In 1935, while playing first base for Washington & Jefferson University, Helfer was offered a contract by Connie Mack, but he was set on a career in radio. During his career, he traveled five million miles and broadcast more Rose Bowl and WS games than anyone before or since. He worked on local broadcast teams in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Brooklyn, New York, and Oakland, and in 1950 began calling the Mutual Network’s Game of the Day. He was also a television announcer on non-sports shows. “Red Barber and I were the first play-by-play team,” he once claimed. “Before that, one man would do the first half of the game and then disappear. We interacted during the entire game.”
