Written by Matt Snyder at CBSSports.com
The baseball world lost a long-known figure and iconic broadcaster on Wednesday, as the Arizona Diamondbacks announced:
We are deeply saddened by the loss of baseball legend and former #Dbacks broadcaster Joe Garagiola.
Garagiola turned 90 years old on Feb. 12 and, boy, did he live a full life, particularly when it came to making something out of a Major League Baseball career.
Born and raised in St. Louis, Garagiola was signed by the Cardinals in 1942 and broke into the majors at age 20 in 1946. The rookie catcher would win a World Series ring with his hometown team that very season.
Garagiola would play parts of nine seasons in the majors, mostly with the Cardinals but he also had stops with the Pirates, Cubs and Giants. He would hit .257/.354/.385 with 481 hits, 82 doubles, 42 homers and 255 RBI.
It wasn’t really about the numbers during his playing career, though.
A great personality, Garagiola would become well-known for his career as a long-time broadcaster, which included 30 years with NBC. Most notably, he worked color alongside Vin Scully on the “Game of the Week” and also several All-Star, NLCS and World Series games. He was on the call with Scully for the famous Kirk Gibson home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.
Garagiola also worked in broadcasting outside baseball. He was a panelist on The Today Show and guest hosted The Tonight Show a few times.
He won the 1991 Ford C. Frick Award for outstanding broadcasting accomplishments from the Baseball Hall of Fame. Garagiola also was given the 2014 Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame.
As for the Diamondbacks making the announcement of Garagiola’s death, Joe Garagiola Jr. was previously the GM of the D-Backs and is currently the senior vice president of standards and field operations for MLB.
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