Buddy Blattner – Legacy
Buddy Blattner made a very big impression on basketball fans with his play-by-play work for the St. Louis Hawks professional basketball team, but he had begun his broadcasting career in the late 1940s and did 26 years of baseball broadcasts. He covered the St. Louis Browns and Cardinals, the Kansas City Royals and California Angels.
He was also a television pioneer, having worked in the booth with Dizzy Dean in the early 1950s for the first 8 years of the nationally televised “Baseball Game of the Week.” He and Dean also paired for radio’s “Game of the Day,” and he did baseball recreations on the Gordon McLendon Radio Network.
Blattner was the lead announcer on the first 800 games for the St. Louis Hawks, becoming the first announcer to travel with his team and broadcast home and away games. He was twice elected to the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame and received the St. Louis Browns Historical Society Award for Distinguished Broadcasting in 1989.