Albert Pujols' 700th home run: How Bradley grad Charley Steiner called baseball history

PEORIA — Albert Pujols made the history, and Charley Steiner made the call.

Steiner, the Hall of Fame broadcaster and Bradley University graduate, was in the right place at the right time — in the broadcast booth as the Los Angeles Dodgers play-by-play voice — when St. Louis Cardinals and former Peoria Chiefs slugger Pujols hit his historic 700th home run Friday.

Pujols, who homered in consecutive at-bats at Dodger Stadium to become just the fourth player in Major League Baseball history to reach 700 home runs, left the baseball world with an indelible memory.

"It was a wonderful, magical evening, really pretty cool," Steiner said Monday, while the Dodgers enjoyed the day off. "The odds of Albert hitting home runs Nos. 699 and 700 in consecutive at-bats (in Dodger Stadium) … they would not have ever placed a bet on that in Vegas or in Heaven or Hell.

"It was just … wow."

Steiner is a National Radio Hall of Fame inductee now in his 18th season as Dodgers radio play-by-play voice. He broadcast for the Yankees and spent 14 years as a top on-air talent at ESPN. He's done everything from the World Baseball Classic to New York Jets games and boxing. It's a magnificent career that started right out of Bradley at WIRL radio in Peoria in 1969.

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"Thankfully, I've been around long enough that I could absorb the moment because I've been in other ones," Steiner said. "The only bad part about experience is that it takes too long to get there.

"You tend to forget the calls, because you do so many. But Albert is certainly in there. I think it's the moment more than the call that I will always remember.

"I've been very lucky over the course of my career to have some big calls, big plays and big games, and that one is right up there. I had no real expectation that it was going to happen."

'If you don't have goosebumps, you just don't get it'

Pujols hit No. 699 in his first at-bat Friday at Dodger Stadium. In his next trip to the plate, he hit his historic No. 700.

Here's Steiner's call:

"He hit 699 we're like 'Alright, we're good we can go home now.' So now he comes up the second time and I'm matter-of-factly saying something to the effect that one of the things that's been remarkable in his home run career is that he never hit 50 home runs in a season," Steiner said. "And then, as if a punctuation point to what I just said, he hit it out.

"When I went to work that night, I'm thinking, 'OK … maybe. Maybe 699. But realistically 700, just not on the radar screen."

Steiner talked about how much Pujols meant to the Dodgers last year when they acquired him. How the Angels released Pujols, and a week later he signed with the Dodgers and accepted a part-time role, facing left-handed pitchers and pinch-hitting.

"He meant a lot to the Dodgers last year when they acquired him," Steiner said. "The Angels simply got rid of him. He came to the Dodgers and the feeling was maybe he'd last to the trade deadline and maybe he could contribute and if he stayed around … well he made a significant impact to the Dodgers. He was just happy to work.

"He left the Angels, drove 40 miles north and found Heaven."

Last offseason, Pujols signed as a free agent with the St. Louis Cardinals, the organization where his pro career started with the Peoria Chiefs in 2000.

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"We were saying in the offseason wouldn't it be nice if he could go home for one final year with Yadi and Wainwright and whatever happens, happens," Steiner said. "For him to come back here and hit 699 and 700 here at Dodger Stadium of all places, was just a remarkable punctuation point on his career."

Two home runs and a message

Steiner watched as Pujols celebrated No. 700 and paid respects to his teammates, opponents and family.

"After he doffed his hard hat into the direction of the Dodger dugout and would say, 'If it wasn't for the Dodgers I wouldn't be here tonight' — never did he mention the Angels even in passing," Steiner said, bemused. "It was as if a decade … didn't even exist. I really found that very, very interesting.

"The Dodger fans embraced him early … he showed he was more than a relic. … And then he has this season. If it was expected by somebody I'm not sure who it was. It was really a wonderful night."

Charley Steiner's top calls or moments

Steiner came back to Peoria in 2015 to celebrate as Bradley University named its school of sports communication in his honor. He later hosted sports symposiums at Bradley, bringing in national figures from Larry King to John Rooney, Jon Miller, Ralph Lawler and Chris "Mad Dog" Russo.

"The thing about what we do for a living, we don't have white-out, we don't have a backspace, we can't do it again so either you get it, or you don't," Steiner said. "And if you don't, believe me, you hear about it."

But then there are those moments, and some calls, that endure. Steiner thought a bit about his:

• "I think the call I like the best, that seems to have the most legs, is Aaron Boone's walk-off home run in 2003 with the Yankees to beat the Red Sox in what turned out to be the 26th and final game between those two teams that year."

• "Cal Ripken hitting a home run in his final at-bat in his final All-Star Game on the first pitch that he saw. That's pretty cool."

• "And when the Dodgers won the World Series in 2020. As a kid, I was announcing Brooklyn Dodgers games from my basement on Long Island, at the age of 7. And then fast-forward 65 years, I'm calling the World Series from my living room, and there was actually an audience."

"Some calls I had when I worked for the Jets were pretty cool. I think Aaron Boone will always be No. 1 and I can't wait to see if it can be nudged to No. 2."

Dave Eminian is the Journal Star sports columnist, and covers Bradley men's basketball, the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. He can be reached at 686-3206 or deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @icetimecleve.

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Pujols 700th: How Bradley grad Charley Steiner called baseball history