Muskogee Native Talks Past Calling Texas Rangers Baseball, Von Erich Wrestling Family

Muskogee native Bill Mercer was a newsman in Dallas and covered the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He also had an illustrious career as a play-by-play sports announcer covering football, Texas Rangers baseball, and even the legendary wrestling family the Von Erichs.

LEANNE: So your Rangers won the World Series this year. What's your reaction? Oh,

MERCER: Oh, we were delighted that 50 years and they finally won one. I know Tom Grieve and Rich Hand, and some of the other Rangers around here are just delighted that this happened. It is a really good baseball team championship team. This one we have now. And I think we can keep going. For years,

LEANNE: I read something that you said that baseball is the hardest sport to cover play-by-play. Is that accurate?

MERCER: I think it's harder because it's individual. And you had to be on every bounce of the ball, throw the ball, you know, it's like they said in Boulder. I mean, you catch the ball and throw the ball and you hit the ball. And when you tried to keep up with it, and there are several men on base, and they're all are moving and you have to a sword situation is very difficult. But I love every minute of it. I do it again if I could,

LEANNE: what would you suggest or recommend? What do you what would you advise? I guess those would be broadcasters who want to do play-by-play.

MERCER: Practice, practice, practice, obviously

LEANNE: The Ice Bowl of '67 Would that be the most notorious game that you ever called?

MERCER: And that was something I told you. I don't know how they played it. They shouldn't have. And we had no heat in the press box. We had to use a windshield so the ice recedes through the windows. And it was it was really a battle but it was a really great game one of the best games I've played. And they they just missed it by here.

LEANNE: So that was Dallas at Green Bay. I read an article where you had said the night before it was a balmy 35 But then that next morning, it dropped below freezing. Yeah,

MERCER: I got a wake-up call and the lady said welcome to Green Bay. It's 30 below zero. And I thought what that must be wrong. And I walked downstairs and out through the door right back in it was 30 below zero.

LEANNE: And I heard I heard they say that there was supposed to be something on the field that was going to keep the field warm. How did that work? Yeah,

MERCER: Yeah, They had put in a heating unit under the field. And we met the engineer who did it the day before and he was so proud of it he said they'll have a beautiful field tomorrow. And it froze solid. No no amount of technology because of that 20 below heat shield.

LEANNE: And he was nowhere to be found, right?

MERCER: I told him to come up and be interviewed at halftime but I never saw him.

LEANNE: The World Class Championship Wrestling was kind of your thing for a number of years as well with Fritz Von Erichs and all those wrestlers, what was that experience Like?

MERCER: You know, I started that in Muskogee because they did a radio broadcast once a month at City Auditorium with professional wrestlers. And I had to learn how all the holes are things. And then I got the job as Dallas doing that on TV. And I did that most of the time until baseball. And then when that ended, world-class Championship Wrestling came on, and it was a worldwide sensation the way that it was produced and, and all the voluntary kids David, Evan, Kevin, and Carrie, Mike and Chris, but circumstances personal circumstances for them. kind of ruined everything.

David died in Japan. Kevin's the only one left and a dear dear friend of mine. I knew those boys when they were little boys before he got into Wrestling. Wrestling is kind of like a hobby for me and I love to build the drama All that I wasn't a "yell and scream" guy like some of the others. I took part in the thing also took part at all. Some of the funny stuff we did.