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213 Chapter 45. Marty Brennaman Matt Bohn On July 23, 2000, Marty Brennaman, radio voice of the Cincinnati Reds since 1974, was honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame with the Ford C. Frick Award, the highest award bestowed on a baseball broadcaster. (Honored with Hall of Fame induction that day were former Reds manager Sparky Anderson and former Reds first baseman Tony Pérez.) No stranger to controversy, Brennaman had already indicated that in his acceptance speech he would make a statement in support of Pete Rose’s reinstatement to baseball. Bob Feller and Ralph Kiner had announced that if Brennaman made such comments in support of Rose, they and other Hall of Famers were prepared to walk out on his speech. As the assembled crowd listened anxiously, Brennaman thanked several of the players from the 1975 and 1976 World Champion Reds teams and then paid tribute to those “who should be here,” ending the list “and yes, by God, Peter Edward Rose.”1 None of the Hall of Famers left the stage. When he returned to his seat after his speech, Brennaman recalled that Feller turned to him and said, “I don’t agree with you but I respect the fact that you said what you had to say.”2 The incident was emblematic of a key facet of Brennaman ’s career, which continued past the first decade of the twenty-first century: he has been known not only for his accurate and entertaining play-by-play but also for being unafraid to express his opinions. The longtime Reds broadcaster was born Franchester Martin Brennaman Jr. in Portsmouth , Virginia, on July 28, 1942. He was the son of Franchester “Chet” Brennaman Sr. and Lillian (Skipwith) Brennaman. Growing up in Portsmouth, Brennaman was a right fielder for his Little League team and played high school basketball. Though Brennaman enjoyed baseball (growing up listening to broadcasts of Nat Allbright doing re-creations of Brooklyn Dodgers games), sports were not the primary focus of his early life. Attending Woodrow Wilson High School in Portsmouth, Brennaman aspired to be an actor. After his high school Marty Brennaman was just starting out when he was the voice of the Big Red Machine, but he would become a legend in Cincinnati. 214 matt bohn graduation, he studied at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, and at the University of North Carolina. Though Brennaman participated in the University of North Carolina drama program and performed in summer stock, by the time of his graduation in 1965, he had put acting aside. By this time Brennaman had a wife, Brenda, and two children, Thom and Dawn. Shortly after graduation, Brennaman was hired by a High Point, North Carolina , television station to work on the morning news show and occasionally substitute for the sports anchor . Six months later Brennaman left the television station to work at radio station wstp in Salisbury , North Carolina. It was at wstp that Brennaman got his first taste of sports play-by-play when he broadcast a high school football game in Spencer, North Carolina. Broadcasting football games on Friday nights, Brennaman also became the voice of the Catawba College Indians football and basketball broadcasts. He also began his baseball broadcasting career, describing Rowan County American Legion games. “I did as much play-by-play as any human could conceivably do,” Brennaman said later. “I did 25 high-school and college football games, and I did over 80 basketball games a year and American Legion Baseball.”3 Brennaman credited the experience with helping to develop his talents: “Everything that’s happened for me happened because of Salisbury.”4 After five years of broadcasting in Salisbury, Brennaman was hired by radio station wtar in Norfolk , Virginia. While there he provided play-by-play for the American Basketball Association Virginia Squires. Norfolk also provided Brennaman with his first opportunity to do Minor League baseball play-by-play, as he became the voice of the Triple-A Tidewater Tides, beginning in 1971. “It was against my better judgment to give a guy a job at the TripleA level who’d never worked a full season of baseball ,” Tides general manager Dave Rosenfield said later of hiring Brennaman. However, “his approach and desire were top-notch.”5 After just three seasons of broadcasting at the Minor League level, Brennaman was recommended by Rosenfield for the Major Leagues. The Cincinnati Reds were looking for a new playby -play radio broadcaster as the 1974 season approached...

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