And so farewell then, Eddie Andelman.
You have finally, for the last time, Abandoned Ship!
Never again will you tell a drunk caller, “No ‘whaddayathinks?’ here.”
Never again will you speculate whether the Bruins should be skating more to the left, or to the right.
No more stern warnings to a caller: “No hockey talk!”
Or tips on future wagers: “Got a hunch, bet a bunch!”
Eddie Andelman taught me a word I use to this day: “goodbaseballman.” That’s one word, not three.
Goodbaseballman – a phrase that can be more generally applied to a lifer in any field who’s not very good at what he does, but keeps his head down and his mouth shut.
Another way of putting it: Won’t make waves, also won’t make all-star team.
All the obits are calling Eddie Andelman a “sports talk radio” guy, which he was. But he was so much more than that. He was a larger-than-life character, and one of the best entertainers of his era in Boston.
I first heard him way back on WBZ, which he called the “Wyoming Blasting and Zoning Co.” But I think his glory years were on WHDH, on Sunday nights from 7 to 11 with his totally complementary sidekicks, Mark Witkin and Jimmy McCarthy.
This was long before NFL Sunday Night Football. It was a perfect slot, in the years even before those 11:30 local TV sports recap shows.
The Sunday games were over, everybody was getting ready for the week, and Sports Huddle was the dominant show, at least among male audiences.
The best part of Sports Huddle was that they weren’t jock sniffers like everybody else, then and now, in sports “journalism.” They had real jobs. They hadn’t grown up dreaming of someday lurking around locker rooms, sneaking glances at the players taking their post-game showers.
Bob Lobel perfectly described modern sports talk radio: “Shillville.”
Every year it’s the same thing. The Red Sox are going to the World Series! The Pats are headed to the Super Bowl! Best draft ever! Leave Coach Vrabel alone! Good seats still available!
Right, Mr. Kraft?
Eddie Andelman didn’t give a bleep about any of that pom-pom crap. He just wanted to put on a good show and make the listeners laugh.
Eddie and I weren’t buddies or anything like that. But our paths seemed to cross a lot – WHDH, WMEX, Channel 7, the Kowloon, etc.
One thing the Sports Huddle did very well was prank telephone calls, to hotels, or Japan, or wherever. It was fun radio. We all did it. Larry Glick on WBZ used to call phone booths in all-night gas stations in places like Pensacola.
One morning Billy Bulger, the Senate president, was in Puerto Rico for a junket. I called and asked for his room. They put me right through and I pretended to be the room service waiter.
“Buenos dias, Senor Presidente,” I said. “How many huevos for you this manana? Uno? Dos?
“Who… is… this?” came back the cold voice.
Andelman pulled that kind of stunt all the time – at least until the FCC put an end to it.
I think Eddie gave me my first shot at hosting a radio show by myself. It was during the 1986 World Series, and there was a night game, so obviously I was going to have no audience. But I needed solo tapes to shop around, so I jumped at the opportunity.
I got to the station, I think it was around Copley Square. Eddie was still there, getting ready to leave for the World Series. In the green room, I saw this gigantic 300-pound blob of a woman.
She looked like a plus-sized version of the bear Eddie (or maybe it was Bob Gamere) was once supposed to have wrestled on Channel 7 back when it was WNAC-TV.
Eddie told me he’d left me a guest – a “feminist” named Andrea Dworkin. I looked at her again and thought about how I was about to be stuck in a small studio with her, alone. I wasn’t sure which of Eddie’s favorite wrestlers she most closely resembled, in drag – Bruno Sammartino or Haystacks Calhoun.
“I think I’m scared Eddie,” I told him.
He shrugged. “Love conquers all.” Then he strolled out.
It was never really the same for Eddie at WEEI, run by goodradiomen as the ultimate Shillville. I was employed, against my will, at that same cluster.
The stations were owned by the worst radio company in the history of the world, EntercoN. It was, as Bob Dylan would say, one big prison yard.
Some of us were prisoners, and some of us were guards.
Eddie and I were doing time, hard time. He made the street years before I did.
I never figured out how it happened, but before he was shown the door, Eddie Andelman ended up as our shop steward. It was odd, because he was a business guy, not a pinky-ring union slug.
But he was hard-nosed on any kind of negotiations, obstinate even. Eddie was perfect for dealing with the scummy bodily orifices who ran EntercoN.
As usual, I was trying to get myself fired. One of my tactics was not paying my union dues. Even though we went way back, Eddie put his foot down. Everybody had to pay, even me. I ended up coughing up $7000 in back dues. It was a pain, but in the end, it turned out for the best.
Eddie Andelman was soon gone, and all of us oppressed indentured servants then got the union decertified, to save ourselves a few bucks. Not long after that, with our local defunct, I became eligible to start collecting a pension – not a big one, but I’ve been pocketing it for almost 20 years now.
Eddie, I still think of you fondly the first of every month, and I always will, whenever the direct deposit drops into my bank account.
Thanks for a million laughs, Eddie, and for my kiss in the mail.