Curt Gowdy, Requiescat in pace.

I remember Mr. Gowdy and Al DeRogatis doing the NBC Game of the Week and of course there was The American Sportsman...

Mr. Gowdy was a member of the baseball, basketball, and football halls of fame.

And, obviously, real men won't be able to walk into real barrooms and use this line: "Hello, Curt Gowdy, this is everybody."

Obviously, sports broadcasting could use a few thousand Curt Gowdys now. At least we can be thankful we had the one and only for as long as we did.


Curt Gowdy, one of the signature voices of sports for a generation and the longtime broadcaster for the Boston Red Sox, died Monday at 86.
He died in Palm Beach after a long battle with leukemia, Red Sox spokeswoman Pam Ganley said.

Gowdy made his broadcasting debut in 1944 and went on to call 13 World Series and 16 All-Star games.

In 1951 Gowdy became main play-by-play voice on the Red Sox broadcast team. He left the Red Sox in 1966 for a 10-year stint as "Game of the Week" announcer for NBC. He was also the longtime host of the "American Sportsman" series.

"He's certainly the greatest play-by-play person up to this point that NBC sports has ever had," NBC Universal Sports chairman Dick Ebersol said Monday. "He literally carried the sports division at NBC for so many year on his back. ... He was a remarkable talent and he was an even more remarkable human being."

From the Palm Beach Post:

He lived in Palm Beach since 1988, trading in the energy of play-by-play for the soothing day-by-day charms of retirement with Jerre, Gowdy's wife of 55 years.

Born July 31, 1919, in Green River, Wyo., Gowdy had an appreciation for fishing and hunting America's wildest and most beautiful regions. That feeling only grew as his career blossomed in New York as Mel Allen's broadcast partner on Yankees games in 1949 and later as the radio voice of the Boston Red Sox from 1951-66.

Visitation will be Wednesday at Quattlebaum Funeral Home in West Palm Beach with a funeral to follow in Boston.