Today I offer my salute to a broadcaster who retired after announcing his last game.
Last week, the Phoenix Suns were ousted from the NBA playoffs but the big story in the Valley of the Sun was the final game for a fellow named Al McCoy, who is not well-known nationally and certainly not by our readers.
But that’s the point.
You don’t have to be a country-wide celebrity to have made your mark and become a lasting memory to your community.
Whether it’s upstate New York, or a small town in the Midwest, or a dot on the map in the Pacific Northwest, if you became part of the fibre of your town or city in bringing a sports team alive for a considerable length of time, you become special.
And that’s what Al McCoy became to his listeners.
We all know the story of the great Vin Scully, who retired as the voice of the Dodgers at the age of 88, after 67 seasons behind the mike.
Scully started in Brooklyn, and finished in Los Angeles, and was renowned across America as well.
But how about Al McCoy, who took over as the voice of the Phoenix Suns, that area’s first professional team, four years after the franchise was established.
Last week, he said his final good-bye on the air, completing 51 years describing the action for Suns fans.
Al McCoy is 90 years young.
In his farewell comments, he made it a point to thank the many sightless listeners who looked forward to, and thrived on, his broadcasts.
Just take a moment to imagine what that means.
McCoy served as the descriptive guide to those who could never actually see basketball action, using his words to paint a picture of what was happening on the court.
There is an art to radio play-by-play that creates images for the listener that only he can translate into the real thing.
It isn’t far from my view that reading books has an advantage over film because it’s the reader who takes the written word and produces the unique images that come to mind.
It is unmatched.
I grew up on radio broadcasts of baseball.
Early telecasts were in black and white. Your imagination of the color down on the field took over.
Then color TV became the norm, and while imagination wasn’t needed so much anymore, it was truly the ultimate in audio and visual communication.
But I always felt baseball was better portrayed on radio, especially with all the camera cuts needed to show routine plays on television.
Actually Al McCoy almost became the voice of the San Francisco Giants baseball club.
When the Giants moved from New York to San Francisco, they established their AAA farm club in Phoenix.
Horace Stoneham, the Giants owner, heard Al and told him he was destined to become the next voice of the Giants.
As the broadcaster of the Phoenix Giants, Al became what has to be, the only announcer to work the only baseball game in history to be postponed due to grasshoppers.
That’s right.
Grasshoppers collectively gathered around all the sources of light for a night game and darkened the ball park, so the game couldn’t be played.
McCoy grew up in Iowa, and attended Drake University which didn’t offer a radio or broadcast major.
So he signed up for as many radio classes as possible, and did what most successful people in my business did.
Work extra hard and go the extra mile.
He begged his professor to let him borrow a tape recorder so he could record his play-by-play of a campus basketball game.
He couldn’t land a single job interview after college and played the piano to support himself before applying to graduate school at the University of Iowa.
He bounced around a bunch of stations as a fill-in, before moving ultimately to Niagara Falls where he did a piano-disc jockey program.
As his contract in Buffalo was set to expire, he got a tip that as the Giants were moving to the Bay Area, their top farm club would relocate to Phoenix.
And that’s where Al McCoy moved and the rest is history.
He became a fixture in his new town, and was immediately accepted. He broadcast on both radio and television until 2003, before settling on the radio side.
In radio, catch phrases and signature calls, distinguish the man behind the mike.
With the adoption of the three-point field goal in 1979, McCoy came up with a most unusual and colorful description of the three-point shot.
Al would shout “Shazam” to convey the proper level of excitement and distinction for the long range bomb.
It stuck with him, and the fans loved it.
In recent seasons, NBA arenas have moved radio crews away from the floor to locations high above court side.
I know in my time as an NBA broadcaster, there is nothing better than a seat at courtside to follow a game.
You see it all, and you hear it all.
When you’re upstairs, it’s a different story.
You no longer are close to personnel changes, clarifications of officials calls, and the little things that make a broadcast clear.
So, McCoy reduced his road game schedule.
I’ve known Al for decades, last seeing him in 2015, when we were honored in Scottsdale.
He is a colleague in the Basketball Hall of Fame’s Curt Gowdy broadcast wing, and maybe the finest accolade of all: becoming the 15th member of the Suns Ring of Honor.
When it was announced, it brought tears to his eyes.
Having your name in the Ring of Honor means that fans will see his name forever at the home of Phoenix Suns basketball.
For what Al McCoy has meant for his listeners for 51 years, there is nothing better.