Courtesy Ottawa Globe and Mail

(May 18, 2010) Broadcaster Terry Kielty, who died in Ottawa on May 5 at the age of 86, helped bring live broadcasts of big league baseball to Ottawa-area fans that were hungry for game-day action featuring such stars as Jackie Robinson, Al Kaline and Norm Cash.

And what’s more, from the late 1950s to the mid-60s, he brought the play-by-play into local living rooms even when he couldn’t be at the games.

On weekends, when his employer, CFRA radio in Ottawa, covered major league baseball’s Brooklyn Dodgers and Detroit Tigers, Kielty would travel to Tiger Stadium in Detroit or Ebbets Field in Brooklyn to handle the broadcasts. But when travel was too expensive, as when an away game was too distant, he’d do the game from the CFRA studio.

He did it by “re-creating” the games from a tickertape service that updated each ball and strike but offered few other details. He and his engineer would add sound effects like the crack of the bat and crowd noise recorded at earlier games. He’d also invent colour, describing fans scurrying to pick up a foul ball he’d read about on the tape or describing how a home run sailed into the outfield seats.

“If you had broadcast games from that park before, it was a little easier because you knew there were two decks and you could accurately report where a home run ended up,” says Jim Shearon, a former CFRA sportscaster who worked at the station with Kielty from 1957 to 1963. “You had to use your imagination and be enthusiastic and Terry was the best I have ever heard at it.”

Kielty never tried to dupe listeners into thinking he was at the game, says Shearon. He always told the audience prior to a broadcast that the game was being “re-created,” but after that the idea was to be as realistic as possible.

As a play-by-play man and colour commentator, he was a master of filling in gaps when there was no action, such as during rain delays, or in the case of one high school basketball game in Ottawa, when a power failure knocked out the main lights in a high school gymnasium, recalls Shearon.

“I was doing the play-by-play and the game was halted when the lights were out, but Terry kept the conversation going by giving listeners a brief history of both teams and by discussing what happened to alumni from each team. It illustrated how he could fill in any situation by telling entertaining anecdotes and stories.”’

Until Kielty arrived in the nation’s capital, live big league baseball was seldom heard in Ottawa. For coverage, fans had to read the local papers. The best live coverage fans could expect was Kielty’s broadcasts of the Ottawa Giants and Ottawa Athletics of the semi-pro International League from 1951 to 1954, says Shearon, who like most fans, remember Kielty’s unique radio voice as “clear and robust.”

In a 1977 profile in the Ottawa Citizen marking the 30th anniversary of CFRA, Kielty noted that he had the chance to “go in other directions,” but chose to stay at CFRA because he had the opportunity to wear many hats rather than be pigeonholed into one position.

By remaining at CFRA, Kielty helped shape the face of radio broadcasting, says Lowell Green, the station’s veteran morning talk show host. Kielty hired Green in 1960 to do news and agriculture reporting, and also brought morning show host Ken (The General) Grant into the CFRA fold. Grant, who is now retired, and Green, who still hosts his talk show, are among Ottawa’s most well-known media celebrities.

“Without question, Terry played a played major role in shaping radio in this city” recalls Green. “When I started my show The Greenline in 1966, it was a major turning point for the station. The show immediately went to No. 1 with a bullet.”

Kielty was born on June 28, 1923, in Wakefield, England, the son of a coal miner. He came to Canada at the age of three and grew up in Toronto. During the Second World War, he served in the air force, where he got his first taste of radio.

When Ottawa’s Frank Ryan got a licence to start what became CFRA in 1947, Kielty was hired to help get the station up and running. He handled the 11:00 news at night, before branching into sports.

When CFRA acquired the rights to broadcast Ottawa Rough Riders football games in 1953, Kielty worked as the colour man alongside play-by-play commentator Tom Foley. When Foley died in a car accident in 1960, Shearon took over the play-by-play duties, and Kielty continued as colour man and intermission host for many years, during the era when Riders’ greats included Russ Jackson, Ron Stewart, and Ron Lancaster.

Over the years he also handled the play-by-play of Ottawa’s Triple A baseball teams the Giants and the Athletics for CFRA.

In 1960, he became general manager of the station and later added the title of vice-president. He was instrumental in helping CFRA launch an FM radio station known as CFMO in Ottawa. He retired from CFRA in 1993 after 45 years.

Sport was always a big part of Kielty’s life.

From 1977 to 1986, he was president of the Rough Riders, a team he knew well, having covered it as a broadcaster. He also served as chairman of the Canadian Football League’s board of governors in 1981 and for 12 years he performed master of ceremony duties at the prestigious CFL Schenley Awards, where the leagues top players were honoured each season. He was later inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.

Kielty was proud of the city he lived in, as evidenced by his community service work, which included long ties with the Ottawa Boys and Girls Club, the Ottawa Heart Institute, and the Canadian Guide Dogs for the Blind. He was a founding member of the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame.

“Having once worked in Ottawa, I just don't think I would have been satisfied anywhere else,” he said in the 1977 newspaper profile.

He leaves Jacqui (Beaubien), his wife of 35 years, children Kimberly, Kristen and Mark, and stepchildren Heather and Brian. He was pre-deceased by his first wife, Evelyne Major.

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