Beschreibung:

PHENOMENAL REAGAN ALS RECOUNTING HIS MOST FAMOUS RADIO ANECDOTE. Autograph Letter Signed (“Ronald Reagan”), 2 pp, 4to, Washington, December 21, 1985, to Buzzy Sisco, on mint green White House stationery, page lightly thumbed, light creasing to lower right corner of each leaf. Reagan relates a story from 1934, when, as a radio announcer at station WOC in Davenport, Iowa, he called baseball games by reading the bare outlines from the telegraph and filling in the details using his own imagination. He writes: “Well I was doing a game between the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals. The score was tied, nothing to nothing in the 9th inning. A Cub player Billy Jurges was at bat. I saw my operator begin to type so I had the pitcher wind up & start his throw to the plate. Just then I was handed the slip of paper and it said: ‘the wire has gone dead.’ I had a ball on the way to the plate. The only thing I could think of that wouldn’t get in the records was a foul ball so I had Jurges fouled one down back of 3rd base. / My operator first shrugged and indicated he was getting no message from the ball park. / There were several other stations broadcasting that game and I knew I’d lose my audience if I told them we’d lost our telegraph connection so I took a chance. I had Jurges hit another foul. Then I had him foul one that only missed being a home run by a foot. I had him foul one back in the stands & took up some time describing the two lads who got in a fight over the ball. / I kept on having him hit foul balls until I was setting a record for a ball player hitting successive foul balls and I was getting more than a little scared. Just then my operator started typing. When he passed me the paper I started to giggle—it said: ‘Jurges popped out on the 1st ball pitched.’ / I’ve waited a long time to tell that story. And didn’t tell it until after I was no longer a sports announcer.” See illustration.