Joe Garagiola, the second- best catcher from Elizabeth Street in St. Louis, was the most successful. Branching out from his roots as a baseball announcer, he filled in for Johnny Carson as host of the Tonight Show, served two terms as co- host of NBC’s Today, and emceed network television game shows. He hardly fit the mold of a TV star: in his words, a “fat, bald Italian who drops his Gs.”1 But he was quippy, cheerful, and down- to- earth. His other hosting ventures included Joe Garagiola's Memory Game and the 1986 version of Strike it Rich. This is Joe hosting He Said, She Said in Black & White. This is Joe hosting He Said, She Said in Color. Many television critics called Garagiola an Everyman who connected with the audience whether he was broadcasting a ball game, interviewing a poet, or describing a dog show. He held his own alongside some of the most celebrated personalities of the second half of the 2. Harry Caray and Vin Scully, John Lennon and Barbara Walters. Garagiola was twice honored by the National Baseball Hall of Fame, once for broadcasting and again for humanitarian service. He helped establish the Baseball Assistance Team to aid needy baseball men and crusaded against smokeless tobacco. Favela Life On The Margins Of Rio's Upcoming Ol. Things Heat Up When the Sun Goes Down in Rio. Rio's Polluted Lagoon Set to Host Olympic Rowin. Carnival Carries On In Rio.Hall of Fame broadcaster Joe Garagiola dies at 90. Joe Garagiola, the baseball player turned Hall of Fame broadcaster, died Wednesday after a long illness. Joe Garagiola's Memory Game). Joe loved the game and passed that love onto family. Joe Garagiola’s Memory Game. Longtime baseball broadcaster and “Today” show co-host Joe Garagiola died Wednesday. Baseball Player Turned Broadcaster, Dies at 90. She Said,” “Joe Garagiola’s Memory Game,” “Sale of the. Joseph Henry 'Joe' Garagiola Sr. His other hosting ventures included Joe Garagiola's Memory Game and the 1986 version of Strike it Rich. With Joe Garagiola, Johnny Olson. The son of immigrants who couldn’t speak English, Garagiola grew up on “The Hill,” an Italian- American section of St. His neighbor across Elizabeth Street was Lawdie . Giovanni had come to America in 1. Inveruno, in northern Italy’s Lombardy region, but couldn’t bring his wife to join him until after World War I. Papas Garagiola and Berra were factory laborers. Their sons’ jobs were to fetch pails of beer for the fathers at the end of the workday. Fortunately for Joey and Yogi, they were younger sons; their older brothers had to go to work as soon as they were able. Boys on The Hill played ball in the street, painting bases on the pavement, nailing broken bats together, and liberating scarred baseballs from a sandlot team. Garagiola was a 1. Cardinals scout, Dee Walsh, advised him to switch to catcher. The Cardinals worked him out at Sportsman’s Park and, when he was 1. Springfield, Missouri, farm club as a groundskeeper and clubhouse boy. Joe Garagiola, Self: The Match Game. Joe Garagiola was born on February 12, 1926 in St. How much of Joe Garagiola's work have you seen? Which Steven Spielberg do you prefer? What Kind of Pet Do You Have. Joe Garagiola's Memory Game: Watch full length episodes & video clips. Read the latest Joe Garagiola's Memory Game episode guides & recaps, fan reviews, news, and much more. He did laundry for Stan Musial and other St. Louis prospects. The Cardinals signed him, illegally, shortly before his 1. Springfield in 1. When the season ended, he went home to earn his high- school diploma. After a second minor- league season, Garagiola turned 1. February 1. 94. 4. His draft board sent greetings. Assigned by the Army to Fort Riley, Kansas, he played on a team with much older major leaguers and didn’t embarrass himself. His unit was aboard ship bound for the Pacific Theater when the war ended in August 1. Landing in the Philippines, Garagiola joined the Manila Dodgers, a military squad, stocked with professionals and managed by Brooklyn pitcher Kirby Higbe, that played in a ballpark riddled with bullet holes. In Manila Garagiola heard an Armed Forces Radio broadcast touting a Cardinals farmhand as the greatest catcher since the invention of shin guards. The 2. 0- year- old later acknowledged he wasn’t ready for the majors, but the club was desperate for catching help. Owner Sam Breadon had sold the National League’s best catcher, Walker Cooper, and the designated successor, Ken O’Dea, went down with a bad back. Garagiola, a left- handed batter, won half of the regular job, platooning with 2. Del Rice. Wearing borrowed spikes because he had left his own behind, Garagiola singled in his fourth major- league plate appearance, but struggled to keep his batting average above . Louis fought Brooklyn for the pennant, the rookie’s story was irresistible: Hometown boy makes good. On August 5 the Cardinals staged Joe Garagiola Night, and fans gave him a new car. A big crowd from his neighborhood, who knew nothing of baseball, came out to honor one of their own. Joe said a peddler on The Hill told Mama Garagiola that her Joey was “the first boy from the neighborhood with a name ending in a, e, i, o,or u that gets his name in the papers and he no kill anybody.”4. A September surge lifted Garagiola’s final batting line to . The Cardinals and Dodgers finished tied atop the standings, the first time a pennant race had to be decided in a playoff. In the opener of the three- game set, Garagiola’s first- inning single gave St. With a World Series check on the line, it was a tense, raucous afternoon. Both teams brayed at umpire Beans Reardon’s ball- and- strike calls, and Reardon spewed profanities back at the dugouts. After an overnight train ride to Brooklyn, they did it again, taking an 8–4 victory to advance to the World Series against the Boston Red Sox. The boy from The Hill was goggle- eyed to be sharing the diamond with players whose socks he had washed in Springfield. You’ve been dreaming.’”6 He caught five of the seven Series games (pitcher Harry Breechen preferred to throw to Rice) and went 6- for- 1. RBI. In Game Four he, Enos Slaughter, and Whitey Kurowski matched a World Series record with four hits apiece. Garagiola left Game Seven in the top of the eighth after Ted Williams’ foul tip split the ring finger on his bare hand. In the Cardinals’ half of the inning, Slaughter’s “mad dash” from first base brought home the Series- winning run. Garagiola’s rookie year was the apex of his career. He never made it to another World Series and never lived up to his promise. Yogi Berra followed him to the majors in September. Berra stayed a lot longer, but Garagiola made more money during his lifetime. Two years after his debut, Garagiola was carrying a . He returned the next year to share the catching duties with Rice. He felt secure enough to marry Audrie Dianne Ross, the organist at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church, on November 5, 1. In 1. 95. 0 Garagiola was having his best year, batting . June 1, when he collided with Jackie Robinson and separated his left (non- throwing) shoulder. He missed three months, and the shoulder bothered him for the rest of his career. The Cardinals traded him to Pittsburgh in June 1. The Pirates sent him on to the Cubs as part of a deal that included slugger Ralph Kiner. Despite his journeyman record, Garagiola had made himself into a popular after- dinner speaker. He found that he could usually get a laugh, and could always get a bigger laugh with Yogi stories. At the end of the 1. Garagiola told the Cubs he planned to retire and seek a broadcasting job. The club lured him back with a pay raise to $1. Giants in September 1. It was his fourth stop in the eight- team National League. As a September acquisition, Garagiola was not eligible for the Series. He shows up, however, in some photographs of Willie Mays’s fabled back- to- the- plate catch, with the third- string catcher’s bald head poking through the window of the center- field clubhouse at the Polo Grounds. Garagiola retired at 2. The farther his playing career receded in the rear- view mirror, the worse player he became, as he told it. But in one moment of candor, he called himself an average player, then added, “I don’t mind saying that I think average for a major leaguer is pretty good.”8. On the recommendation of the Cardinals announcer Harry Caray, Anheuser- Busch added Garagiola to the team’s broadcast booth in 1. With Caray and Jack Buck, he beamed Cardinals games over the majors’ largest radio network, blanketing the Midwest and South. Making public appearances for the brewery, he graduated from church- basement suppers and Rotary and Kiwanis luncheons to marquee sports banquets all over the country. The comedian Jack Paar, who cared nothing about baseball, invited Garagiola to his Tonight show because he had heard that the ex- player was funny. The New York publisher Lippincott noticed and signed Garagiola to write his first book, Baseball Is a Funny Game. The slim volume, ghosted by Martin Quigley, is stuffed with anecdotes, some of them hilarious, some informative, some even true. It was the rocket engine of his career. The publisher said it became the bestselling baseball book of all time, emptying the shelves of 1. NBC’s Today show brought Garagiola on for an interview to promote the book. That led to weekly spots on television’s most popular breakfast program and an assignment reporting feature stories at the 1. World Series. The next spring NBC put him on its Saturday and Sunday Game of the Week. He also appeared on World Series and All- Star Game broadcasts and continued contributing to Today. But NBC’s weekend ratings lagged behind Dizzy Dean’s on CBS. NBC gave up the games after the 1. Garagiola quickly slid into one of baseball’s plum jobs. Mel Allen was fired as Voice of the Yankees, for reasons still unknown, and Garagiola took his place in 1. He joined ex- Yankees Phil Rizzuto and Jerry Coleman, and the regal Red Barber, a pioneer baseball broadcaster. Garagiola said Barber gave him the best advice about the job: “Never start a broadcast on an empty stomach or a full bladder.”9. But Barber, who despised the very idea of jocks invading the booth, despised Garagiola above all of the tribe: “It was the first time in my life that I had sat in a radio booth with a fellow who moved in on my broadcast. I couldn’t finish what I was saying. He cut in on me in the middle of sentences. He seemed impervious to the fact that the other fellow up there was a human being.”1. After three seasons, Garagiola left the Yankees for the biggest job of his life: co- host of Today, working with Hugh Downs and Barbara Walters, in 1. Walters, who had been confined to “women’s features,” credited the two men with accepting her as a partner, although she was not officially a co- host. Hugh Downs, Joe Garagiola, and me. I think we were very good and very compatible.”1. Today was the launch pad that made her the first million- dollar news anchor and a TV icon. Today allowed Garagiola to range beyond the “toy department” of sports. He interviewed the 8. Marianne Moore; a genuine Indian yogi; and, as guest host on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, the Beatles John Lennon and Paul Mc. Cartney. Lindsey Nelson called him “the single most ambitious man I ever met.”1. Garagiola said, “I worked hard at it. I didn’t want to look like an idiot.”1. But he didn’t come across as a slick TV guy. He played for four baseball teams in an eight- year Major League Baseball career from 1. He then began several broadcasting ventures, including being a panelist on Today for many years, but most notably as a broadcaster for Major League Baseball on NBC from 1. In 1. 97. 7, after serving as a panelist, Garagiola took the reigns from a cancer- stricken Garry Moore on To Tell the Truth, hosting until that version's end in 1. His other hosting ventures included Joe Garagiola's Memory Game and the 1.
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