There are truths. And there are poetic truths, ones that illustrate the human condition even if the stories portrayed lack a certain ... accuracy. Why let facts get in the way of a good story, after all?
Legendary broadcaster and storyteller Campbell "Stretch" Miller had that attitude toward life and storytelling in McLean County and elsewhere.
“Although he only lived a part of his adult life in the Twin Cities, the case could be made that indeed Miller may be the greatest storyteller in McLean County's history,” said Bill Kemp, librarian and archivist at the McLean County Museum of History.
Miller grew up in the Hyde Park neighborhood on the south side of Chicago. His nickname "Stretch" came from his 6 foot-6-inch, 220-pound frame. During the height of the Great Depression in the early 1930s, Miller played basketball at Illinois State Normal University. Neither starter nor standout on the court, he was a campus character off it.
He was an editor at The Vidette, the student newspaper, and after graduation went to work for WJBC, the Bloomington-based AM radio station. By 1935 he was handling play-by-play duties, covering the Bloomington Cardinals in the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League of Class A minor league ball. They were the Cardinals for only a brief period. For most of their existence, the team was called the Bloomington Bloomers.
“Miller said working for a small city or even small-town radio station in the 1930s was ideal for somebody who wanted to make a career of it,” said Kemp.
Miller announced news and sports, handled music shows, did a man-on-the-street program, wrote commercials, and even sold advertisements.
“WJBC became a training ground for several play-by-play men; they were all men, who went on to have significant careers in Major League Baseball [MLB] and in other professional sports," said Kemp.
Bob Starr did play by play for WJBC in the late 50s and had a morning show. He became the longtime play-by-play announcer for the California Angels. Lorn Brown announced games for the Chicago White Sox in the 1970s and '80s, and then later Milwaukee Brewers. The late Jim Durham covered MLB for ESPN Radio. He is best known as an announcer for the Chicago Bulls, but also covered the Houston Astros in the 1980s.
“Probably the most famous alum to come from WJBC, when it comes to professional baseball, is Denny Matthews, who was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame Cooperstown in 2007," said Kemp. "He is still the longtime play-by-play man for the Kansas City Royals. He started there in 1969 when the Royals first moved to Kansas City, and he has been doing games ever since.”
After WJBC, Stretch Miller worked in radio in Springfield. World War II service interrupted his career, though he did some radio broadcasting in the Navy.
“After the war, his career includes eight seasons doing Cardinals play-by-play with none other than Harry Carey and Gabby Street, one of the legends in Cardinals nation,” said Kemp. “Miller retired in Peoria and became a local legend on the banquet circuit, known for his stories, whether based in fact or more legend, we cannot really say.”
Here’s one of those stories:
“I broadcast some of the out-of-town baseball games by reconstruction. They were called ticker games, which meant I would stay in Bloomington and dramatize the game from the studios. This was done by Western Union ticker. For example, the W-U man in, say, Evansville, would send each play by Morse code to my W-U man in the studio, who would type out the information, hand the sheet to me, and I, in turn, would describe the action, just as though I were there. We didn't try to fool the people. We did use recorded crowd sound effects, but it was possible to hear the ticker clicking away in the background, and most listeners knew that it was a re-creation.
"What made this particular incident wild was that in the play-by-play, I was always about a half inning behind. The fellow receiving would type up several plays before handing me the sheet. I found out later that all season long, there had been a local man going into various bars in Bloomington where they had my reconstruction games tuned in.
"He would sip a beer and engage in conversation with anyone who would listen. Then he would refer to the game and say things like, I'll bet you the next guy gets a hit. Or two bucks says he'll strike this guy out. Or even, give me odds, and I bet this batter hits a homer.
"He always seemed to find takers, and he nearly always won. He would miss a couple so no one would get too suspicious. He'd then walk out $10 or $15 ahead and go on to another saloon and repeat the process.
"The season was almost over before it was discovered that he was an old Western Union man. He could read Morse code, could hear the ticking in the background at the same time my receiver would be typing it out, well in advance of my description over the air. He won a lot of money before he was discovered, but it's a cinch he didn't go into those bars again.”
During the 1971 season, the St Louis Cardinals remembered Stretch Miller with a memorial weekend. He passed away of ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, in 1972.
McHistory is a partnership between WGLT and the McLean County Museum of History.
