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Re-creation was an art form Saturday, Apr 26, 2008 BY Harry King NORTH LITTLE ROCK - Handed an at-bat in shorthand, Jim Elder would digest the material and articulate a detail-filled picture. When he quit doing the Arkansas Travelers' play-by-play in 1993, Elder might have been the only practitioner of the art of re-creation in the country. On Thursday night, during a casual introduction to the nonprofit organizations supported in Elder's name, the new museum at Dickey-Stephens Park was open. It includes a plaque recognizing Elder's work and the description of his re-creations notes a "vivid imagination." That, and an intimate knowledge of the game. He was so precise that his description of a groundout to short lasted three seconds, the time it took for a batter to get to first. And, he was such a perfectionist that he accumulated his own background noises and used them perfectly to reflect the on-field doings. For 23 years, Brady Gadberry supplied the half-inning synopsis to Elder when the Travelers were out of town. Gadberry would call the pressbox, get the info from a writer with a local newspaper, and put it on a legal pad. Even though Gadberry might gather as much as three innings per call, Elder never looked ahead. That way, it was fresh for him and the listeners. A 1-2-3 inning might look like this: Smith (2-2) 6-3 Jones (1-2) F8 running catch LC Johnson (3-2) 3u Elder would go through pitches necessary to get to the correct count and then do his thing. With Smith, Elder used the crack of the bat from the tape labeled "ground out" for a hard-hit ball to deep short and then turned up the applause just as the strong throw would have reached the bag. For the running catch in left center, another second was needed to get to the applause. Johnson's roller to first was accompanied by a soft bat sound and subdued applause. Accumulating the tapes was difficult. At a ballpark, 10 seconds is a long time without a distinctive sound by the P.A. announcer, a beer vendor or a fan with something to say to a player or an umpire. Often, Elder hung a mike from the pressbox, trying for those few seconds of hum that he could copy over and over. He had the stock sounds - boos, bat-crack and polite applause for pitching changes - and he had a few peculiar ones, including a muffled pop and a siren, that were used once in a great while. The pop was one-time only perfect when there was a light failure at a park and Elder blamed a blown transformer. And, there was that night in Beaumont when the fellow hanging the scores each half-inning fell off the scoreboard and into the outfield. He could not be moved immediately - Gadberry remembers that the man suffered a broken leg - and there was a long delay. After a few minutes, Elder popped in the taped siren and put it on soft. As time went by, the siren got louder - after all, the ambulance had to get to the park. He even described in detail the guy on the field, the assistance from both team trainers, the players gathered around and the ambulance personnel getting him on a gurney. Vivid imagination, indeed. Even at the worst of times, Elder was a pro. There was a game in Amarillo when the reporter was a first-timer who had trouble keeping up and told Gadberry that the Travs had tied the game in the seventh. He failed to mention that Amarillo had taken a 4-3 lead in the bottom of the seventh. Elder was reporting the game tied going into the bottom of the ninth, when Gadberry found out about the run in the seventh. Elder stopped the re-creation and apologized profusely. A rain delay was the worst. If the broadcast was paused and sent back to the station, the listeners might bail or those tuning in late might think the game was over. If Gadberry knew there was an upcoming rain delay, he would tell Elder who would begin slowing the action. The thunder he had on tape would start off in the distance and grow louder as it got closer to time for him to stop the action. Thunder and other sounds are on the cassettes in the museum display at Dickey-Stephens. ------- Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media's Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com. |
