Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball's 101 All-Time Best Announcers (21 page)

"They got scared I was going to die." Kelly did, September 18, 1979, at 60.
Joe McCarthy preceded him by a year. Neither funeral aired song and dance.

On March 18, 1953, Milwaukee acquired the Braves of Boston since 1876.
"It was a holiday when we heard they were coming," said Bud Selig, then 18.

In Boston, tickets dropped from windows into trucks on Gaffney Street.
Brewtown fixed to kill its new team with love. A downtown parade led to the
Schroeder Hotel. "People put up a Christmas tree!" said pitcher Ernie
Johnson. "Since we'd missed Christmas, they said let's celebrate it now."

Through 1959 Milwaukee won two flags, barely missed two more, and
mimed an All-Star team. Del Crandall caught. Henry Aaron, Bill Bruton, and
Wes Covington outfielded. The infield tied Joe Adcock, Red Schoendienst,
Johnny Logan, and Eddie Mathews. Burghers gave players rent-free cars. Tailgating invoked Wisconsin vs. Purdue.

"We'd go into Forbes Field-the Pirates were lousy-and there'd he
30,000," said Earl Gillespie. "Wrigley or Ebbets were jammed. Baseball's
smallest town became its capital," leading the bigs in 1953-58 attendance.
The Braves were the first franchise to change sites in half a century. Nirvana
ensured it would not be the last.

Red Barber defined a borough. Mel Allen meant the Big Ballpark in the
Bronx. Harry Caray packed the Church of Cardinals Baseball. "None came
close to what we had," said Gillespie, whose river ran through Wisconsin,
Michigan, and parts of Minnesota, Illinois, and Iowa. "The phenomenon was
hard to verbalize." Harder to imagine: a Chicagoan embodying the Braves.

Earl played first base at Lane Tech, made Class D's Wisconsin State
League, entered the Marine Air Corps, and bided a final year in D ball-"only guy who played four seasons in that class without advancing." Gillespie
turned to real estate. Bored, he soon got out. In 1948, WJPG Green Bay
hired his live-wire voice.

"Earl worked alone for hours in an empty studio," said station manager John M. Walker, "screaming into a dead mike"-and winning an audition
with the American Association Brewers. The 1951-52ers won the Little
World Series and A.A. flag, respectively. Getting the bigs, sponsor Miller
Brewery decided to double the fun.

"[Brewers flagship] WMEP and [50,000-watt] WTMJ wanted to head our
network," said Gillespie. Miller let each, starting in an exhibition. Allen's
booth sat next door. "I was so excited I could barely breathe. Local play-byplay was tops in broadcasting. There was a glamour, a prestige."

Milwaukee had a blue-collar cast. Earl blared an idealized self-image:
"vervy," said Johnson, "a showman's flair." Lifting Caray's "Holy cow!" he got
mail of China cows, lucky pennies, and a fishing net for fouls. One inning,
nature called. "People think we sound alike," said Bert Wilson, tapping Earl's
window. "Talk into my mike and yours till I get back. Nobody'll know the difference."

Gillespie did as he was asked. For a time, the Braves did, too.

On April 14, 1953, 34,359 trooped to the then-35,91 ]-seat park at 46th
Street off Blue Mound Road. "Some opener," Selig said. "Bruton's [gamewinning 10th-inning] homer went off Enos Slaughter's glove." Milwaukee
placed second. "For a while it got better," Earl smiled, "year after year."

1954: The Braves drew an N.L.-high 1,862,397. 1955: Gillespie did
County Stadium's All-Star Game. 1956: Milwaukee lost a last-day pennant.
1957: "Rush for tickets," a writer said, "rivaled only by My Fair Lady [total,
2,215,4041." Warren Spahn went 21-11. Aaron led in homers (44) and RBI
(132). He faced St. Louis September 23. "A swing and a drive back into center
field!" cried Earl. "It's back at the fence ... and is it gone or not? It's a home
run! The Braves are the champions of the National League!"

Next: the Series, on NBC Radio. Ahead 2-1 in games, New York led,
5-4, in overtime. A hit batsman, Logan double, and Mathews homer countered: 7-5. Game Seven was breezier: Braves, 5-0, in the ninth. "Hank Aaron
is pulled around in left-center field," said partner Bob Neal. "Burdette's
[bases-loaded] pitch. Swung on, lined, grabbed by Mathews who steps on
third-and the World Series is over and the Milwaukee Braves are the new
world champions of baseball!"

The 1954-57ers topped 2 million each year. The bloom then began to
wilt, though few knew so at the time. Next-season attendance fell to
1,971,101. Earl aired another Series. Milwaukee blew a 3-1 game lead. "I
guess," said Casey Stengel, "this shows we could play in the National League."

No one had pitched a perfect or no-hit game for more than nine or
eleven innings, respectively. On May 26, 1959, Pittsburgh's Harvey Haddix
retired 36 straight Braves. Worse: a playoff loss to Los Angeles. "With wins
the last day of 'S6 and '59," said Gillespie, "I'd have made four straight
Series."

The aging 1960 Braves placed second. Next year, Spahn won his 300th
game. (He still leads N.L. lefties in shutouts, wins, and innings.) "Earl
teared up. Spahn was his favorite player," Johnson said. "Listening in
Chicago, Gillespie's mom could tell when he pitched. The voice got more
excited."

In 1963, Spahn became the oldest 20-game winner, tying Christy Mathewson. The Braves wiled 773,018. Milwaukee watched Chairman of the
board Bill Bartholomay crave a future home in Georgia.

"It was obvious that's where they were going," said Earl. In October
1964, the Braves admitted that they would become the first team to move its
franchise twice.

Resigning in late 1963, Gillespie joined Milwaukee's WITI CBS TV affiliate.
"My wife had raised four kids on her own. When I got the chance to be
sports director, get weekends off, I jumped."

On September 22, 1965, the Braves played their last game at County Stadium. Since 1957, the National League had shed Milwaukee, Brooklyn, and New York. "Even when the Brewers came here five years later, a lot of us
could never forgive baseball's cruelty."

EARL GILLESPIE

Retiring in 1985, Earl moved to Florida. Golf was a blue-chip dividend.
His VCR aired another. Each year in the fifties Miller made a highlight film.
One showed Gillespie, in blue suit and bow tie, introducing "the story of, the
glory of, the Milwaukee Braves."

Earl died December 12, 2003, at 81. A decade earlier, "Milwaukee's Pied
Piper" formed a sad, slow smile. "We showed people around the city in boats,
on bikes, at beer cafes. They all had radios on. They were listening to the
games. Like Brooklyn and the Dodgers, Milwaukee meant the Braves."

To many, still does.

It is no trick to retrieve Jay Hanna (Jerome) Dean-gloom and mucus or revival
hour, depending on your view. In 1953, he began the ABC "Game of the
Week"-TV sport's first network series.Two years later it entered the swankier
household of CBS. For a decade 01' Diz sang "The Wabash Cannonball," read
telegrams to "good of boys," and razed the language. Batters "swang." Pitchers
"throwed" the ball with "spart." Runners returned to "their respectable bases."

We loved the 300 pounds, string tie, and Stetson-the whole rustic
goods. "Pod-nuh," Dean called us his dowry, our badge. "In the hinterlands
and small towns, it was incredible," said CBS sports head Bill MacPhail.
"Watching Dizzy Dean was an absolute religion." Each Saturday and Sunday
afternoon Pleasantville closed down.

In 1953, the big-league righty entered Cooperstown. "The Good Lord
was good to me," said Dean. "He gave me a strong body, a good right arm,
and a weak mind." As a child I was unaware of Diz's pitching genius. I knew
only how he made of baseball joy.

The son of a migratory cotton picker was born in an Arkansas shack-but
when? (January 16, 1910)-citing an array of dates. "I was helping writers
out. Them ain't lies them's scoops." Schooling stopped in second grade.
"And I wasn't so good in first, either." At sixteen, Dean crashed the Army for
$21 a month. Next season, joining the Cardinals' Western League team, he
bearded its president at 4 A.M. "So the old boy is out prowling by hisself, huh?
Us stars and presidents must have our fun."

Diz won his first bigs game in 1930. "I think he'll be a great pitcher," said
Redbirds manager Gabby Street, "hut I'm afraid we'll never know from one
minute to the next what he's going to say or do." From 1933 to 1936 he won
at least 20 games each year. "Hold that success against the country's tone,"
wrote Bob Broeg. "In the thirties, states around St. Louis were reeling, and
you wouldn't draw flies," the exception being Sunday.

St. Louis played a doubleheader. Gates opened at 9 A.M., outlanders
filling Sportsman's Park. Among them: the Fellers of Van Meter, Iowa. "We'd
muster a couple dollars, and sit in the bleachers," said son Bob, knowing that
Dean would pitch, since the Cardinals stacked the schedule. "To us, Franklin
Roosevelt was no bigger than 01' Diz."

Baseball brims with single-season art. 1912, Joe Wood, 34-5; 1968, Bob
Gibson, 1.12 ERA; 1999, Pedro Martinez, 23-4. Each was child's play vs.
Dean's 30-7 in 1934. In March, he vowed that "Me 'n' [younger brother]
Paul will win 45 games." They won 49. Jay strewed three hits to open a
twinbill. Paul then no-hit Brooklyn. "Dawgonnit, if I knowed Paul was
gonna throw a no-hitter, I'd 'a' throwed one, too."

The Swifties trailed New York by 7 1/2 games in August. Ending 20-5,
they clinched the last day. A headline prefaced the World Series vs. Detroit:
"Dean: `Me 'n' Paul'11Win Four.' "In Game Four, Diz, pinch-running, was hit
in the head by a throw. Papers plagiarized one another: "X-Rays of Dean's
Head Show Nothing."

Diz won the 11-0 final. By 1937, he had a 121-65 record. "He threw so
smoothly and efficiently," said Broeg, "that my guess is with luck he'd have
pitched into the '50s." Instead, Dean's ran out at the All-Star Game.

Lou Gehrig homered. Earl Averill's drive then struck Diz's left toe.

"Your big toe is fractured," a doctor said.

"No, it ain't. It's broke."

The doctor applied a splint. Prematurely, Dean pitched, hurt his arm,
and lost his fasthall. The Cubs bought him in 1938. Said Broeg: "He had
nothing left but his nothin' ball." It nearly pivoted the Series.

Diz led Game Two, 3-2: eighth inning, one on. Yanks shortstop Frank
Crosetti homered. "You'd never 'a' done that if I'd had my fastball!" Dean
screamed.

"Damned if you ain't right!" said Frank.

In 1941, Diz began Browns and Cardinals radio. "I feel like a prisoner
walking to his death." The Ozark encyclopedist soon penned his own reality. Cleveland filled the bases. "That loads the bags full of Indians." A
one-handed catch was "a la carte," fly "can of corn," quarrel "like argyin'
with a stump. Maybe you city folks don't know what a stump is. It's somethin' a tree has been cut down off of." Don't fail to miss tomorrow's game,
he brayed. Dialect never did.

"No one resembled him," said Mel Allen. "It was the language and
accent"-twangy, deep, and full. A batter had an "unorsodock stance." Of
Cubs pitcher Ed Hanyzewski, "I like to broke my jaw tryin' to pronounce that
one. But I said it by just holdin' my nose and sneezing." One station offered a
job spinning classical music. "You want me to play this sympathetic [symphonic] music and commertate on them Rooshian and French and Kraut
composers? Me pronounce the composers' name?" Dean couldn't ennunce
Boston's infield.

Galled, the St. Louis Board of Education tried to yank him off the air.
They had to be his words, Diz said, because no one would take them. Few
took the Browns: "Peanut vendors is in the stands," Jay laughed. "They is not
doing so good because there's more of them than customers."Then, in 1944,
they won the flag. NBC asked Dean to commertate the all-St. Louis Series.

"His diction is unfit for a national broadcaster," refused Judge Landis.
Boiling-"How can that Commissar say I ain't eligible to talk?" Diz missed
the last Series where the teams shared a site. Behind, 2 games to 1, the Redbirds won. "We should have known better," said a Browns official. "It was too
good to last."

Was Diz, 37, still good enough to pitch? The 1947 Americans threw him
Opening Day. Dean singled, spaced three hits in four innings, and pulled a
muscle. "Get him out of there before he kills himself!" said wife Pat. The
again-Voice gave a lecture: "Radio Announcing I Have Did." The Soviets domineered Eastern Europe. "Got to get me a bunch of bats and balls and sneak
me a couple of empires and learn them kids behind the Iron Curtain how to
bat and play baseball." Joseph Stalin "Joe Stallion"-could run concessions.
"[That way] he'd get outta politics and get in a honest business."

Through 1948, Diz jazzed the tone-deaf Browns. "I slud along with them
as long as I could, but I eventual made up my mind to quit." Joining theYanks,
he graced TV's "What's My Line."

"The guest could be Dizzy Dean," blindfolded panelist Arlene Francis said.

Dorothy Kilgallen: "Oh, no, this man is much too intelligent."