When I was growing up there was an older guy who lived across the way who'd sit out on his back porch during nice weather. Sometimes I'd sit with him and play Yahtzee while an Indians game was playing on a transistor radio.
I think that's where and when I learned how to listen to a radio 'out of one ear', to listen for a change in the announcer's pitch, rhythm and emphasis and focus on the game when something happened. Later in life I also realized that television sports announcers, no matter how good, just don't do the same job as the radio guys. Television demands your full attention. Radio frees you to wander during lulls. And baseball has a lot of lulls.
Lately Major League Baseball has been playing to an empty house with fan noise piped into the broadcast audio. I haven't seen a streaming broadcast yet but the audio's pretty convincing, to me at least.
Now I'm the older guy. I play fetch with my cats and putter around while an Indians game is on in the background. Somehow I find comfort in it.
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