The Death of Radio and the Loss of Imagination

When the Game Lived in Our Heads, Not Just on Our Screens

I used to close my eyes and see the game.

I didn’t need a screen. I just needed a voice one like Bob Uecker’s, cracking jokes between innings, or Vin Scully’s, weaving stories into pitches like it was second nature. These weren’t just announcers. They were companions. Teachers. Poets. They turned ordinary plays into personal memories.

That’s the game I grew up with. Not the one overloaded with data or broadcast like a financial report. But the one that lived through the radio. Through the air. Through imagination.

Now? Now we’re flooded with visuals. The screen tells you everything before your gut has time to feel it. And I miss the mystery. I miss the pause. I miss the space.

There was a time and I lived it when you could sit on a porch, drive a lonely highway, or tinker in the garage and still be inside the game. Not watching it. Inside it. All because of a voice on the radio.

Bob Uecker could describe a foul ball, vividly. Vin Scully could turn a lazy fly out into a small parable about …