We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
I'LL STICK TO ANNOUNCING
IF THERE is anything more thrilling, more genuinely absorbing and shot through and through with heartwarming human interest than the announcing business. I'd like to know what it is! The behind-the-scenes glimpses of the panorama of American life as you get it over the radio, the close-ups we get of Names-ThatMake-News, make our game the only game in the world for us. In my ten years before the microphone there are many experiences which still stand out vividly in my mind.
I remember a talk I had with Max Baer before his fight with Braddock. We were at his training-camp. I knew him well because I had announced his fights before.
"Ford," Maxie said, "my hands are bad. They won't stand a blow."
I looked at his hands. They were so swollen he had to wear rubber sponges over the tape.
"How can you fight? You're crazy to go into it!"
"Oh, they'll go down," he said, hopefully. "The doc looked at them yesterday and said they would be all right. I'll just keep sinking them into Braddock's belly until I'm ready to swing a hard one."
The night of the fight, I was sitting at the ringside. Graham and I were announcing for NBC. During the fourth round, Maxie led with his right to Braddock's head. Nothing happened. He looked down at me and I could read his thoughts plainly. In the fifth round, he led a hard one with his left and still nothing happened. He looked down at me again. This time there was such awful despair in his glance that I knew everything was over. And it was over.
Why Ford Bond will not trade his job for any other one
By Ford Bond
One of my most interesting memories gives a bit of a sidelight on our President. The incident occurred when Roosevelt was Governor of New Ybrk, long before his name was associated with the Presidency. I was sitting in his study, waiting to put him on the air. A telephone call came for him and he had it switched to his study. I
couldn't help overhearing his conversation and from his words it became clear to me that even then he had his Presidential campaign well under way.
While we were sitting there, Mrs. Roosevelt came in. "Franklin," she said, "we're going to play hearts tonight."
"But I don't want to play hearts," the Governor replied. "I want to read tonight."
"Now, Franklin, we're going to play hearts."
"But I have some reading to catch up on. I have a new book I want to investigate tonight." Mrs. Roosevelt sat down for a few moments, without saying anything. Then, rising to leave the room, she left an irrefutable statement. "We'll play hearts tonight, Franklin."
The Governor grumbled to himself, then turned to me with his famous smile and said : "Oh, all right. . . . What's the announcement?"
A man can be governor, president, or a king, I thought, but, if he's married, he takes his orders like the rest of us !
As I look in retrospect through the years, there is a poignant moment, a remembrance of a tragic voice over a telephone, that always will haunt me. It was the voice of Colonel Lindbergh. I was in charge of the announcers' desk for NBC the night that the (Continued on page 79)