As a frustrated Cubs fan who fears that another deep, dark slide will consume the second half of this season, I call for a brief but important time-out. I interrupt our agonizing debates over Dusty Baker’s social commentary, a replacement for Corey Patterson, and the recent slip from first place to remember a friend. Summer after summer, the steady and trustworthy voice of Vince Lloyd brought Cubs games to the colorful stadium of our own minds.
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There is no one quite like the play-by-play radio guy. From spring training through June swoons to those chilly, anticlimactic Septembers, Lloyd was there to punctuate the baseball season for us, to give it place and purpose and scope. His play calling was crisp, articulate, and dependable, and though he never quite acquired the reputation of a Jack Buck or Ernie Harwell, he earned it.
And that’s all we have. But when plays called by Vince Lloyd unfolded, I know I was “seeing” what 25,000 other fans saw in person at Wrigley Field. Lloyd was there with me when I started to love baseball, and in college years when I still followed the Cubs every step of the way. I remember trying to tune in Cubs broadcasts from deep in Missouri, to extract Lloyd’s voice from the static and get a sense of how the north-siders were doing some 350 miles away. Once I could hear his voice, I was home.
