Farewell Duke Snider

[tinseltown]

Duke and Dave were the voices of baseball for me growing up, as they were for Jonah Keri. I remember Duke's habit of ending his praise for another with the phrase "...and that's not too shabby," a nice familiar touch that underlined his warmth. He was a great story-teller and broadcaster, and he will be missed by his many fans. I wish his family the best.

(I know a post has already been made for this news, but I wanted to give it its own thread.)

[VIBaseball]

I was wondering how Duke came to be associated with the Expos. I think it must have been through Gene Mauch; I believe they were in the Dodgers system together.

Duke was a part-time batting instructor for Montreal. When Mauch got fired at the end of the '75 season, all his coaches lost their jobs too. The club had hired Duke as a broadcaster in February 1973.

I also saw an interesting story from August 1980: apparently the Mets were trying to lure Duke into their booth. He liked Montreal so much he stayed, even thugh the Mets were offering him triple the money.

[Chicoutimi CP]

I don't know how Snider got the job, but Mauch was fired at the end of the 1975 season (and not 1972). By then, the Duke had held both jobs as broadcaster and hitting instructor. Starting from 1976, he was only a broadcaster.

[VIBaseball]

Post corrected...if I'd thought about it for a second, I would have remembered the date for Mauch. I just misread what I saw in my search.

Here's how it happened, in Duke's own words. John McHale was responsible.

http://books.google.com/books?id=JFf...page&q&f=false

Duke was highly complimentary toward the Expos franchise.

[tinseltown]

Does anyone know if the Dodgers employed Duke in some capacity after his retirement from the Expos broadcast booth? I wonder if they ever thought about offering him a broadcast position. Perhaps he wouldn't have provided sufficient contrast to Vin...

[Chicoutimi CP]

According to this (sorry, it's only a Wikipedia page... that's all I could find), it seems The Duke was a TV broadcaster for the Dodgers only in 1991, with a former cable station called SportsChannel.