Bob Wolff

Robert Alfred Wolff

• School Duke University

• Born November 29, 1920 in New York, NY USA
• Died July 15, 2017 in South Nyack, NY USA

Biographical Information

Bob Wolff was a longtime broadcaster for the Washington Senators and Minnesota Twins. He also worked for the NBC network. Among his most memorable assignments was calling Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series. he was also behind the mike for the 1958 NFL Championship Game between the New York Giants and Baltimore Colts that is considered to be one of the greatest in the history of professional football.

He began his broadcasting carer in 1939, calling Duke University baseball games for the CBS radio affiliate WDNC in Charlotte, NC while still a student. he had played for the school's baseball team himself before a broken ankle had forced him to turn to other pursuits. he then served in the United States Navy during World War II. After the war, he became a sports reporter for WINX radio in Washington, DC in 1946, then became the Senators' first television broadcaster in 1947 when the medium was just getting its start. He stayed with the Senators until their first season in Minnesota, in 1961, then moved to back to his hometown of New York, NY. In the 1960s worked alongside Joe Garagiola on NBC's Game of the Week. He later broadcast games of the New York Rangers and of the New York Knicks, making him one of the few announcers to broadcast regularly the four major North American team sports (he had covered the Washington Redskins back in his Washington days). He won the Ford C. Frick Award, given by the Hall of Fame for meritorious service in the field of baseball broadcasting, in 1995. He was still working in the 2010s, giving him an incredible eight decades of work in the media world. His last gig was as a sports commentator for cable TV station News 12 in Long Island, NY, having joined the station from its inception in 1986. The Guinness Book of World Record said in 2012 that he held the record for the longest-ever career in sports broadcasting.

In 2009, the Washington Nationals named the press box in the newly-opened Nationals Park in his honor. He donated his impressive personal library of broadcast tapes to the Library of Congress in 2013; the collection included over 1,000 hours of recordings of historical importance. He and Curt Gowdy are the only two broadcaster to have been honored by both the baseball and basketball Hall of Fames.

Further Reading

• Richard Goldstein: "Bob Wolff, Sports Broadcaster for Nearly 80 Years, Dies at 96", The New York Times, July 16, 2017. [1]
• Manny Randhawa: "Legendary broadcaster Wolff dies at 96: Hall of Fame sportscaster called Larsen's perfect game in 1956 WS", mlb.com, July 16, 2017. [2]