Nat Allbright, died July 18 2011 was one of baseball’s finest practitioners of the forgotten art of game re-creation. He was 87.

Nat Allbright - Out of the Past - 2008 from Chuck Langdon on Vimeo.

Nat Allbright had broadcast minor league games in Columbus, Ga. — often through re-creation — in the late 1940s. When the Dodgers hired him in 1950, he was working for WEAM in Arlington County, Virginia. It was too expensive in those years for the live play-by-play broadcast to be carried on many stations. Mr. Allbright, simulating the action in a studio, became the ideal solution.

By 1953, Mr. Allbright’s broadcasts were carried on 117 radio outlets from Cleveland to Miami Beach, according to “Voices of the Game,” Curt Smith’s authoritative history of baseball announcers. In the Washington area, Mr. Allbright was heard on WEAM, WINX and WOOK, often drawing larger audiences than the games of the hometown Senators.

He died of pneumonia at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington County, VA on July 18, 2011. Read More | LINKS | Video