Warner Fusselle is not flashy or boastful about what he has had a chance to do in his life.  Fusselle hosted ‘This Week In Baseball’ after Mel Allen and had a weekly show on ESPN.  His current role as radio announcer for the Brooklyn Cyclones is tiring, but he enjoys it.  I recently had a chance to have a sit-down with this guy who has more good stories than Aesop.  Here were the highlights of our conversation.

Paneech:  Tell me how you got your break to start with ‘This Week In Baseball’.

WF: I was in Virginia broadcasting the Virginia Squires games and the ABA folded, so I needed to get in my car and get a job.  I started riding around with no idea where I was going.  I was going to apply for a job with the Washington Bullets, but the PR guy wasn’t there that day, so I got back in my car and drove toward Trenton, New Jersey.  I was at a place where there was a right lane that went one way and a left lane that went another.  I went right not knowing what awaited.  I was there about two weeks [New York] and I got a job for Major League Baseball Productions that was kind of starting this show called ‘This Week In Baseball’.  I was hired to work for $200 a week, and my first day was the blackout of July 13, 1977.  Everything in the world happened like it always does, bit it all worked out and that is how I got my start.

Paneech:  Do you still follow the majors or are you too wrapped up in the Brooklyn Cyclones job?

WF: I follow it but it’s hard.  We got here [Youngstown] two days ago and I couldn’t name one player on the team [Scrappers], tomorrow we have got an eight hour bus ride to Oneonta and right now I couldn’t name one player who plays for Oneonta.  You get there and you are playing these teams you have never seen before and you don’t have a roster so you really have to take time to concentrate on what is going on in this league [New York-Penn League].  I have a slight working knowledge of what is going on in the majors and when this is over I will pick up more on that.

Paneech:  Who was a better announcer, Harry Caray or Jack Buck?

WF: The St. Louis Cardinals were my team and I listened to those guys every night.  I loved Harry Caray, Jack Buck may have well been better, but Harry Caray had so much enthusiasm.  Caray was my guy and I loved listening to him and the St. Louis Cardinals on KMOX.

Paneech: Talk about your collection of records.

WF:  When I was growing up you would hear an ad on the radio for a St. Louis Cardinals record that you could get by sending a dollar to KMOX.  I Have a Cleveland Indians record from 1949 or 1950, which is one of the earliest highlight records.  So it didn’t start out a record collection, I was just a baseball fan.  When I got to New York. I met a guy who had all sorts of baseball songs and I got interested in that and things got out of hand somewhere and I had actually been put in charge of putting together a couple of collections of baseball songs on Rhino Records that are still available, they were very successful.  Today, my collection is mostly rock and roll, but I’ve got a little bit of everything.  If you were to come to my house, I’m sure I would have something that you like.

Paneech:  If the Phillies called and said “we need an announcer”, would you go?

WF: It depends on who called and what kind of tryout they wanted.  If somebody wanted me to do something, and I wasn’t one of ten different announcers and I didn’t do just cable or I didn’t do just TV, you know, radio is so much more important to me, I would go anywhere.  Right now I’m here because I am in New York, and this is where the Brooklyn Cyclones are.  The rich heritage of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and of Brooklyn and baseball, it’s an honor to know right now that I am the voice of baseball in Brooklyn.  I knew Red Barber, I interviewed him on ESPN for ‘Major League Baseball Magazine’.  I didn’t know anybody in Brooklyn, I was just lucky that I got the job.

Paneech:  I heard a story about you meeting Dizzy Dean, tell me about that meeting.

WF:  I was working for the Phillies team, the Spartanburg Phillies.  We were in South Carolina for a game.  I read in the newspaper there that Dizzy Dean would be nearby and that he was going to be speaking at a banquet.  So I said, ‘this is great, I was a St. Louis Cardinals fan, and Dizzy Dean was going to be there’, I was not a big fan of his as an announcer because I wanted everything to be done properly.  I went down there and they said that Dizzy Dean was going to come in and work an inning with me, and I said, “Oh really?”, so I met him and asked him to come over, he was with all of the Falstaff people who were promoting Falstaff at the banquet.  He was kind of reluctant, but he came over, he was there for an inning and didn’t want to leave.  The Falstaff people had to drag him off, but he told some of the greatest stories.  Somebody from the wire services came in and took a color picture of both of us, which I still have today.  Then I was going to get him to autograph it a few weeks later by sending it to his hometown in Mississippi, and he died a few days before I could do that.  That was one of the greatest experiences I had.  It was a thrill and came out of nowhere.

Paneech:  Talk about steroids and today’s game, does it bother you?

WF:  It does, but you hear so much about it everyday, that you kind of get numb to it.  I don’t like it, but I am so busy with what I am doing that I don’t get caught up with it.  I hope it ends, but the next day something else trickles out. 

One Word Answers with Warner Fusselle

Favorite Meal?  Whichever one I can find the time to eat, usually my only meal.

Favorite Musician or Group?  Bruce Springsteen, Elvis, and Pink Floyd.

Favorite Current MLB Player?  Albert Pujols, I like guys who wear their socks right.

Tears For Fears or Kiss?   Tears For Fears, definitely.

Favorite TV Show?  For a guy that doesn’t have a TV, I would have to think about it.

Favorite Food?  Barbecue, Fried Chicken, Bagels, Pizza.

Favorite College Football Team?  Wake Forest Demon Deacons.

Favorite Non-Sports Activity?  I don’t know of any, sleep I guess.

One Word To Describe Pro Boxing?  ‘Not interested’ is two words.

I Have To Move Up or I’m Happy Here?  I don’t have to do anything.  I would be happier if it wouldn’t rain every game in Brooklyn.  I have to build a fortess to survive because it rains every game in Brooklyn.  That’s why I love the road, it is beautiful here and it will not rain!

Fusselle also joked when I asked him if he was Italian.  He said yeah, and then he said on Latino Heritage night he is Fusselleis, and on Irish Day is Fusselligan, so if I wanted him to be Italian I can call him Fusselli.

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