Carnett: Transistor radio played memories in the making

My parents gave me a transistor radio when I was 13. The year was 1958, and I was stoked!

At the time, transistor technology was rapidly replacing radios powered by vacuum tubes. Four tiny transistors magically spurred my lightweight radio into full-throated splendor. It fit nicely into my jacket pocket.

I took it with me on my bicycle, to school (where I had to store it in my locker), on road trips with my family, even to Dodger games, where I could watch the action and simultaneously listen to Vin Scully.

Of course, I didn’t really need to tote my personal transistor radio to the ballpark. I could hear Vinnie doing play-by-play on hundreds -– if not thousands — of radios distributed throughout the stadium on fans’ laps. A distinctive Scully echo was omnipresent.

Nothing I viewed at the Coliseum or Dodger Stadium — that I saw with my own eyes — could I believe until I heard Vinnie confirm it on the radio.

I was at the Coliseum on Sunday, April 16, 1961, when Dodger coach Leo Durocher — a favorite of mine — got into an altercation with home plate umpire, Jocko Conlan, protesting a fair/foul call. Durocher and Conlan were future Hall of Famers, and it was an incident that’s become a part of baseball lore (as chronicled in this great post on The National Pastime Museum’s site).

I was 16 at the time. My brother, Blll, and I sat high above first base in the Coliseum stands. The Dodger dugout was below us.

After Conlan made the “foul ball” call, Durocher came out of the dugout to protest. He soon returned to the bench. But, in a fit of temper, he threw a towel in the dugout.

Conlan, a reputed hothead himself, shouted, “You’re out of the game!”

No one gets booted for throwing a towel in his own dugout. The crowd booed — I could hear the disgruntled fans both on my radio and sitting around me.

Durocher threw a helmet and towel onto the field, and the crowd of 27,716, anticipating fireworks, rose as one and cranked up the transistors.

Durocher charged Conlan. I grabbed my brother’s arm.

“Bill,” I yelled, “we’re watching history!”

Durocher started kicking dirt on Conlan’s shoes. During one kick, his spikes seemed to catch on the ground, and he nailed Conlan on the shin. Conlan, wearing steel-toed shoes because he was behind the plate that afternoon, aimed for Durocher’s shins.

Off came Conlan’s facemask and chest protector. He clenched his fists.

As veteran L.A. Times sportswriter Frank Finch characterized it in the next morning’s paper: “They began dancing the Russian ‘Kazotski.’ ”

Luckily, no inept punches were exchanged, and the other umpires intervened.

It proved a good day for the Dodgers. They beat the Pirates, 13-6.

Baseball aside, I spent lots of time listening to music on my transistor radio in the late 1950s and early ‘60s,

I was a fan of the Fab-40 Survey on KFWB, Channel 98, the No. 1 station in the L.A. market. It featured such cool DJs as B. Mitchel Reed, Ted Quillin and Bill Ballance.

One afternoon, my freshman year in college, I drove to the KFWB studio in Hollywood and tried to apply for a job. I was politely shown the door. I was shocked at the dilapidated condition of the building that I’d previously envisioned as a manor house on Sunset Boulevard.

I also listened to KRLA, which later grabbed the No. 1 spot in the market. Their jocks included Humble Harve, the uproarious Emperor Hudson and Dave Hull.

In 1964, I was stationed with the U.S Army just outside New York City. I listened on my transistor to Cousin Brucie on 77, WABC, and Murray the K on 1010 WINS.

In a miserable and soggy bivouac pup tent in ‘64, I learned that my favorite comedian, Peter Sellers, at 39, had suffered a heart attack and lay at death’s door. Thankfully, he’d recover and survive another 16 years.

That little transistor radio opened the world for me.

JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.