The abuses at Abu Ghraib had been revealed a few months before my father died, bringing us shame at the unabashed cruelty that had been exposed. We needed the balm of grief. We needed a week to pause, and weep, and just be quiet.

Sen. McCain died at a time when our country has been ripped apart by anger, racism and a petulant leader’s noisy, hateful rhetoric. We needed this week to remember what dignity looks like, what reverence for America sounds like, what tears feel like when they fall softly for a life lived with courage, gratitude and honesty. Leaders are not always the ones who hold the highest positions. Leaders are those who, by example, show us what we are capable of being.

* * *

When John McCain first ran for president in 2000, my mother bucked the local Republican Party and supported his campaign. At that time, she and I disagreed on the better Republican candidate. Like the majority in the local GOP, I preferred George W. Bush, who eventually won and quickly made a left turn when he reached the D.C. Beltway. We’ll never know how a McCain presidency would have played out for the United States.

But on a local level, as one deranged darling of the once Grand Old Party used to say, he couldn’t have been any worse than those who followed.

One thing's certain: John McCain did more for his country than bellow and badmouth. I like to think that Sen. McCain has often thought of some of the political hacks in Washington in a similar vein as Col. Nathan Jessup's priceless quote from “A Few Good Men.”

“I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said ‘thank you’ and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post.”

Rory Ryan is publisher and owner of The Highland County Press.