Radio journal: Ken Ohst

Eli B canel a cheerful beefy 60s resident of Croton on Hudson leads a double life at home in Northern Westchester County or at work in Manhattan these largely unnoticed and unsung is to all outward appearance is merely one of the thousands of faceless commuters who throng in and out of Grand Central Terminal. But the millions upon millions of Latin-Americans live be canel better known as Buck canal is one of the great figures of the age. In Spanish Harlem in New York billboard posters featuring canal exhort passers by to Shaffer ask for a fee for a brand of beer. Should canal get a cab with a Cuban or Puerto Rican driver. The ride is on the house. Whenever any Latin baseball player or a boxer sees Canelo he will throw his arms about him in a warm embrace. He stops. Says

Jose bug on the Giants shortstop in Puerto Rico. Little kids make believe they are buck NFL but Canelo is the best man at Luis opery CEOs wedding canel introduced Munna late date to Joe Louis Goodell So a former U.S. ambassador to Brazil once remarked when presenting him to John Foster Dulles is the best known American in Latin America. Canelo is celebrated and venerated in Latin America or any number of reasons. He's sort of a one man band of journalism and broadcasting for almost 30 years now. He's been doing shortwave broadcasts in Spanish from the US of LA City a the World Series. And when you go DST Yes the All-Star Game. Championship matches of ed books and other sporting events last fall series between the Los Yankees Dana about

York and Los s give out ot ace dados on K lace was canals Twenty-Seventh a record for a broadcaster and by not because de baseball could be depended upon to hang on every word especially when canal exclaims No save I am gay isto say pony Bueno which means Don't go away this is going to get good. There are Latin America the saying is famous. Politicians have been known to shout it at restive mobs and Canal is hailed to the amusement of his US friends as a US dados look toward a steep divorce the ace of sports broadcasters. In addition to his status as a US NL is also noted for being a Follow me if you dared journalist. It works in the New York bureau of us France Press

and worldwide French wire service is their Latin American news editor and whenever a big story breaks south of the border he's off with a typewriter and trench coats. So Far Canal has covered half a dozen revolutions and emerged unscratched being us. He's immune to bullets and bombs. A couple of years ago for example when the true heel regime was overthrown in the Dominican Republic canel and a swarm of other correspondents entered the capital city of Santo Domingo in a caravan of cars. When the first car appeared a mob formed and began throwing rocks and shouting at the imperialists to go home. NL who is in the middle of the caravan had thoughtfully written his name on the side of his car and when he drove by the members of the mob dropped their rocks and applauded wildly. I need passed the mob resume stoning the caravan. A short while later as if to demonstrate his hold over the

public canal left his hotel for the cable office with a copy at once street firing ceased and a crowd fell into line behind canal chanting buck wild but a president they asked recently what would have happened had he accepted the offer canal said I don't think they would have made me president but I do think I could have led one hell of a parade. Even the high and the mighty are entranced by canal when one pit oen heard that canal was in Buenos Aires to cover the Pan-American Games. He promptly invited him to his country estate where he insisted that they spar with one another in the presidential gym later on. Avi presented Canelo with a lovingly inscribed copy of her autobiography her own was in pretty good shape canel says. He was a sport. Last time I saw him he was in exile he had some dame and a French poodle with him and all he wanted to do was talk about boxing. Until female castrato became

annoyed by stories dealing with communism in Cuba he was a great admirer of canel. You listen to him regularly while holed up in the Sierra Maestra that they took over the canal in some British newsmen in Havana hired a car and drove 50 miles to find him as he advanced at the head of his army. They met up with Fidel in tons of us at a wild celebration in the city hall and when Castiel saw canal he rushed over give him a huge hug and babbled away in Spanish. What's he saying. The British reporters axed excitedly. Well he wants to know said Canal. Why Haney pitch spawn instead of bird dead in the sixth game. Can l learn his Spanish while growing up on New York's Staten Island his father an Export-Import man had come to this country from a studio us in Spain and Al's mother was American of Scotch Irish extraction. They raised seven children of whom buck

is the eldest. They nicknamed buck comes from his middle name books all in high school canal was a fair athlete and in his spare time he worked as a correspondent for the Staten Island Advance. He always felt a pull toward writing is paternal grandmother Eva kyne Al who lived with a family from time to time was a well-known playwright a novelist who had left Spain to go to South America and lecture against divorce. And for these efforts she was decorated by the Roman Catholic Church. During Cornell senior year in high school his father died and upon graduation he went to live with his grandmother. Then in Cuba it worked briefly for a sugar company on the side he managed a winter league baseball team that had as one of its members Charleston the great American Negro outfielder. We beat everyone in sight canel says. In one thousand thirty one canal went to work for the Associated Press in Havana. There he

met his wife the former Colleen park a Texas girl who was society editor for the english language of Anna Post canel had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances in Cuba including an obscure stenographic sergeant in Army General Staff Headquarters will conceal the Teesta. The members of the general staff couldn't be bothered with coming to the office every day so they'd check in by telephone with the Teesta to find out what was going on in the army. Well it soon dawned upon the sergeant that he in a manner of speaking was really running the Army and that he did not need any advice by telephone and with the help of some other disgruntled noncommissioned officers. He overthrew the general staff and eventually made himself president. On the day of the coup canel scored a notable scoop win but Tista and his followers surrounded the hotel Nazionale where some of the general staff officers were living it up.

The officers barricaded themselves in the hotel and shot it out with but teased his men. And during a brief truce canel slipped inside the hotel where his wife reports he spent all his time riding up and down in the elevator getting interviews. But these two became presidents he went on the radio to deliver a pregnancy until the Cuban people. After he finished he turned to Canelo who was in the studio and said here but do my speech in English they're probably listening in Florida. This was Canal's introduction to broadcasting. After four years with the AP in Havana canel returned to New York and there with the help of a couple of influential admirers Drew Pearson the columnist and Sumner Wells the former ambassador to Cuba. He got a job with of us as France Press was called before the war in 1936 canel learned the National Broadcasting Company was planning to start

shortwave broadcasts to Latin America in Spanish with permission from us. He applied for a job as a broadcaster and was accepted. One of his first assignments was the Yankee giant World Series. That's canelo got his two careers one with the French wire service the other as a broadcaster. It has worked out very well for all concerned. When canal finishes broadcasting a ballgame or a fight over shortwave for Gillette's his sponsor since 1939. He then writes two different stories for the wire service one in Spanish for Latin American clients another in English for newspapers in the Far East. Neither story is a translation of the other. I have two different personalities canal explains one Spanish the other English. If Hector Lopez gets a hit I lead with that in Spanish and English. I write that Whitey Ford pitched a shutout for the Yankees. In his early days at NBC canel

did a bit of everything. For years he was Franklin D Roosevelt in Spanish and once he was even Churchill most of the time however canal did sports. He broadcast the University of Havana Long Island University basketball game from Madison Square Garden. Surprisingly Havana won and he did the only Army Navy football game ever done in Spanish. On one occasion he even broadcast the military funeral of a Chilean horse named Laina that had been killed during a practice jump for the national horse show in appropriately somber tones canel described a sad scene at Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island where officers of the Chilean army resplendent in grape colored capes and black boots stood at attention while the horse covered with roses and wrapped in the Chilean flag was lowered into the ground. And while covering the World Soccer Championships in Chile last year canel was invited to dinner by Elena's owner

Eduardo Younis. Then a captain now retired lieutenant general and former Minister of War. After brandy and cigars were passed the general ceremoniously played a recording of Canal's funeral oration. I gathered says Canela flattered that he played the record a number of times. When France fell Canelo left us he did not return to the wire service until 1950. During the war he worked for NBC mostly under the direction of the Office of War Information. He resigned in 1947 and for the next three years devoted himself solely to broadcasting for two years he lived a good part of the time in Puerto Rico where he ran a radio station and did the winter league games. He also did games in Venezuela and in 1981 Nicaragua to broadcast the Emma to World Series in Managua. The

highlight of the series occurred when Gen. tacho samosa the dictator of Nicaragua was enraged by his country's failure to win a game. The general not only fired the manager but locked him up in jail and took over the running of the team himself samosa canel says was the only manager I ever saw in a dugout wearing a four star generals hat. And what's more he didn't win a game either. Returning to the states canel did the Brooklyn Dodgers in Spanish over a local station for a season and then later broadcast the Chicago White Sox games to Latin America at the time the White Sox Los media block us. We're a big attraction because of the presence of many men also in Chico Carrasquillo on the so-called GO GO GO TEAM. One listener wrote to ask canal if it were true that the shortstop Cara's skill and third baseman George Kell were brothers. As a sports broadcaster canal has a

great appeal to Latins. He has a rich bass voice that combines all 30 and virility a combination that they find irresistible. I tell them something they believe it. Canal says. Even so there are problems. Canal for instance cannot do a baseball game using the Spanish words for catch or throw lol. In some countries these words have a rather risky connotation as a result of players as reported by canel are forever grabbing or snagging the ball when not tossing hurling or flinging at. It would be scandalous to translate the catcher literally as catcher canel solves this problem by calling him in Ellicott chair. That's all right he says have the baseball lingo in Spanish I invented anyway. By the same token the names of some U.S. players are off color when given a Spanish pronunciation and such is the case with Don blazing game. His first name is a title of respect

in Spanish. The first syllable of his last name is a proper name and the last syllables form an imperative. It would make Del Castiel blush as he is always referred to briefly and simply as blah. In Spanish a fall is food a walk when bus a porter borne us a bunt when Tokay literally a touch first base premed Abbassi second base third lot better Sarah and a home run home grown. The names of the teams are literally translated the athletics are lowest I've played the course and the Cardinals Los Cardinale s. By the way the last All-Star Game the nationally had Cardinals first second and short and Ron Santo of the Cubs at third and Condell told his listeners that the American League

didn't have a chance what with the National League having three cardinals and a saint in the infield. They eat up stuff like that he says. One team however does have a special name in Latin America and that is the Cincinnati Reds. Since the Reds were the first major league club to use a lot of Cuban players the team is known as El caddy though seen see a beloved Cincy and in 1961 it was canals sad duty to report every unfortunate move as the beloved Cincy was soundly trounced by the Los Yankees four games to one in CA. Names are a perpetual problem with canal. Some Latin players are known by a one name in their home countries and another name here the real name of the three brothers for example is Rojas. Apparently the Giant front office was confused by this Spanish practice of placing a man's family name

in the middle and his mother's maiden name last. Now over the Rojas brothers have become so publicized as the lose with los Gigantes that canal refers to them as Rojas ALU with the same case with Luis Cuomo whose family is Rodriguez. But this didn't matter so much because Rodriguez or almost was invariably called by his nickname El he bottle Puerto Rican slang for hick. Similarly Ruben Gomez was known as a local Divino a divine crazy one and Orlando subpoena is that routine. The diminutive of Joe which is his father's nickname. Besides the series the All-Star game an important fights can now has two local programs in New York. Once a week he does a sports show. It had been a rama. It bought a Tivo. SCHIEFFER And he does the television commentary for winter league games of the

week from Puerto Rico. Games are videotaped the day before and flown to New York by canal broadcasts. Two minutes of play by play in Spanish and one in English. Last year we had a higher rating than the Mets he notes with some pride in his off hours Canelo surround his home and Croton reading Sherlock Holmes or playing chess. And for two years did a radio program with cup of Blanca The great to Cuban master in New York he usually lunches at El Rancho Grundy a Latin American restaurant on West Forty fourth Street. And there he reminisces with Patsy I'll virus a proprietor who once boxed as the patent leather kid. They talk about such characters as the senti six cylinders fighter and Martine de Heagle a Cuban ballplayer who Canal says was one of the greatest he ever saw. Iran too is a gathering place for Spanish speaking ball players and boxers. And during lunch and as likely to cut up touches with Al Lopez

whose father also came from a studious one Maurice Scholl Camillo passed qual as all of his allies. The Rojas ALUs or anyone else who happens to be in town. What with his crushing schedule canel is at last unable to take on any more jobs. A couple of weeks ago touchy to a samosa the son of the old general and the current boss of Nicaragua made canel an attractive offer to come down to broadcast ball games this winter and l decided that he was too busy to accept but he likes to tell friends that Gillette made him turn it done in the name of the man fronting as president in Nicaragua is Schick a.