➦In 1912...Irving "Irv" Kupcinet born (Died at 91 – November 10, 2003) was an newspaper columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, television talk-show host, and radio personality. He was popularly known by the nickname "Kup".
His daily "Kup's Column" was launched in 1943 and remained a fixture in the Sun-Times for the next six decades. In addition to writing his newspaper column and talk-show hosting duties, from 1953 to 1977 Kupcinet provided commentary for radio broadcasts of Chicago Bears football games with Jack Brickhouse (and was affectionately mocked for the signature phrase, "Dat's right, Jack").
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| Bill Todman |
According to radio historian J. David Goldin, among their early work together was the show Treasury Salute, a program syndicated by the Treasury Department that honored military members. They later collaborated in producing game shows for radio, then moved into television, where they produced some of the longest-running game shows in history.
Their many shows included Beat the Clock, Card Sharks, Family Feud, Match Game, Password, Tattletales, The Price Is Right, To Tell the Truth and What's My Line?.
He died from a heart condition July 29 1979, two days short of his 63rd birthday.
➦In 1919...Curtis Edward Gowdy born (Died from leukemia at age 86 – February 20, 2006). He was a sportscaster, well known as the longtime "voice" of the Boston Red Sox and for his coverage of many nationally televised sporting events, primarily for NBC Sports and ABC Sports in the 1960s and 1970s. His accomplishments include coining the nickname "The Granddaddy of Them All" for the Rose Bowl Game, taking the moniker from the Cheyenne Frontier Days in his native Wyoming.
In November of 1943, recovering from back surgery, Gowdy made his broadcasting debut in Cheyenne calling a "six-man" high school football game from atop a wooden grocery crate in subzero weather, with about 15 people in attendance. He found he had a knack for broadcasting, and worked at the small KFBC radio station and at the Wyoming Eagle newspaper as a sportswriter (and later sports editor).
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| Curt Gowdy |
Gowdy's distinctive play-by-play style during his broadcasts of minor league baseball, college football, and college basketball in Oklahoma City earned him a national audition and then an opportunity with the New York Yankees in 1949, working with (and learning from) the legendary Mel Allen for two seasons.
Gowdy began his Major League Baseball broadcasting career working as the No. 2 announcer to Mel Allen for New York Yankees games on radio and television in 1949–50. There, he succeeded Russ Hodges, who departed to become the New York Giants' lead announcer when the Yankees and Giants decided to broadcast a full slate of 154 games, instead of sharing the same radio network and announcers for the 77 home games of each team that had been broadcast (no away games of either team were broadcast).
In April 1951 at the age of 31, Gowdy began his tenure as the lead announcer for the Red Sox. For the next 15 years, he called the exploits of generally mediocre Red Sox teams on WHDH radio and on three Boston TV stations: WBZ-TV, WHDH-TV, and WNAC-TV (WBZ and WNAC split the Red Sox TV schedule from 1948 through 1955; WBZ alone carried the Red Sox from 1955 through 1957; and WHDH took over in 1958). During that time, Gowdy partnered with two future baseball broadcasting legends: Bob Murphy and Ned Martin. He also did nightly sports reports on WHDH radio when his schedule permitted.
Gowdy called Ted Williams' final at-bat where he hit a home run into the bullpen in right-center field off Jack Fisher of Baltimore. He also called Tony Conigliaro's home run in his first at-bat at Fenway Park on April 17, 1964 at the age of 19.
He left WHDH after the 1965 season for NBC Sports, where for the next ten years he called the national baseball telecasts of the Saturday afternoon Game of the Week and Monday Night Baseball during the regular season (and the All-Star Game in July), and the postseason playoffs and World Series in October.
➦In 1933...Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy first aired. It was a radio adventure series which maintained its popularity from 1933 to 1951. The program originated at WBBM in Chicago on July 31, 1933, and was later carried on CBS, then NBC and finally ABC.
Armstrong was football hero at fictitious Hudson High School who saved the day from dastardly villains. Somehow, these adventures would take Jack and his cousins, Betty and Bill Fairfield, to exotic locales where they would make use of industrialist Uncle Jim’s yacht and a hydroplane they referred to as the Silver Albatross.
➦In 1964...Country Music Hall of Famer James Travis Reeves died (Born - August 20). With records charting from the 1950s to the 1980s, he became well known as a practitioner of the Nashville sound (a mixture of older country-style music with elements of popular music). Known as "Gentleman Jim", his songs continued to chart for years after his death. Reeves died in the crash of his private airplane.
