After 55 years in sports broadcasting, Philly-born Dick Stockton is calling it a career:

Good for Stockton. What a career.

He began in the mid-1960s, doubling as a CBS Sports freelancer while working at KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh. He called NFL games, NCAA games, and the was the lead NBA voice until 1990, when the network lost the rights to the league. He ultimately left CBS for FOX, in 1994, again doing NFL and NBA games while also handling MLB play-by-play on TBS. He had a really long and successful career and called a lot of great games. Stockton even had a stint at KYW News Radio here in town.

The thing about Stockton is that he was becoming the Jason Peters of sports broadcasting. He’s 78 years old and had been struggling in recent years with his play-by-play.

That famously manifested itself in the 2019 Eagles/Bears game, which we wrote about in our Monday morning takeaways column. Among the mistakes, Stockton:

  • said Miles “Saunders.”
  • called the Eagles the Bears and called the Bears the Eagles (this happened several times)
  • said Alshon “Jefferies”
  • failed to say anything at all about DeSean Jackson leaving the game injured, then surmised that he might have an “equipment situation”
  • called Charissa Thompson “Charissa Mack”
  • believed Zach Ertz might be down at the one-yard line when he basically finished his TD three yards into the endzone
  • said Lane “Jackson”

That litany of errors resulted in 94 WIP’s Angelo Cataldi piling on with more criticism, after saying earlier in the week that Stockton was the worst play-by-play guy in the history of television.

This created somewhat of a conundrum in local circles, because while it was clear that Stockton was struggling in his mid-seventies, Cataldi was also totally washed, which put us in the uncomfortable position of having to reluctantly agree with a carnival barker.

At the time, this is what Rob Tornoe at the Inquirer wrote:

Like most sports announcers, Stockton is used to hearing from fans whenever he makes a mistake in a broadcast. But sometimes, the criticism gets nasty and intense. Earlier this week, 94.1 WIP host Angelo Cataldi ripped Stockton on air, calling his style “sing-songy” and laughably declaring him the worst play-by-play announcer in the history of sports television.

“He’s 76-years-old,” the 68-year-old sports talker complained. “He’s awful, awful, awful! I can’t listen to one play he calls!”

…

“When someone is just mean like that, I think it’s more a reflection of who they are than what I did,” Stockton said of Cataldi’s criticism. “I remember critics over a decade ago saying I should quit or be retired. It goes with the territory.”

“Do mistakes happen in a three-hour game broadcast? Yes, they do. But I don’t think people should be judged by a mistake here and there,” Stockton added. “I think it’s the body of work you do in a game. If I were to make 30 mistakes in a game, well that’s a big problem.”

He didn’t make 30 mistakes in that game, but the errors numbered in the double digits.

The good thing about recency bias is that it’s just that – recent. I give the guy credit for spending 5+ decades in the industry and working into his mid-70s. Eventually, people will forget about the struggles and focus on the meat of a person’s career, when they were at the top of their game and plying their trade at the highest level.