By Billy Cunningham said.
News in the world baseball earlier today was announced by the Milwaukee Brewers that Bob Buker had passed away at the age of ninety. He spent about fifty four years as a broadcaster. He's a Baseball Hall of Famer and certainly a statewide national icon. Noted for mister Belvitere. Also his appearances on the Tonight Show were hilarious. A man who walked alongside Bob Buker for many, many years is Marty Brenneman. And Marty, welcome to the Bill Cunningham Show.
And when you heard the news earlier today, what was your reaction?
Well, I was shocked. Bill. You know, Bob has not been in real good health, and there have been many times when I've talked to him that he and I have talked, and I, you know, why don't you walk away from this? I mean, you've been in here long enough. You've gained a nationwide reputation as being one of the funniest human beings that ever lived, and you were, as
you mentioned, he was an icon in Milwaukee. I noticed that Brewers put out a release today and said as far as they were concerned, he was the number one figure in the iires state of Wisconsin, and I don't doubt that for one bit. But his health was not good.
I think he had.
Two heart procedures in the last ten fifteen years. And he did what he wanted to do, and I'm sure he went out the way he wanted to go out, and that was still very much associated with the Brewers Ball Club, even though he had reduced his workload over the last number of years because of his help. But you know, you hate to see guys go like this.
You know, the two guys that I've felt I had a great relationship with, not that I didn't have a lot of relationships, good relations with other broadcasters in baseball, all of them for that matter, but the two special ones really we're Ben Scully and Bob and before that Jack Buck, and you know all those guys are gone. Now. Yeah, sometimes it's hard to confront.
You know, when I look at this history.
He fought successfully, had multiple heart surgeries, he survived painker out of cancer. That's a bad one bite from a brown reclose spider melanoma COVID nineteen did it all. And when when you talked to him about hey, hey, Bob, you've done it all, You're in your uper eighties, ninety why not walk away?
What did he What did he say to you?
Well, he just he enjoyed. He loved it so much. And not that I didn't, but but I felt, you know, when I did that, there were things I wanted to do, and I wanted to do them when I was healthy enough to do them, when Amanda and I wanted to do them, and I, you know, I'll never forget when I retired and I went to I went to my last spring training in nineteen and one of the first things I always did was calling when we got to Arizona,
because that's where he went in the winter time. He's lived out out in Arizona for a ton of years. And I went over to a broadcast to do in Maryvale, which is where the Brewers are located. It's a short job drive from Goodyear. And I walked into the race booth and there were a lot of people in there, and Bob was there, and people were talking about my announcement. And Bob said, in front of all these people, he said, I really admire you. I said, for what he said,
because you're walking away from this job. And I said, well, he said, I can't do it, And that was pretty much the way you felt. You know, guys, people have different viewpoints on when they leave or when they will ever leave. Some guys want to do it until they dropped in. I know Harry Callus with the Philadelphia Phillies, who was a dear friend of mine, had come combat alcoholism and had had a tough life because he didn't
missed a thing and his life was in order. And I used to talk to him all the time, why do you continue to do this? You know you major Mark is one of the great broadcasters of all time, as Bob did. And the four days later, after my last conversation with Harry and we talked about retirement, he dropped dead in the TV booth in Washington before a National S Phillies game. And I guess those guys enjoyed that, you know that they had to pick away to go.
That's the way they wanted to go. You know, Skelly didn't Benny had retired. I think truly, based on some of the conversations that Ben and I had, he would have retired before he did. So, you know, I retired when I felt like I was on top of my game and to do the things that a man that I've done, that's travel the world, and and I don't regret it. Forty six years for me was long enough.
You had told me a story.
It might have been Joe that you had a Either you or Joe had a conversation with Richie Ashburn, and it was you. Joe told me that you had a terrible fear that you would die on the road by yourself in a hotel room.
That was me. Yeah, you know, we used to have that feature on the air, asked Marty. And they were all lighthearted and more often than not funny. And one night, for some of the one of the reasons, some reason, I just said, I have a tremendous fear of dying in a hotel room by myself, and because I saw Don Drysdale do it when he was a broadcaster with the Dodgers. He died in Montreal in a hotel. Richie died in a hotel in New York. And I had
a fear of that. And people, some people got upset because I talked about something that the opinion of him, many people were dark, was a dark topping. But somebody asked me, do you fear anything? And that's what I said, and I felt that way then, and the chances of that happening now are minimal because pretty much, thank god, Amanda's with me every time we leave town, she's with me,
or I'm with her more. That would be better way to put it when you talk about that, when you talk about the greats Marty uh, Bob Prince or joh Harry, Yeah.
Harry Kerry, Vincecully, you, Denny Matthews, Richie Ashburn, Harry Collis. What is Is there a secret sauce? Because there will be one thousand men or women jelly guys get into the business and they don't connect. They can be their ten, fifteen, twenty years and there's not the connection that that small group who's going to fill those shoes? Says George Jones, there's a special sauce. Do you know what it is?
You know that? That's a thank you for the comment and the compliment. I don't know, Bill, that's a great question. That is a because I truly don't think and this is not said in a disparaging way, but I truly don't think that when you compare the old guys with the current crop of baseball broadcasters who have come along.
I don't think you're going to see those guys held in such a reverent manner as the guys the Harwells and the Bucks and the Scullies and the Ukers and the Bucks and all these guys were hell when they were on top of their game. And I don't know why I can't answer that question. I don't know whether it's a certain quality about those guys that people automatically connect with and feel like, you know, he's one of ours.
I don't know. That's a That's a wonderful question that nobody's ever asked me, so I wish I had an answer for it.
Maybe it's the it fact.
You know, you're in a room with somebody might be Jerry Jones, might be Neon Dion. And you're in a room with somebody. You gonna be twenty thirty guys there, and you look around and everybody's looking toward one guy, and that guy would be ne On Dion Sanders. It might be it might be you, It might be Uh, it might be Jerry Jones, it might be Pete Rose. That's another You're in a room with somebody and everybody's looking toward that guy. It's undefinable, but you know it when you see it.
Yeah, I think so. You know, I held Scully in such a reverent manner because you know, he was always to me and will be until the day they put me away as the greatest baseball broadcaster of all time. But the quality that set Jnny so much apart, and those of us who knew him knew it to be true, was he had no ego. I mean, there was hardly a day that went by that he didn't go to the drug store or go to the grocery store or the service station and somebody didn't say to him, you're
the greatest broadcaster of all time at baseball. And he had no ego, so he was so easy to like. I don't know, it's an interesting topic, and I don't think people held or hold a small broadcaster other baseball broadcast play by play guys in other sports as highly as they do the game of baseball. And they were great, you know, NFL announcers, club announcers at what we're talking about, some of the greats of all time that did National Football League games.
It's do you recall the first time you met him, because he started a couple of years before you started nineteen seventy four. Do you recall when you first met Bob Youker.
You know, it was a while because you know, at that time Bill Milwaukee was in the American League and the Brewers were and we did not play them. And our relationship really started relatively late when the two leagues, when we started having interleague play, and then of course Milwaukee came into the National League. Again. I don't really remember, but we had such a we automatically connected. I'll never forget.
He used to come into town and we would play golf out at the Oasis with doctor David Schneider and doctor Rick Abramson, and you cannot believe the conversations. I mean, you were fall down, Brian. It was such a funny four hours to suspend with him, and they're the moments that I cherished him. Oh. He used to come over with our radio booth when Joe and I were working together, and he would he said one time, I'll never forget
he made the comedy. He said, I now fully understand why you and Marty have such a hold on fan support in this town. And Joe God bless him. Why do you think so, he said, because of the very close personal that word personal was in quotes relationship you had with Marshat.
Yeah.
At it would drive Joe nuts and Bob would leave and he'd come back again a month to six weeks later. He'd say it again, Joe get all bent out of shape again. It was just, yeah, it was just it was amazing. It was. And he went into Baseball Hall of Fame in two thousand and three, and I'd gone in three years earlier. And I called him on the phone. Well,
I'll never forget. I was in spring training where they announced it, and I was driving to the ballpark in Sarasota and I called him on the phone and I said, what are you doing. I said, congratulations. He said, thanks a lot. I said, what Time's a news conference? He said what news conference? I said, damn, I said, you got to have a news conference. I mean, you've been named to the Baseball Hall of Fame. I know the Brewers HA got to be. He said, I'm playing golf
and I said that's wonderful. I said, you can play golf tomorrow. He said, They're gonna have to wait on me. He said, I'm having a pretty damn good round of golf right now. If they won't have a news conference, they either got to come out here or they have to do it on my terms, because I'm not leaving golf to go for the news conference. And I said, boy, you're.
Something that can you relate the Red's country.
I don't know if it's true or not, but I'm told Tommy Thrawl when he started kind of wanted to meet Bob youuger, and so he says to you, Hey, Marty, can you take me over to the Milwaukee and please introduce me to Bob you crown to meet that guy?
Can you tell that story?
I don't really remember.
I am told that you went over there with him and that you're standing with Tommy throwing. There's ker and he like brushed him off. Hey Marty, how are you doing?
Hey this?
Tommy know that, yeah, yes, but that had been set up. I know that had been set up.
Tommy Thrall didn't know that, did he?
He had no idea? And I said, and it just felt it was like it was choreographed because I took Tommy over there and introduced him and Bob blew him also bad. It was a shame. I mean, he didn't give him two seconds of his attention. And Tommy was crestfallen. I mean he was he felt like his world had come to it in And then of course Bob laughed and welcomed the end of the fraternity. But it was really funny. That's a that took place in at their
place in Milwaukee. Really, it was the funniest thing you could pull that stuff off.
Oh he was the best. You know, it's been a tough few months for you, get it? How do you process it? Because all of us share one thing that is our human death, the Pete Rose thing. I talked to you a little bit a couple of days age that I can't talk about it and explain that.
Well, why it's been a few bad months for Marty.
Well, I can start by telling you something you can relate to, because you ain't exactly a spring chicken either. But as somebody once said to me a million years ago when I was young, that if you're lucky enough to live long enough, and long would be defined in
various numbers of years. However, you know we're talking about a goodly number of years to thank God, be on this earth and be relatively healthy, and that if you live long enough, you're going to wake up one day and people that were your colleagues, that were dear friends of yours are all going to be gone, and you're going to be the last one standing. And now it impacts me more and more and more. It all started when when Joe Morgan died, and then when Vinnie went,
and EAT's gone, and now Bob is gone. And you realize that that that's a truism in every sense of the word. And I'm finding that to be the case. And it's as it strikes home even more now than it did when I was first told that, because you when you're when you're forty or fifty, you don't relate to that, but when you're eighty plus, you you do relate to it. And and I just I hate to
see these guys go. I went back and looked in the last communication that he and I had was on Christmas Day when he sent me Merry Christmas greetings and telling me how he is what Judy were doing and I and I always would say to him, I hope you're doing well, and he did not comment on that. And obviously you're talking less than a month ago and now he's gone.
So allegedly he succumbed a small cell lung cancer. And Marty, how would you like to be remembered? How would Marty Brenneman like to be remembered in Red's country?
Well, I guess from a professional standpoint, Bill, I'd like to be remembered as a guy who had had a lot of credibility that you could believe what he said when he said something on the air. Credibility was very important to me. And I would like to be remembered as a person who related well to fans and and and was good to them because they were good to
be And I think it's a two way street. I think if you're a jerk around fans and you feel like you're put upon when somebody asks you for an autograph in the middle of a restaurant, which I never felt that way, they would probably be the things that were most important to me as a person who was, you know, constantly crossing paths with people who either enjoyed your work or knew who you were and judged you by the way you treated them, and that maybe one
moment that they ever crossed paths with you, every time I hear about somebody meeting a friend of mine meeting somebody who was extremely successful in the public eye, was a celebrity, the first question I ask is, I don't
what they've done as a professional is obvious. What I'm more concerned about is what kind of person they were, and if they say, oh, he's a great person, a great guy, great lady, that may before to me than the fact that they were incredibly successful in whatever they chosen walk in life was now.
One thing I can say about the Hall of Famers, when you meet someone who can either help you nor hurt you, and treat them both the same, because that's the quality of a man, is how you treat those who can neither help you nor hurt you. Marty, May you have many, many, many more good rounds of golf, and I know what you're saying about friends and others passing away allows one to reflect on one's own mortality.
Billy Well showed well, said my man.
All right, thank you, Marty, Thanks Billy, Let's continue. Bill Cunningham News Radio seven hundred WLW