Home Team
A (((HearingVoices))) Radio Special

Baseball Stories from the Public Radio Hall of Fame (soundfiles=real 28K)

• Host Gwen Macsai takes a swing at singing the National Anthem.
• Phillip Kent Bimstein plays ball with the Bushy Wushy Beer Man.
• Dan Collison provides play-by-play commentary on Potato Ball.
• Barrett Golding spends a season with the Rookie League.
• Terry Allen defines the many meanings of Dug-Out.

soundfiles Home Team- Part 1(28:00) featuring:

"The Bushy Wushy Rag" by Phillip Kent Bimstein (2000). The sounds of a St. Louis Cardinals' baseball game are combined with the echoes of Scott Joplin's ragtime and the distinctive calls of Bushy Wushy the Beer Man. This 39-year veteran beer vendor at Busch Stadium, he shares his love for the game, the crowd, and the communal spirit of St. Louis. Commissioned by Continental Harmony, a partnership of America Composers Forum, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the White House Millennium Council. Performed by Equinox Chamber Players, who premiered the work in their hometown of St. Louis.

"National Anthem" by Gwen Macsai (1990). Our "Home Team" guest host goes to games at her local minor league stadium, in Prince William, Virginia. After hearing the a host of different folk try to sing the Star-Spangled Banner there, she figures she could do better. That's where the trouble begins.

"The Potato Ball Caper" by Long Haul Productions (2002). On August 31, 1987, one of baseball's most peculiar plays took place in the minor leagues in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was a variation of the age-old hidden ball trick, except it involved a hidden potato. In this story, we hear from the man responsible for the play and two people who witnessed it. Produced by Dan Collison; edited by Elizabeth Meister.

"Rookie League" by Barrett Golding (1989). At the Helena Brewers ballpark in Montana, teens and early twenty-somethings get their first, and for most their only, taste of playing of pro baseball.

soundfiles Home Team- Part 2(30:00) featuring:

"Dug-Out" by Terry Allen (1993). The fictionalized history of two people: a man born in the late 1800s who runs away from home to play baseball, and a woman born in the early 1900s in a half-dugout (a small house partially built into the side of a slope or hill), who grows up to be a piano player and a beautician. Told by Terry Allen, Jo Harvey Allen, and Katie Koontz, with music by Terry Allen. Commissioned in 1993 by New American Radio.


WEB RESOURCES: Producers

URL linkGwen Macsai- Re:sound
URL linkTerry Allen- on New American Radio
URL linkTerry Allen- Radio Memories interview
URL linkDan Collison- Long Haul Productions
URL linkPhilip Kent Bimstein- Works
URL linkEquinox Chamber Players- Recordings
URL linkBarrett Golding- Audio Adventures of the Wandering Jew

WEB RESOURCES: At the Library of Congress- American Memory

URL linkBaseball Cards 1887-1914
URL linkJackie Robinson & Other Baseball Highlights 1860s-1960s
URL linkSpalding Base Ball Guides 1889-1939

This special was mixed by Robin Wise of Sound Imagery. Executive Producer is Barrett Golding. (((HearingVoices))) specials are crafted from new and classic radio shows. Funders include the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and National Endowment for the Arts.

Buchner Gold Coin 1887 Baseball Cards from the Library of Congress.
Audio © the producers & (((HearingVoices))).