The Voices of Summer

Duke Snider’s last day broadcasting Montreal Expos baseball on the radio was October 5, 1986, a Sunday afternoon. The Expos were playing the Philadelphia Phillies in a game that didn’t count for much, and they ended up losing 2–1. I recorded the broadcast for sentimental reasons: Duke and his long-time partner, Dave Van Horne, had been essentially living at my house for twenty years.

All these years later, listening to the audio cassette that, unsurprisingly, I never threw out, I notice that there was little sentimentality expressed in the booth that day. Duke and Dave did, however, launch into a splendid discussion during a lull in the play, based on the fact that the Philadelphia second baseman was named Legg and the third baseman was named Schu. When Duke said it was too bad that the Philadelphia catcher...