For One Morning, They Weren't Mets Legends. They Were Just Dad.

Every Mets fan has three voices permanently living somewhere inside their head.

One reminds us that it's "a beautiful day for a ballgame."

Another tells us it's time for the Happy Recap.

The third somehow manages to interview a player who just hit two home runs...and wind up talking about his wife's cooking.

Those voices belonged to Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy and Ralph Kiner.

For more than three decades they didn't simply broadcast Mets baseball. They narrated our summers. They drifted through open windows on warm July nights. They echoed from transistor radios sitting on backyard picnic tables. They accompanied family vacations, Sunday barbecues, and countless drives home from Shea Stadium.

Somewhere along the way, they quietly became part of our families.

And then, this morning, something happened that none of us expected.

For one unforgettable hour, four people reminded us that before they were broadcasting legends...before they became the soundtrack of generations of Mets fans...

...they were simply Dad.

Joining me were Scott Kiner, son of Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner; Brian Murphy and Kelly Murphy, the son and daughter of the beloved Bob Murphy; and Nancy Nelson Wyszynski, daughter of Ford C. Frick Award winner Lindsey Nelson.

We weren't there to relive famous calls.

We were there to remember the men behind the microphones.

The very first question was intentionally simple.

"If you could describe your father in one word, what would it be?"

The answers told us everything.

Nancy smiled before answering.

"Classy."

Not colorful.

Not loud.

Not larger than life.

Classy.

She laughed that people still ask which one of Lindsey's famous jackets he was buried in.

"He was buried in a navy blue blazer," she said. "Because that was his personality."

For a generation that remembers jackets loud enough to require their own zip code, it was a startling reminder that television personalities aren't always who they appear to be. Behind every outrageous plaid sport coat was a quiet gentleman from Tennessee whose grace mattered far more than his wardrobe.

Scott Kiner's answer came immediately.

"Driven."

Then he explained why.

His father lost his own father when he was only four years old. His mother had grown up an orphan. Everything Ralph Kiner accomplished came through determination and hard work.

What surprised me most wasn't Scott describing the Hall of Fame slugger.

It was Scott describing the broadcaster.

"He worked very, very hard on his broadcasting," Scott recalled. "Just as hard as he worked on baseball."

Imagine that for a moment.

A man who hit 369 major league home runs...a first-ballot Hall of Famer...felt he needed to work harder because he believed Bob Murphy and Lindsey Nelson were the true broadcasters.

That humility said as much about Ralph Kiner as any statistic ever could.

Brian Murphy couldn't quite come up with just one word.

Instead, he smiled and slipped effortlessly into his father's familiar cadence.

"It's a beautiful day for a ballgame."

I couldn't resist asking what kind of clouds were floating overhead.

"A few puffy cumulus clouds."

Without missing a beat, Kelly Murphy laughed.

"I call them Dad clouds."

Just like that, every Mets fan listening was transported back 40 years.

Kelly eventually settled on two words.

"Positive. Optimistic."

Then she described a man who was exactly the same at home as he was on the air.

"He took nothing for granted."

Bob Murphy arrived at Shea Stadium three or four hours before every game. He poured over statistics. He spoke with players. He met with managers. He prepared endlessly, even after decades behind the microphone.

But once he came home...

He was simply Dad.

Brian admitted he constantly tried getting his father to talk about the game.

"He wouldn't do it."

When Bob Murphy walked through the front door, baseball stayed outside.

Family came first.

As the conversation unfolded, something wonderful happened.

The stories stopped sounding like baseball stories.

They became family stories.

Nancy talked about growing up in Huntington, where the Nelsons and Murphys lived only a short walk apart. The families shared cookouts. The children grew up together. Brian remembered visiting the Nelson house overlooking the water.

They weren't famous broadcasters.

They were neighbors.

Friends.

Family.

Nancy paused to remember Bob Murphy.

"I think one characteristic I remember the most about Bob Murphy is that he was the kindest man."

Then she shared a story that left the entire audience quiet.

Nancy's sister had Down syndrome.

Every single game...Bob would make sure he spoke to her.

Eddie Kranepool also came over to visit her.

Every game.

He looked at her scorecard.

Asked about the game.

Made her feel special.

"He never missed."

Sometimes baseball isn't measured in batting averages.

Sometimes it's measured in kindness.

Scott painted a picture of growing up in the Kiner household.

There wasn't expensive artwork decorating the living room.

There were baseballs.

Signed baseballs.

Trophies.

Memories.

Artifacts from baseball history.

"Baseball meant everything to him."

Not fame.

Not celebrity.

Baseball.

It wasn't difficult to understand why Ralph Kiner became one of the greatest ambassadors the game has ever known.

Of course, we couldn't talk about Ralph without talking about Kinerisms.

Scott admitted his father always claimed those famous verbal slips were intentional.

"I think he kind of did them on purpose," Scott laughed.

Then he smiled.

"Something tells me they just came out."

His favorite?

"It's going...going...going...to be caught."

The room erupted in laughter.

Somewhere, Ralph probably did too.

The conversation drifted naturally toward 1969.

Not the Miracle Mets.

The miracle of experiencing them.

Scott remembered the electricity inside Shea Stadium when the Cubs came to town.

Brian remembered watching fans tear apart the field after the Mets clinched.

Kelly remembered something even more meaningful.

"We all sat together behind home plate."

Not scattered throughout the stadium.

Together.

"The wives. The families. The community."

Nancy smiled remembering that her mother somehow rescued a small piece of Shea Stadium grass after the celebration.

She planted it in a flowerpot.

For years...

A piece of Shea Stadium grew in the Nelson family kitchen window.

Only Mets fans would understand why that somehow makes perfect sense.

The stories became increasingly personal.

Brian remembered becoming a batboy.

Tug McGraw taking "Little Murph" into center field to shag fly balls.

Tom Seaver.

Jim McAndrew.

All treating him with extraordinary kindness because of the respect they had for his father.

Scott echoed the sentiment immediately.

"Tom Seaver was without a doubt the nicest man to me."

Kelly remembered Buddy Harrelson as another player who treated every broadcaster's child like family.

Again and again, one theme kept surfacing.

The Mets weren't simply teammates.

They were one enormous extended family.

Perhaps nothing captured that better than Nancy's memory of the 1969 World Series celebration.

She arrived late after having to take a test at school.

The celebration lunch was already underway.

There didn't seem to be a place for her.

Until Tom and Nancy Seaver simply slid over and made room.

"I ate lunch between Tom and Nancy Seaver."

Not because he was Tom Terrific.

Because that's what families do.

Near the end of our conversation, I asked each of them one final question.

"What do you hope Mets fans remember most about your father—not as a broadcaster, but as a man?"

Brian's answer immediately reached every father and son who ever listened to baseball together.

"It was the voice of summer," he said. "It gave fathers and sons something in common. My dad just loved bringing people together."

Kelly remembered hearing countless fans tell her they left Shea Stadium early—not to beat traffic—but so they could hear Bob Murphy finish the game on the radio.

Think about that.

People left baseball...

...to listen to baseball.

That's how much those voices mattered.

Nancy reflected on why the original broadcast team stayed together for so many years.

"They all had the same goal."

To make listeners feel like they were sitting right there at the ballpark.

Mission accomplished.

Long before social media.

Long before streaming.

Long before twenty-four-hour sports networks.

Three men invited millions of strangers into a baseball game every night.

And somehow, by the end of every summer...

...those strangers felt like family.

As our conversation ended, I realized something.

We had spent over an hour talking about Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy and Ralph Kiner.

Yet we hardly talked about broadcasting at all.

We talked about humility.

Kindness.

Preparation.

Optimism.

Family.

The qualities that made them great announcers weren't hidden behind the microphone.

They were simply the qualities that made them great men.

For one unforgettable morning, four sons and daughters gave Mets fans a gift.

They reminded us that legends aren't remembered because of famous catchphrases or colorful jackets or Hall of Fame plaques.

They're remembered because of the lives they touched.

And if, tonight, you happen to look out your window and notice a few puffy cumulus clouds drifting across the summer sky...

Don't be surprised if you hear Bob Murphy whispering that it's a beautiful day for a ballgame.

If you smile at one of Ralph Kiner's wonderfully mangled one-liners.

Or if you imagine Lindsey Nelson standing there in one of those impossible jackets, ready to paint another masterpiece with nothing more than his voice.

Because for so many of us, they never really left.

They're still the soundtrack of summer.

And they always will be.

Here is the full hour converstion :