Eloy Justino Buxo "Buck" Canel (March 4, 1906–April 7, 1980) was an American

Spanish language Spanish () or Castilian () is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Today, it is a world language, gl ...

sportscaster of

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

games. Canel was born in Argentina when his father was working for the Spanish consulate in that country. His famous

catchphrase A catchphrase (alternatively spelled catch phrase) is a phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance. Such phrases often originate in popular culture and in the arts, and typically spread through word of mouth and a variety of mass ...

was "¡No se vayan, que esto se pone bueno!" ("Don't go away, this is going to get good!").Boyle, Robert H. "'El As' Is the Voice of America," ''Sports Illustrated'', October 14, 1963.
Retrieved August 28, 2017.

Career

Canel achieved international renown and became a household name in Latino communities when he joined in the late 1940s the '' Gillette Cavalcade of Sports''. By then, the Cavalcade was aired through

NBC Red Network The National Broadcasting Company's NBC Radio Network (also known as the NBC Red Network from 1927 to 1942) was an American commercial radio network which was in continuous operation from 1926 through 1999. Along with the NBC Blue Network, it wa ...

and extended their Spanish programming activities to Latin American countries, where it was known as ''La Cabalgata Deportiva Gillette''. On there Canel shared duties with Spanish-language broadcasters such as Pancho Pepe Cróquer, Omar Lares, and Felo Ramírez. During the opening presentation, Canel habitually introduced Cróquer as ''La Voz Deportiva de América''. From 1954–1957, Canel called select

Brooklyn Dodgers The Brooklyn Dodgers were a Major League Baseball team founded in 1883 as the Brooklyn Grays. In 1884, it became a member of the American Association as the Brooklyn Atlantics before joining the National League in 1890. They remained in Brook ...

games over

radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

station

WHOM The pronoun ''who'', in English, is an interrogative pronoun and a relative pronoun, used primarily to refer to persons. Unmarked, ''who'' is the pronoun's subjective form; its inflected forms are the objective ''whom'' and the possessive '' ...

, which was then a Spanish-language

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

in New York City. In the 1970s he called

New York Mets The New York Mets are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of Queens. The Mets compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National ...

and

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Am ...

games, again for WHOM. These feeds were occasionally simulcast by

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

n radio stations. Starting in 1937 until 1979, he was the Spanish voice of the

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB). It has been contested since between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best- ...

. He called a total of 42

Personal life

Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban politician and revolutionary who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and President of Cuba, president ...

was a great admirer of Canel. Castro listened to him regularly and even spoke with him on at least one occasion. Canel died of emphysema on April 7, 1980 in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.

Legacy

Canel was posthumously awarded the Ford C. Frick Award by the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985. He began his career in

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the journ ...

. The

call letters In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a Identifier, unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be fo ...

of WHOM are now used for an

easy listening Easy listening (including mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to the 1970s. It is related to middle of the road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit s ...

station in Portland,

Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...

References

External links

Buck Canel
Ford C. Frick Award biography at the National Baseball Hall of Fame 1906 births 1980 deaths Brooklyn Dodgers announcers Ford C. Frick Award recipients Major League Baseball broadcasters New York Mets announcers New York Yankees announcers People from Croton-on-Hudson, New York Argentine emigrants to the United States {{US-radio-bio-stub