Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball's 101 All-Time Best Announcers (24 page)

"Merle Harmon?" a man said.

"Yes," he said, half-asleep.

"This is Chet . . . ," the voice said. "Would you be interested in doing
a national sports show for ABC TV?" Harmon tensed. A player was plainly
kidding him.

"Sure, if I can work it into my schedule. Talk to my agent."

"Who's your agent?" said the man, undeterred.

"He's tied up."

"We'd be glad to contact him, but can we see you? We're leaving for
Chicago today to do the [football] All-Star Game."

Merle sat up. "Excuse me. Who are you?"

"Chet Simmons of ABC TV sports production. We want to talk to you
about a show--today."

"I must sound like a moron."

"Boy, it must be fun to travel with a baseball team."

Next month, Merle Harmon began "Saturday Night Sports Final." ABC
named him lead baseball Voice in 1965. CBS's "Game" entered only non-bigs
cities-its rub, and beauty. "The heartland was its habitat," said Harmon. By
contrast, the blackout of, say, St. Louis hurt.

ABC's " Game" aired Saturday, Memorial and Labor Day, and Fourth of July
in every city. Like Brickhouse, Merle evoked just folks. Like Scully, he dashed
cliche. Like Gowdy, he was "breezy, relaxed, and stylish," said TV Guide.

"We had a sense of the `first ever,' "he said, "a prototype for baseball TV
since"-truly national. The problem was habit: weekends meant 01' Diz.

The 1965 CBS "Yankee Game of the Week" slayed Merle in Dallas and Des
Moines. Worse, local TV split the big-city audience. "ABC'd show
Cubs-Cards in New York, and the Mets'd kill us." Desperate, one Saturday
the network tendered a great chatterbox of the time.

At D.C. Stadium, Vice-President Hubert Humphrey joined the booth.
"So loquacious. I almost asked him to do play-by-play, but feared it would
demean the office."The Nats' Bob Chance pinch-hits. Humphrey says, "Is
he related to Dean Chance?" Bob was black, Dean white: Much of America still hailed Jim Crow. "I don't think so," said Merle, retrieving
the game.

Coverage ended Saturday, October 2. Harmon spent Friday phoning
New York. Ahead by a game, Los Angeles hosted Milwaukee. If L.A. won,
Merle flew to Cleveland-or via Chicago to Minnesota for the A.L. champion Twins. A Dodgers loss would revive the tailing Jints-and put him in
San Francisco. Writer Jorge Luis Borges said, "I have known uncertainty."
Harmon now bore the "most uncertain 24 hours of my life."

The last plane left at 12:15 A.M. Saturday. "I'll only know where I'm
going when I find how the Dodgers do!" Naturally, they go overtime. At the
airport, Merle tells the cabbie to "turn on the game!" L.A. wins. "Let's see,
this means Cleveland. Take me to United, quick." Finding a seat, he checks
the ticket. Panic. "Cleveland? I'm supposed to be in San Francisco!" Arriving,
Harmon calls ABC's hotel. "Yes, Merle, this is your destination." Going
home, he was tempted to take a train.

That month, NBC bought 1966-68's "Game." Merle had already aired the
Jets and Steelers (local radio) and NCAA and AFL (ABC). He liked-more
than respected-football. "You're fine if you prepare weekly like a player.
Baseball-try finding something interesting as you say the pitcher throws the
ball-especially if your team is out of the pennant race."

Harmon found Minnesota in 1967. Dean Chance went 20-14. Harmon
Killebrew had 44 homers. The Twins drew 1,48 3,547, more than they had or
would at Metropolitan Stadium, and lost a last-day flag. "If we'd beaten
Boston, I'd have done the Series with [NBC's] Gowdy." He hurt, but shone.
"I'll never forget the letter I got from a woman criticizing me for not rooting
for the Twins."

Harmon aired them through 1969. On April 1, 1970, his old town
bought the Seattle Pilots for $10.8 million. "Calvin Griffith [releasing him]
knew what Milwaukee meant to me." County Stadium (re)opened April 7:
Angels, 12-0. "I learned quickly that it'd be a long year"-too, how the
Braves' rape stung. "The feeling was: `We won't be hurt again.' "

In 1973, Milwaukee passed a million for the first time since the Kennedy
administration. Slowly, the feeling warmed. 1975: 48,160 cheered Hank
Aaron's return from Georgia. 1978: The Brewers grand-slammed a record
thrice in the first three games. 1979: Milwaukee more than tripled the
Braves' last-year gate.

"It took a while," said Harmon, "to get back a decent team, then fans to get excited." The '82ers won a pennant. Curiouser: He was 850
miles away.

In late 1979, inking a multi-year NBC TV pact, Merle ogled the 1980 Moscow
Summer Olympics. "I'd have missed a dozen Brewers games." Flagship WTMJ
demanded he do each. Harmon chose none. "[He] will make more money
[NBC]," mused The Mihvaukee journal, "get more exposure, and do less traveling." Merle did "Sports World," backup "Game," and 1980 World Series. He
did not, alas, call the Games. In December 1979, the Soviet Union invaded
Afghanistan. America boycotted Moscow. NBC promptly pulled the plug.

"A great letdown," said Harmon. Another: being axed by. NBC in 1982 for
Bob Costas, 29. What goes/comes around. In 1966, Gowdy replaced him on
"Game." Each joined the Rangers in 1982: Merle, play-by-play; Curt, planning
and evaluation. Another cycle was Nolan Ryan's, K-ing 21 Hall of Famers, in
four different decades. One batted August 22, 1989. "Three and two to [Rickey]
Henderson!" said Harmon. "Ryan gives the okay. Strike three! He did it! He did
it! Number 5,000 for Nolan Ryan! A record that will never be broken!"

MERLE HARMON

Merle had each player and umpire sign a scorecard laser print, retiring
after three no-hitters, Joe Namath's Super Bowl III "guarantee," and 1974
World Football League. "I had so much to do with Merle Harmon Fan Fair
[then-largest U.S. sports souvenir retailer]." Ultimately, the Mormon lay
preacher went belly-up, had a heart attack, and beat both each a breeze, he
joked, vs. Finley, the lame-duck Braves, and Diz.

"Every day I do exercise on the treadmill," the still-nobleman mused.
Richard Nixon said: "I get up every morning just to confound my enemies."
Harmon got up to bless his friends.

In 1876, the New York Mutuals folded after eight months in the National
League. "How bad was this!" Lindsey Nelson conspired with memory.
"Even the 1962 Mets weren't kicked out of the league." By 1882, two
teams shared the Polo Grounds: the N.L. Giants and American Association
Metropolitans. "The Mets! They were bonkers nearly a century before the
team we recall!"

The expansion '62ers convened at St. Petersburg. "We got to work on
the little finesses," said manager Casey Stengel. "Runners at first and second,
and the first baseman holding a runner, breaking in and back to take a pickoff
throw." New York lost, 17-1. Casey saw the light, not liking what he saw.
"The little finesses ain't gonna be our problem."

Nelson's problem was how to mesh the 1962-78 Amazin's, 1957-61
NBC "Major League Baseball," 1952-65 NCAA football "Game of the Week,"
1966-86 "NFL on CBS," and 1974-77 Mutual "Monday Night Football."

"I know you're a child of the Depression," a writer said, "but this was
ridiculous. What didn't you do?"

"Rest," Lindsey said, once doing six bowls in ten days. "I missed the
Derby and Indy 500. That's about all."

Strangely, the Methodist is tied to Catholic Notre Dame 1966-79 taped
TV. In Green Bay, he and Vince Lombardi took a pre-game walk. "Here's the
Notre Dame announcer!" a teenager yelled. Nelson laughed. "Vince was
shocked to be overlooked. But Notre Dame was national."

A closet Papist, in the Bible Belt? "If you won't tell 'em, I won't," said the
man whose lilt, country gabble, and sport coats-in time, nearly 350forged a princeling/professor of radio/TV.

Born in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1919, Lindsey soon moved to Columbia, near
Nashville. At eight, he heard Graham McNamee call a fight so near that he
could "reach out and touch the canvas." To Nelson, the rectangular box
speaker an Arbiphone--"looked like a question mark." His answer was the
wireless.

Each Saturday, Graham called football. Each fall, a receiver in the school
auditorium aired the World Series during recess. Lindsey found that he could
hear it in class through a window. A teacher asked, "Who was that?" meaning
Caesar. Lindsey: "Gehrig doubled to right!" Baseball's fuel was hope. His
generation ran on radio's.

In 1937, Nelson became a University of Tennessee student spotter. "The
Station of the Grand Ole Opry"'s booth bisected the second deck. "it lacked
a restroom. Once there, you were stuck, because coming down the ladder
was worse than going up." Near halftime, WSM's Jack Harris, needing relief,
told him to read statistics. Forty years later the spotter smiled. "Jack had a
second cup of coffee that morning, and it was too much. One cup, and my
life may have gone off in a different direction."

The journalism graduate joined the Army Ninth Infantry Division in Ft.
Bragg, North Carolina. On December 7, 1941, he attended a football game
in Washington. "During the game, the P.A. man kept asking members of' the
military establishment to report to their station." Naval officer John F.
Kennedy watched quizzically from the stands.

Afterward Lindsey caught a train at Union Station. A stranger slapped
him on the hack: "Give 'em hell." Overnight his uniform had become a pass
to anywhere. Ahead: Nelson's most vital, if not famous, job.

By 1942, Japan bestrode the Pacific. Dominoes littered Europe. Pledged
Franklin Roosevelt: "Soon we and not our enemies will have the offensive."
He cabled Churchill: "It is fun to be in the same decade with you." Nelson's
was exhausting, and inexhaustible.

The publicist trekked to North Africa and Sicily, met the French Foreign
Legion, and helped reporters like Ernest Hemingway. In 1945, U. S. and
Soviet troops drank captured German champagne at the Elbe. A photo shows
Lindsey, with Russian officers: "I oversaw inspectors-prepared me for
Stengel." Another reads: "To Lindsey Nelson, a very busy man the day this
picture was taken. Dwight Eisenhower."

May 8 was V-E Day. Nelson aired baseball in Linz, Austria: "Hitler'd
grown up there. Now our occupying force put together big-league teams." Released, he tried to resume pre-war life. "I wrote for a Tennessee paper.
After Europe, I couldn't get excited about a drunk in city court."

Nelson recalled the Arbiphone, "how I liked radio," joining WKGN and
WROL Knoxville. Next: Liberty's re-created 1950-51 "Game of the Day."
By then, NBC TV's Bill Stern was a drug addict. "He'd lost a leg in an accident," said Tom Gallery. "Doped up, he'd disappear." One day Stern left a
Dallas golf tourney, locked his hotel room, and left NBC awash.

In the soup, Gallery phoned a friend. "Know someone who can cover
golf?" He did, in Tennessee. Tom asked: "Would it be possible for you to get
to Dallas-like, tomorrow?" Hopping the next prop plane, Lindsey soon
moved to NBC New York.

"I needed an associate," Gallery said. "Best damned phone call I ever made."

Five of Cooperstown's first six Voices then did baseball in the Apple: Allen,
Barber, Harwell, Hodges, and Scully. Mel was a Peacock peer. "He did our big
games," said Lindsey. The trouble: numbers. "Enough statistics!" Tom
exploded. "Just do the game!" Once Allen grabbed the statistical The Little Red
Book. Gallery hit him with a headset. "Didn't I tell you to leave statistics alone?"

Mel ferried Events; Nelson, events, as NBC nonesuch. "Allen overwhelmed
you," said Tom. "Lindsey was perfect for continuity." 1952: They share college
football. 1955: Red Grange joins Nelson (later, Bud Wilkinson and Terry
Brennan). A bigger test lay 'round the curve. "For years Dizzy Dean killed us Saturday. Our outlets said, `Without an answer, we'd might as well close down.' "

In 1957, Diz added Sunday. Gallery unfurled a fiat: baseball by Opening
Day. Already CBS had bought eight teams' rights. Said Lindsey: "They tried
to squeeze us, but missed Milwaukee," which won a pennant. He bought I I
Braves, 11 Pirates, two Senators, and two Cubs games: "manic, but we got it
done." How many would now forsake Dean?

"Major League Baseball" began with a Dodgers-Braves exhibition. "From
then it was whether you liked baseball with us, or song and dance with Diz."
Dean rarely checked the monitor. His antithesis bound word and look. "If a
cameraman tipped his lens to a gum wrapper on the floor," a producer said,
"Lindsey would say the right thing about the wrapper."

Each Saturday he unloosed from Forbes Field, Wrigley Field, or County
Stadium. In 1959, NBC began Sunday: at some point, it thought, even 01'
Diz must succumb. Nelson aired pro basketball, the Army-Navy Game, Bob
Hope Desert Classic, and Cotton (also, at one time or another, Rose, Gator,
Sugar, Sun, Liberty, and Poinsettia) Bowl.

Who would trade this for The Metropolitan Baseball Club of New York,
Inc.? Lindsey Nelson would.

A major-league baseball Voice had the best job in the world, he felt. "The
game has drama, tragedy, comedy. Plus, you spend one month in spring
training and six afterward. The rest of the year's his own." NBC baseball had
been blacked out in NewYork. "Many people, not knowing that, said, `Why
are they hiring a football guy?' " If this were Broadway, he replied, the tryout
had run five years.