Lanny Frattare was 12 when he decided he’d be a baseball broadcaster one day. At his older brother Ron’s games in Rochester, N.Y., Frattare sat in the front seat of his family’s car with his father, who had strategically parked facing the field, and announced the action. Being a New York Yankees fan, he tried to mimic the delivery of play-by-play man Mel Allen.
“On my brother’s team, the catcher was Yogi Berra, the second baseman was Bobby Richardson, the shortstop was Tony Kubek,” Frattare said last week. “When I got the Pirates job at age 28, I had an awful lot of people say, ‘Boy, you’re awful young to get a Major League job.