St. Louis Cardinals Gameday – June 2018

72 CARDINALS MAGAZINE @CardsMagazine

How did you feel about going to work for
KMOX?
COSTAS: Well, as somebody who
knew the history of sports broadcasting
very well, KMOX was a mecca. Obviously,
it’s before the Internet, it’s before ESPN,
it’s before most teams televised more than
a small fraction of their games, and way
before regional sports networks. Radio was
really the primary way that you got baseball,
except for the Saturday Game of the Week,
the All-Star Game and the World Series.
As a kid who was really infatuated not just
by baseball but by baseball broadcasting,
I would fiddle with the radio dial on
Long Island or when I was at college and
try to pick up out-of-town broadcasts.
A lot of people know that story or have
the same story to tell. It was really the
50,000-watt stations like WCCO in
Minneapolis, WJR in Detroit with Ernie
Harwell, or KDKA in Pittsburgh with Bob
Prince, and WLW in Cincinnati. Waite
Hoyt was one of the Reds’ announcers, and
Waite Hoyt had been a teammate of Babe
Ruth. During rain delays, he would tell
Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig stories. WBAL
in Baltimore was another favorite of mine.

I liked Chuck Thompson, who was the voice

of the Orioles.

But on a really clear night from some

(1,000) miles away, you could get Harry

Caray and Jack Buck on KMOX. There

really was an element of romance about

that, the theater of the mind engaging the

imagination in the way radio does and

television can’t.

What was it like when you reported for your

first day on the job?

COSTAS: I walked into work the first

day, and it was like, “Oh, my God.” I had

no aspirations beyond that. I was 22, and

there I was at KMOX. I’d already gotten to

a place where if you’d told me I’d work my

way through the ranks and maybe be there

when I was 40, I would have been thrilled.

I would have said, “Where do I sign?” I’m

sure that I did not know quite how to carry

myself, unlike someone like Joe Buck. Joe

grew up around it, just like my own son,

Keith. I just grew up dreaming about it.

I was respectful to the point of being

reverent to Jack Buck and to Dan Kelly and

to Bob Starr and the rest. I just tried to learn

as much as I could by observing them. I’m

sure I got better more quickly than

I otherwise would have just to keep up, just

to pull your own weight. You had to get

better quickly, because everyone there was

excellent.

Did anyone take you aside in the early weeks

and say, “Hey, kid,” and give you some friendly

advice?

COSTAS: Well, Jack took me aside and

said, “Hey, kid,” and it was a swift kick in the

pants. But he meant it in a constructive way.

It was like, “Hey, you can’t express opinions

yet, even if your opinions are correct, because

you’re new to town, and this is a relatively

conservative town, and you have to prove

yourself. And, dammit, be on time, never

late.” I was never late for a broadcast. You

know, if I was supposed to be on at 6 o’clock,

maybe I showed up at 5:30, and Jack said,

“It would make a better impression if you

showed up a little earlier than that.”

Everyone there was really helpful. Although

Jack Carney wasn’t a sports broadcaster, he

had the morning time slot, and he was one

of the great broadcasters. He really took a

liking to me, put me on the air, and called

me “Young Bobby Costas” and introduced

me to the audience in a way that just doing

basketball games couldn’t. I was pretty good

on the basketball games, and people were

very kind and very accepting of the job I was

doing. But people like Jack Buck and Dan

Kelly let me know that if I was going to go

beyond that – and in a way, I think they were

telling me I had the talent to go beyond that

• I had to learn not just how to broadcast
  games but how to be a professional.

Did you think at some point that you might

become a regular play-by-play broadcaster for

the Cardinals?

COSTAS: Well, people would talk

about it, and people would suggest it.

I was so lucky that my career took off the

way it did at NBC. I was doing the Game

of the Week in 1982 when I was 30, and

other things connected at the network. The

NBA came along, a late-night talk show

that didn’t have anything directly to do

With a carton of milk for nourishment, young Costas flexed his in-studio muscle as a host
with eloquence and encyclopedic knowledge on KMOX’s “Sports Open Line.”

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