Baseball is the president tossing out the first ball of the season. And a scrubby schoolboy playing catch with his dad on a Mississippi farm.

I had a job to do, and I did it all these years to the best of my ability. That's what I'd like to leave behind as I finish my final game in Toronto.

I think once you start as an announcer, you have to decide what kind of approach you're going to have. I decided very early that I was going to be a reporter, that I would not cheer for the team. I don't denigrate people who do it. It's fine. I think you just have to fit whatever kind of personality you have, and I think my nature was to be more down the middle and that's the way I conducted the broadcasts.

I deeply appreciate the people of Michigan. I love their grit. I love the way they face life. I love the family values they have.

I think if you checked the attendance records of all the announcers, you'd find a lot better record than you would of anybody else in any other business because we love the game and have a passion for it.

Why the fairy tale of Willie Mays making a brilliant World Series catch, and then dashing off to play stickball in the street with his teenage pals. That’s baseball. So is the husky voice of a doomed Lou Gehrig saying, ‘I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth.’

So much happened (in 1968) it was hard to keep up with everything. We had Denny McLain's thirty-one victories, Gates Brown's great pinch-hitting in the clutch, Tom Matchick's home run to beat Baltimore in the ninth inning, then Daryl Patterson striking out the side to beat them in the ninth. Excitement every day in the ballpark.