Failed Yankee Announcer Teams

El Duque’s rankings of the best announcing teams got me to thinking about what some of the worst were. 

Here are three pairings that didn’t work out.

Father Coughlin / Mel Allen / (1939)

After being forced from the airwaves in 1939 because of his support of fascism in Europe, this enormously popular host of "The Golden Hour of the Shrine of the Little Flower" turned to sports and was hired by the Yankees and paired with Mel Allen in what proved to be a short lived experiment to have Yankee broadcasts go national and compete with the Cardinals and Cubs in the Midwest.    

Signature Call: "Mother Mary and Joseph what a Heavenly Blast!"   

Reason It Didn’t Work Out: He blamed every error the Yankees made on the Jews. 

Fred "Cappy" Capossela / Red Barber (1954)

In 1954 Red Barber was near the end and was, quite frankly, losing it. Listeners complained about the long pauses and dead air. To remedy it the Yankees hired horse racing announcer Fred Caposella to inject excitement into the broadcast. 

Signature Call: “He’s out of the Box! Heading for first! He makes the turn! … and stops… My G-d this is boring!!!!

Reason It Didn’t Work Out: Caposella, in what was prescient but very much a no-no at the time, kept giving the betting odds on the games.

Red Barber/ Redd Foxx  (1964)

This early attempt at a more diverse broadcast went “South” quickly but not for the reason you’d think.  The two got along surprisingly well. 

Signature Call:  "If I hit my balls that hard I couldn't walk for a week." 

Reason It Didn’t Work Out:

The two got along so famously that the “Old Red Head” frequently played the straight man. A typical exchange went like this.

Foxx: Strike one. You know Red, I had to go to the doctor’s office the other day.

Barber:  Oh, I hope you’re OK. What happened?

Foxx: Well, the doctor told me I have to stop masturbating.

Barber: Why?

Foxx: So he could examine me.