BEN WALKER
AP Baseball Writer
Herb Vincent closes his eyes and drifts back a half-century, to his boyhood bedroom in North Little Rock, Arkansas. He's 9, trying to stay awake deep into the night, the transistor radio tuned to distant KMOX in St. Louis, listening to Cardinals baseball.
Bob Gibson's shutouts, Lou Brock's stolen bases and Joe Torre's slugging made for sweet dreams. What he heard in-between pitches sounded even better.
"The muffled murmur of the crowd," said Vincent, the associate commissioner of the Southeastern Conference. "It was like the soundtrack of the summer."
"I can hear it right now. You can make out a voice sometimes, maybe a peanut vendor or a yell," he said. "It's soothing, it's reassuring."
Probably speaking for fans all over these days, he added: "I don't
