Reds Radio History

[Chisox73]

Here's something for you die-hard Reds fans or broadcast history fans out there.Here's a complete history of radio stations and announcers that have been home to the Cincinnati Reds.Enjoy.

1924 WMH-Gene Mittendorf
1929 WLW-Bob Burdette
1931 WFBE-Harry Hatman,Sidney Ten-Eyck
1932 WFBE-Harry Hartman,Sidney Ten-Eyck,Oatmeal Brown
1933 WFBE,WSAI-Harry Hartman,Sidney Ten-Eyck,Oatmeal Brown
1934-35 WFBE,WKRC,WSAI-Red Barber
1936 WCPO,WSAI-Red Barber
1937-38 WCPO,WSAI-Red Barber,Dick Bray
1939-41 WCPO,WSAI-Roger Baker,Dick Bray
1942 WKRC,WSAI,WCPO-Waite Hoyt,Dick Nesbitt,Dick Bray
1943 WKRC,WSAI-Waite Hoyt,Lee Allen,Dick Bray
1944 WKRC,WSAI-Waite Hoyt,Lee Allen
1945-54 WCPO-Waite Hoyt
1955-56 WSAI-Waite Hoyt,Jack Moran
1957-61 WKRC-Waite Hoyt,Jack Moran
1962-63 WKRC-Waite Hoyt,Jack Moran
1964-65 WCKY-Waite Hoyt,Claude Sullivan
1966 WCKY-Claude Sullivan,Jim McIntyre
1967 WCKY-Claude Sullivan,Jim McIntyre,Joe Nuxhall
1968 WCKY-Jim McIntyer,Joe Nuxhall
1969-70 WLW-Jim McIntyre,Joe Nuxhall
1971-73 WLW-Al Michaels,Joe Nuxhall
1974-79 WLW-Marty Brennaman,Joe Nuxhall
1980 WLW-Marty Brennamam,Joe Nuxhall,Dick Carlson
1981-2003 WLW-Marty Brennaman,Joe Nuxhall
2004-present WLW-Marty Brennaman,Joe Nuxhall,Steve Stewart

[The Commissioner]

Does anyone recall how good or bad of an announcer H.O.F. pitcher Waite Hoyt was? I've never heard any examples of his broadcasts.

[cosmo96]

I grew up with Waite Hoyt. He was the best announcer the Reds ever had. Marty is smart, he is also a smart-alect. Waite loved baseball and the Reds. When the Reds won the Pennant in 1961, Waite was at his best. Unlike Marty he suported the team even though they would play the Yankees. Waite was absolutely the best. If you want to know more I used to have a web site dedicated to Waite. Let me know, and I will send you the text of the website.


Dick Downing
ddow922564@woh.rr.com

[riverfrontier]

I've always enjoyed Marty's unfiltered comments on the team. He's caused a lot of controversy, but sometimes you need subjective analysis. Newspapers have their editorial sections, we have Marty.
I never heard Waite Hoyt, so I have no idea. I know there's a lot of nostalgia for him, but that's to be expected from the older generations.

[redlegsfan21]

How many of those stations were once owned by Powell Crosley or are in the same corporation as WLW.

[Captain Cold Nose]

Every now and then the public TV stations around here (Dayton has two, and I also can get WCET out of Cincinnati) will run a show on Hoyt. I've only caught some of it, but it was very interesting. I like what I heard of his broadcasting.

[POLO GROUNDS 1957]

Does anyone recall how good or bad of an announcer H.O.F. pitcher Waite Hoyt was? I've never heard any examples of his broadcasts.
The 1961 world series exists on audio with waite hoyt doing the games.and there are records out called waite hoyt in the rain with him doing rain delay talking.

[driver62]

Waite Hoyt was great. When I was a kid listening to the games, I would pray for a rain delay as Waite would tell stories about when he was playing for the Yankees with Ruth, Gerhig and others. He had a lot of funny stories. Wish I could remember them.

[Chisox73]

If you go to the Reds HOF and Museum at GABP,there's some audio of Waite Hoyt calling the '61 World Series. It was pretty cool listening to that.

[j1500]

I'm surprised Wait Hoyt has not recieved the Ford C. Frick award from the Hall of Fame. Does anyone know why? Has he been nominted for the Ford C. Frick Award before?

Thanks!

[Captain Cold Nose]

I'm surprised Wait Hoyt has not recieved the Ford C. Frick award from the Hall of Fame. Does anyone know why? Has he been nominted for the Ford C. Frick Award before?

Thanks!
They only take one a year, and I guess they wanted to honor the living by choosing the well-deserving Marty a couple years back. There are a lot of great anouncers still on the outside. While Hoyt has been nominated, he hasn't been a finalist (10 each year) the last few years.

[Joe C]

Waite Hoyt was the most "listenable" radio sports broadcaster of our time. Growing up in the Cincinnati area, my boyhood summer evenings usually ended listening to him "visualizing" in words, the live action of those 50s/60s Reds. He had an uncanny spontaneous memory of the even earlier days of baseball and his fellow players, especially, Ruth, Rizzuto, Dimaggio, Slaughter, Miller, Durocher, etc...His voice was unmistakeable...He was a Burger Beer man to the very end!

[Crosley Fielder]

As a kid growing up in Middletown, Ohio, some thirty miles north of Crosley Field, some of my earliest memories are hearing Hoyt's voice call the game while I was riding in some old Pontiac with my Dad. (The Reds' broadcast theme was the Sousa march, "El Capitan" with the phrase, "Burger brings you baseball.")

He was an excellent announcer and I have two recordings of some of his rain delays where he effortlessly filled the time with great anecdotes of the baseball he knew in the 1920s. He retired in 1965 because of his loyalty to Burger Beer, his sponsor for many years. Another brewery (Weidemann I think) got the contract and Waite stepped down.

This is probably good because I was seventeen at the time and I recall that he was not the announcer that he was a few years earlier. He seemed to be having some mental glitches. He is buried in Cincinnati and is fondly remembered by those of us who were lucky enough to listen to him. He is part of an era that is gone and missed my many of us old guys.

[Miamivalleygirl]

My dad used to turn the sound on the TV down and listen to Waite on the radio.

[Michael Green]

I have listened to a recording or two of Waite Hoyt. Red Barber considered him the first great player-turned-broadcaster. He broadcast in the past tense--"Bell grounded to short, Reese picked it up and threw him out"--because, as he said, it already had happened by the time he said it, so why should it be in the present tense?

The irony of him broadcasting for Burger Beer is that Hoyt was a serious roisterer in his younger days--one reason he had so many Ruth stories is that they ran together--but got into AA and did a lot of work to help people, which is just another reason that he was beloved in Cincinnati.

Also, I think one reason he hasn't been up for the Frick Award is not only that they have concentrated on living announcers, but also that Hoyt is in the Hall of Fame as a player. Dizzy Dean and Ralph Kiner, to name two, certainly deserve to be considered for the award, but I think they are consciously trying to avoid honoring people already in Cooperstown as players.

[icee82]

There is a cassette of the Reds on Radio History and I enjoy listening to the segment on Hoyt. Also he is on the DVD of the 1961 World Series doing a promo for Burger Beer.

[gman5431]

Every now and then the public TV stations around here (Dayton has two, and I also can get WCET out of Cincinnati) will run a show on Hoyt. I've only caught some of it, but it was very interesting. I like what I heard of his broadcasting.

I have seen this show on PBS before. My dad and i watched about 4-6 episodes. A lot of the show was him talking about his days with the Yankees and Babe Ruth. However, he did talk a little about his days in Cincy.

My dad listened to him and he wa definately a positive and upbeat guy, a homer for the Reds. Loved baseball and you could tell it.

G Man