Tuesday Night's Hogs Broadcast Reminder of Elson's More Dangerous Days in Baseball

Voice of Razorbacks once joined allHogs editor in performing miracles to get Travelers on air from Ray Winder Field

Current voice of Razorbacks baseball Phil Elson from his days with the Arkansas Travelers in the early 2000s in Little Rock. / Courtesy of Phil Elson

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – As the Arkansas game against Arkansas-Pine Bluff neared first pitch, a series of texts went out between various reporters about technical issues they were facing, particularly in regard to the wi-fi.

Of course, for those of us in the media who have been around for a while, internet connectivity problems weren't exactly a surprise. That's always the case when covering the Razorbacks in Little Rock regardless of sport and venue. It's genuinely hard to get people to drive down and cover games there because we're in an age where quality wi-fi is required to do the job and it's difficult to find someone willing to fight through it or who doesn't know what awaits them.

However, the biggest surprise to the allHogs leadership team, and apparently to a lot of Hogs fans, was that an attempt to stream the game on ESPN+ was going to take place. While phones were turned into hot spots to overcome the internet problems in North Little Rock, I settled down on my couch at home to see if this broadcast was truly going to happen.

The cameras were each set to different color temperatures and the audio feed appears to have been Phil Elson's call from the Razorbacks baseball broadcast, but it was possible to actually watch the game without a hitch. Getting Elson's feed instead of a couple of random announcers was a pleasant positive.

It immediately took me back to my early 20s just after the turn of the century. Back then getting a baseball broadcast out to the public from Little Rock was even more of a crapshoot.

You see, I was the executive producer for the Arkansas Travelers radio broadcast and Elson was the fresh on the scene up and coming announcer tasked with teaming with me to try to get the game on the air each night.

When I got hired, I thought everything would be fine. It would be a fairly easy job. Running a sound board in one place is the same as anywhere else and I was comfortable enough with pretty much any computer system they could have thrown at me to set up all the ads to play at the proper time based on the run sheet.

Now, the old house in the middle of a Little Rock neighborhood should have been the first clue things might not be getting run using the most modern of technology. The studio used for Travs broadcasts that year was actually a room on the top floor of what I learned was the ACORN headquarters.

When I entered, the first red flag was there were no computers. There was an old school, basic land line telephone, a switcher and a giant stack of 8-track tapes.

I assume that's what they were. They looked exactly like the ones my mother used in the 8-track player of her old Granada in the early 1980s to play either generic children's Christmas classics like "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman" or the Elvis Christmas soundtrack featuring "Blue Christmas" and "Santa Bring My Baby Back to Me."

It was quite the adjustment to roll back a couple of decades to figure out how these worked. There was non-stop anxiety on my end that one of the ads wouldn't rewind fully before needing to be played again and there might be a technical difficulty that would cut into Elson's upcoming interview with one of Travs owner Bill Valentine's "midget wrestlers" before an upcoming bout at home plate.

Somehow we managed to get on the air each night without too many issues. However, when I got what I can only assume was the only day off I had that season, I made the mistake of going down to Ray Winder Field to see the game from Elson's end of the operation.

I had driven past Ray Winder numerous times either going school clothes shopping with my mom as a child, visiting the zoo, or driving to and from college at Central Arkansas, but had never gone in to take in a game. At the time it was tabbed "The Greatest Show on Dirt," but what Valentine was really doing to keep the team in business was running the state's greatest circus that also happened to have baseball going on too, and I was down to see it in person for the first time.

From Clunker Car Night to wrestling and 3-foot batters inserted into the line-up, Valentine turned the Travs into his era's version of the Savannah Bananas. They were the greatest family thrill ride in all of baseball.

What I didn't know was that thrill ride extended to the press box. Now, my memory may not be the most accurate because of the sheer terror of that visit to the ballpark, but the photos I have gone back to check out of the press box set-up seem to confirm how I remember it.

Upon pulling up to the stadium, it looked like it was basically held up by match sticks. It always felt old, but approaching it from the parking lot side made it feel like a stiff breeze might take the place down.

Those feelings were accelerated once inside. I made my way to the stairs to the press box, conveniently located traversing above the head of the sweet lady who played the organ each night.

I think at this point the stairs were lined with traditional metal fencing like a lot of people use in their yards. However, once at the top, I arrived at an incredibly long, narrow wooden beam that looked like it went on forever.

At the far end, as far as the back of the stadium to just above the front of the stands, hung a non-descript wooden box. It clung desperately to an also wooden ceiling like the sword of Damocles.

I was sure if a full contingent of press and Travs employees were to be in that box at the same time, it would come crashing down on the unsuspecting patrons below. However, that was a worry for future me. I still had to convince myself to walk the plank high above these people.

I recall this plank being surrounded on all four sides by a box of chicken wire. Having spent much of my life inside such wiring helping my grandmother feed the chickens she kept out in her back yard, my confidence wasn't strong that it would do anything other than shortly delay my fall onto some unsuspecting fan should I lose my balance.

I also wasn't sure what to do if I started across and someone else started coming the other way. There wasn't enough room for two people to pass at once. There was scarcely enough room for one.

The last thing I wanted was for Mr. Valentine to hop onto the plank with the confidence of 30 years of traversing it in his signature suspenders while I cautiously and awkwardly tried to backpedal back to the other end while watching him impatiently wait for me to get out of the way.

Once I made it across to the press box, I sat in my seat and was careful to minimize my movement. How we got a phone line and equipment out to Elson for each game was a mystery and the fact it actually worked was nothing short of a miracle.

There was little to protect him from the elements, so looking back on those nights where it started to rain, it had to have been pure misery as he vamped and tried to put up with me trying to work my way through stack after stack of 8-tracks as things drug on. The sight of lightning must have been terrifying knowing how high up he was and how much metal wire wrapped around the various areas of his location.

Elson was a brave man doing yeoman's work night after night with the Travs. He paid more than his dues to eventually become the voice of Razorback baseball.

How laughable it must have been for a man who walked that plank in a crumbling stadium over and over for years using archaic equipment while baking in the summer sun to look over and see modern day reporters whining about having to use a hotspot to get good internet service. It doesn't invalidate their frustration of Little Rock area sporting venues being so far behind on basic wi-fi technology, but it does serve as a reminder that things could have been much worse.

Tuesday's call from Dickey-Stephens Park was probably the easiest broadcast Elson has ever done from Little Rock. The press box might be a little snug in comparison to Baum-Walker, but no one had to worry they might die or their equipment get ruined, so it's a huge step up.

It's nice to know both Elson and the since-passed Valentine got to stick around and eventually experience the new stadium after all those years of watching Little Rock's baseball adjacent circus from the chicken coop that was once the Ray Winder Field press box. They both earned the right to a luxury on they could have truly appreciated.

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