"Turn out the lights, the party's over, They say that all good things must end," sang NFL broadcaster Don Merideth at the end of a Monday Night Football broadcast in the 70's. At the same time that Marty Brennaman took over for current NFL broadcaster AL Michaels.
Completing his 46th season Marty, as he is commonly known by just his first name, plans to ride off into the sunset and be irrelevant.
"I jokingly say and Amanda (his wife) battles me every time I say it, that when I call the last out Thursday, I will cease to be relevant in this town. I am fine with that. I truly believe I will be a whole lot less relevant and that's good for me."
Through his 46 years he has seen icons who have long outlived their own relevance cheapen the years of hard work by trading on the days when they were prominent. There was Bob Feller, who became a caricature of himself by wearing his Indians uniforms and signing autographs or Pete Rose exploiting Hall of Fame induction weekend by holding autograph sessions in Cooperstown.
Marty plans to play golf with his grandsons and go to Anderson High School football games.
Brennaman wants people to remember him for his credibility.
"I've been given the right to broadcast games the way I want to broadcast them," Brennaman said to members of the media gathered to help celebrate his last three games. "The element of criticism come into that approach. I'd like to think when I said something, the fan knew that when I said something, it was something I truly believed in. It emanated from my heart and chest as something that I felt right and not just something the powers that be would appreciate. I feel the same as you guys. If you don't have credibility you have nothing. If people don't believe in what you write and every thing is a puff piece, you have nothing. If have nothing else but credibility, I'd be happy."
Brennaman acknowledged that some players are glad he's retiring. Feeling that his broadcast rhetoric was harsh and unfair coming from someone, who has never played the game at the Major League level.
Joey Votto is the Reds' player, who has been around the longest and often the object of Brennaman's critique.
"Let me preface by saying I have nothing but respect for him. He's done it a long time," Votto said. "He's beloved by a good portion of Reds' fans in this part of the country. He's the voice. He's the first contact."
"What's funny is most of my connection with him has been negative to be honest with you," Votto continued. "He's said some things that people have reacted to. I think they expected a reaction out of me. More often than not, it was just him having a take on something, calling it as he sees it. I'm a player and there is always going to be opinions about us. Because he's the strongest voice, people expected reactions from me but I didn't feel strongly about it. I just felt like he was voicing his opinion at that time. I play every day and listening to the game is not an option. Really, if you ask me about my interaction to Marty, it was what do you think about what Marty said about you. More often than not my reaction was I didn't hear it. Once I finally heard it, my take was he was doing his job and is attempting to entertain the fans, that's his take and how he feels deep down inside. That has more or less been my relationship with him. I see him often. He doesn't ever hide what he said. He always says hello. He makes a point to stand his ground. I have respect for him. Again I haven't had enough, I don't have a good enough idea of his connection to the fans because most of the time, I'm out on the field so he and I don't cross paths, that often."
David Bell grew up in Cincinnati and has listened to Marty all his life.
"It seems like he is enjoying himself, still," Bell said. "My first experience was when my dad (Buddy Bell) played here. Listening to him made me feel that it was important to him. It was an honor to work with him this year. The pregame show with him was the most nerve wracking."
It was nerve wracking but not because, he was critical of his father when he played here.
"I don't remember anything that he said about my dad, but we were taught from an early age have thick skin. We were taught that whatever was said about you on the air or in the stands, at least people cared enough to be there or listen on the radio. That's why he's added so much."
The game and broadcasting has changed so much in his four-plus decades.
"The biggest thing that's changed is social media," Brennaman said. "There's hardly a thing that goes on that the public doesn't know about. In the old days and Hal (McCoy) can attest to this, there are things that happened that nobody talked about and nobody wrote about. Now its a different deal. A player goes out after a ballgame on the road, and has too much to drink, that's going to be on twitter. Everybody concerned becomes a bit more cautious."
"I'm not as big a fan of the game as I used to be," Marty said. "I think some of the rules that have been implemented, some of the things that are talked about and not acted on are just as bad. Bunting has become a dinosaur, hitting and running has become a dinosaur, stealing bases has become a dinosaur. It's all about home runs and strikeouts and walks. I'm not a big fan of it."
Cincinnati is unique for a Major League market with the small town feel as opposed to the mega media markets like, New York and Los Angeles.
"This is a radio town," said Brennaman, who has had offers to go elsewhere. "I was blessed to come here at a time when TV didn' t have the impact it does now. After, I've been here awhile I realized no place could match the quality of life here. The money would have been better someplace else but this town has every thing. I don't know what else you could ask for."
This day was to come eventually but Marty never wanted to talk about it. He was going to retire after last season without announcing it.
"I was going to work the Sunday game last year, go home and call the front office and tell them, I'm retired," Brennaman said. "Somehow they got wind of it and talked me into coming back this year."
He didn't want the fanfare, the tough farewell and expects to have a difficult time in his last game on Thursday afternoon. He didn't talk about retirement, even when his broadcast partner of 31 years , Joe Nuxhall, retired in 2007.
"We purposely never talked about it," said "We did that without ever saying it to each other. He knew and I knew what was coming when the season came down to its last game, the last game that he ever did. We approached each game like we were going to be together for 20 more years. We got to the last game and we got to the last out. We went to the postgame show and at that point. He said, I guess we have to talk about it don't we little buddy. I said yes we do. I couldn't get through it. He said I guess you need some help. I said yes I do. The best way to deal with it is not to think about it a lot."
Jeff Brantley took over for Nuxhall and Marty hasn't missed a beat with him.
"He has become quite a good play-by-play guy. He knows more about pitching than anyone I've ever been around. Our friendship has developed on the air and off the air," Brennaman said. "The things we say to each other and the approach we take as a team on the air is genuine. It was like when I worked 31 years with Joe. We never sat down said lets talk about your life or my tomato plants or said let's talk about things that normal people do. That was an evolution of our relationship. The same is true with Jeff. I'm not a very religious person but I truly believe that when God decided to take Joe, he gave me Jeff Brantley."
Hopefully, the Reds win the game on Thursday, so Marty can say for the last time, his famous tag line, "And this one belongs to the Reds."
"Thursday will be the hardest day of my life. The one thing I would not do is retire and come back. I can't think of a scenario where I would do another game. When I announced my retirement I've had people ask me if I would come back and do 35 games. I said do you know the definition of retirement? If you don't, I'll get the dictionary and open it up to the page and you can read it. I won't do games that rightly should go to people who are in place. I've known people who have done that and I never approved of it. It would mean that my retirement was a complete sham. I'm not going to come down and hang out at the ball park. I made it perfectly clear that when I do the Thursday game, that will be it."
So with the sunset in the horizon and Marty going off into the September sun what will be left behind?
"You guys (the media) has been good to me. Far better than I could ever expect," Marty said. "As I've said many times, it's not going to be the game that I miss. That does not minimize what the game has meant to me and my family and the things that have I've touched on since 1974. People like you all are the ones that I'm going to miss the most. That's going to be toughest hurdle I'm going to have to deal with. This wintertime it will be like normal. It won't be any different. Come next February when the truck goes out of here and heads for Goodyear, Arizona, Amanda and I will be out there for a couple weeks. It's not going to be the same as being there every day. Once I get over the hurdle of not missing you guys anymore, I don't know that will ever happen but I'll be home free. Emotionally that will be the toughest thing about leaving this job."
