Mar 20, 2020 6 min read

The “When Sports Were Played” for today goes back exactly 35 years, to May 3, 1985, when Bob Prince, fired by the Pittsburgh Pirates 10 years earlier, returns to the broadcast booth at Three Rivers Stadium for a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers. In the first inning Prince calls, the Pirates score nine runs.

PITTSBURGH – He’s back.

And Pirates baseball might never feel such a presence again. Bob Prince, whose love-hate relationship with this city is now bordering on infatuation, was welcomed back to the Pirates’ announcing booth after a 10-year absence.

Looking frail and drained from recent surgery, Prince was taken back into the hearts of KDKA, the Pirates, the 17,628 fans who came to Three Rivers Stadium Friday night and the thousands more who joined in the celebration by tuning the game in on their radios.

They distributed Green Weenies – good luck charms made popular by Prince in the early 70s – before he took the microphone in the top of the fourth inning. And by some magical force that would not allow this night to be anything but pleasant for the Gunner, the Pirates erupted for nine runs in the bottom of the fourth inning, the team’s largest output in over two years, to come away with a 16-2 thumping of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

“If you think that happened because of me,” said Prince, who left the booth after working two innings, “then you can put away your pens and microphones and we can we can form a cult.”

”There’s a drive into the gap. We got a bug loose on the rug.”

The idea to have Prince return to the booth came from Pirates broadcaster Lanny Frattare, who made a suggestion to Rick Starr, vice president and general manager of KDKA.

“We were sitting around discussing ways to draw interest back into the club and Lanny just throws out the thought, ‘maybe it’s time to bring back the Gunner.’ I went around to talk to the Pirates and KDKA to see how they felt about it. Everyone said it was a great idea but you’ll never get the other guys to go for it. So I went to the other guys and they said yeah it’s a great idea but you’ll never get the other guys to go for it.”

So it was decided it was time to approach Prince about returning. But there was a slight problem. Prince was recovering in the hospital after surgery to remove two cancerous tumors.

“I had to say, ‘Can he do this?'” Starr said. “I’m not a medical guy and I didn’t know if he could.”

So Starr received assurances from the doctor that a return to the broadcast booth would be ideal and that in the 50 operations he had performed on other patients, only one had turned out negative.

“They asked me and I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ Here I was with a scar from my ear to my chin, a tube in my nose and a tube in my mouth and they wanted me to come back,” Prince recalled. “I said, ‘Is this an April fool’s joke?'”

It wasn’t. Prince signed a two-year deal with KDKA. He was scheduled to do three innings on May 3, which was billed as “Welcome Back Bob Prince Night.”

“He couldn’t hit that with a bed slat.”

Understandably, he was nervous. At 68 and ailing, could he really walk back into the booth and make it 1975 again?

“So many people were counting on me to do the job and I was scared to death I wouldn’t do a good enough job,” he said. “I told Lanny and Rook (Pirates broadcaster Jim Rooker) that as soon as I got bad, I was stepping out.”

At times, he sounded nervous, but then there were the moments that brought back better days. Describing Mike Marshall, the Dodgers pitcher, Prince said, “that big donkey.”

On Los Angeles picter Rick Honeycutt: “If his fastball hit you in the eye, you wouldn’t even blink.”

On Pirates pictcher Mike Bielecki: “He’s so good looking, I like him.”

And on the Pittsburgh nine-run fourth: “Here I am trying to learn how to keep score again and here is the 11th man at the plate this inning.”

“It missed being fair by a gnat’s eyelash.”

Prince left at the end of the fifth and answered reporters’ questions with unusual modesty, a far cry from the unabashed form that ultimately cost him his job in 1975. His partner, Nellie King, also was let go at the time.

Still, he wore one of those famous sports coats, the one with a pattern usually found on your living room couch.

“I realize there are a lot more people worse off than me,” he said. “When I was fired, people used to come up to me and say we miss you. My wife gave me some great advice for that. Instead of being bitter, I just said, ‘I miss you too.'”

”We had ’em all the way.”

In the game, Sixto Lezcano, Tony Pena and Bill Almon cracked two-runs singles during the nine-run explosion in the fourth inning to lead the Pirates offense. Jason Thompson hit a two-run home run, his third in is an many games, and a two-run single as the Pirates enjoyed their top offensive output since they scored 16 runs against the Chicago Cubs on June 2, 1981.

Larry McWilliams scattered eight hits for the victory and added a run-scoring double in the fourth, the Pirates highest-scoring inning since an eight-run inning against Cincinnati on May 15, 1982.

Los Angeles shortstop Bill Russell’s third error of the game helped key the Pittsburgh outburst.

With the Pirates leading 3-2, McWilliams struck out and Bill Almon was thrown out attempting to steal before the next 10 Pirates batters reached base against loser Rick Honeycutt and relievers Tom Brennan and Bob Castillo.