BARBER, Walter Lanier ("Red")

(b. 17 February 1908 in Columbus, Mississippi; d. 22 October 1992 in Tallahassee, Florida), pioneering radio and television sportscaster who endeared himself to listeners for more than fifty years with his extensive vocabulary and colorful figures of speech that became known as "Barberisms."

Barber was one of three children of William L. Barber, a raconteur railroad conductor, and Selena Martin, an English teacher. Barber grew up in a home filled with expressive language. Although his original career ambition was to sing, dance, and tell jokes in minstrel shows, when vaudeville began to wane in the late 1920s, Barber decided to attend the University of Florida at Gainesville in 1928, planning to become an English teacher.

One day on campus, Barber encountered a desperate university radio announcer on the verge of reading three agricultural academic papers on a farm report show. (The professor scheduled to read the reports had forgotten to show up for his air time.) The announcer asked Barber to read a paper on bovine obstetrics, and Barber grudgingly agreed. After the station manager heard Barber's reading, he decided that anyone capable of vitalizing cattle procreation tastefully for the radio listener deserved a job.

On 4 March 1930 Barber signed his first radio contract with WRUF at the University of Florida at Gainesville, earning a starting salary of $50 per month. Soon the star of the college airwaves, Barber worked his salary up to $50 per week and then left WRUF in 1934 to take over as the radio voice of the Cincinnati Reds baseball team. Barber's father told him he was making a mistake to take a 50 percent pay cut to go to Cincinnati, but the young broadcaster replied, "I want the chance," recognizing an opportunity at that stage in his career meant more than money. While still in college, Barber was in a car accident and became friends with a nurse who cared for him, Lylah Scarborough. They were married on 28 March 1931; the couple had one daughter.

The twenty-six-year-old Barber had never even seen a Major League baseball game before calling opening day for the 1934 Reds, and he didn't "see" many that first year in Cincinnati. The Reds vice president Larry MacPhail's initial media strategy consisted of broadcasting very few home games from Crosley Field (only twenty in 1934), focusing primarily on having Barber re-create road games as Western Union wired the basic game facts into his studio. The young broadcaster then used his substantial imagination and knowledge of the players' mannerisms to transform the telegraph ticker tape into a vivid picture of action.

By the end of the 1935 season Barber had earned a national reputation as a sportscaster. The recently formed Mutual Broadcasting System chose him to team with Chicago's Bob Elson and Quin Ryan to broadcast the World Series, and Barber continued to get the nod each year in October for the remainder of his tenure at Cincinnati. In 1938 MacPhail left Cincinnati to run the Brooklyn Dodgers. At that time, all three New York Major League teams (Yankees, Giants, and Dodgers) had agreed to a radio blackout, fearing a drop in attendance if games were broadcast. Knowing how Barber's commentating had increased attendance for the Cincinnati Reds games, MacPhail refused to renew the blackout agreement, and hired his favorite sportscaster to come to Brooklyn for the 1939 season.

In no time at all, Barber's unique accounts of Brooklyn Dodgers games became the talk of the town. He saw his role as being that of a game reporter, not a fan, and it was his full-blown reporting that allowed him to use the language skills he had gained from his parents. From his mother, Barber gained an appreciation for a broad vocabulary. When a hitter singled and got to second because an outfielder misplayed the ball, Barber explained the runner's advancing on the fielder's "concomitant" error. When a player erred on a play, becoming the goat of the game, he stood at his position suffering in "ignominy." From his colorful father, Barber learned to use figures of speech. A team didn't put together a scoring rally; it "tore up the pea patch." A runner didn't knock down an infielder to break up a double play; he "swung the gate on him."

The broadcaster's greatest challenge came in connection with Jackie Robinson's entry into the Major Leagues in 1947. Although initially averse to the racial integration of the game, thinking Branch Rickey's "great experiment" would most likely turn into a social circus, through the continuing influence of his wife, Barber overcame his prejudice and called Dodger games in 1947 without once mentioning that Robinson was an African American. His broadcasts deserved much of the credit for Brooklyn's early and unwavering acceptance of the Great Jackie as a player and a man.

Barber left the Dodgers after the 1953 season and moved across town to team with Mel Allen, broadcasting Yankee games through 1966, when he was fired for reporting that only 413 people had attended a Yankee game. After leaving the press box, he wrote his autobiography and three other books, covering topics as diverse as the history of broadcasting, the strength of the human spirit, and spiritual preparation for death. During those years, Barber also narrated films, wrote newspaper columns, and preached frequently as a lay minister in the Episcopal Church. In 1978 Barber and Allen became the first recipients of the National Baseball Hall of Fame's Ford C. Frick Award for their outstanding broadcasting contributions to baseball.

From 1981 until shortly before his death, Barber returned to the radio, teaming with Bob Edwards of National Public Radio's Morning Edition program. Every Friday morning, Edwards presented four minutes with Barber in his spontaneous glory, endearing the Ol' Redhead to a new audience, for whom he became America's grandfather figure on the air. Barber died of kidney complications following surgery for an intestinal blockage in October 1992; his remains were cremated

Barber's goal in life was to conduct himself in such a way that he could always "sleep with himself." Throughout his amazing life, sleep came easily to the man who adhered to the highest broadcasting and personal standards, played a key role in the racial integration of professional baseball, committed his knowledge and wisdom to multiple books on a wide variety of subjects, and ended his life sharing his insights for a new generation of radio listeners. For all of this, he is regarded by many as the most important sports-caster of the twentieth century.

Barber teamed with Robert Creamer on his superb autobiography, Rhubarb in the Catbird Seat (1968). Curt Smith, Voices of the Game (1987), provides the history of sportscasting, with Barber's contributions put in their proper context. Finally, see Bob Edwards, Fridays with Red: A Radio Friendship (1993), a moving tribute by Barber's National Public Radio partner and a good biography.

Talmage Boston