Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball's 101 All-Time Best Announcers (3 page)

Lindsey Nelson termed televised baseball picture plus caption. "Ah, radio," he
said, "there's a different beast." The announcer becomes actor, writer, producer, even cameraman. Shakespeare said, "The past is prologue." Retrieve a
time before what comic Fred Allen dubbed TV's "collection of passport
photos."

1904: Theodore Roosevelt graces a station of radio pioneer Guglielmo
Marconi. 1909: Explorer Robert Peary messages, "I have found the Pole."
1912:The S.S. Olympic telegraphs a wireless operator: "S.S. Titanic ran into iceberg. Sinking fast." For three days and nights David Sarnoff reports "updates to
reporters and friends." In 1926, he founds the National Broadcasting Company.

In 1920, the first licensed station, Westinghouse Company-owned
KDKA, debuted in Pittsburgh. Its star: a LaHarp, Illinoisan who at five
moved to Carthage, Missouri, graduated from the University of Kansas, and,
joining Westinghouse, spied a station on the factory roof. "What's that?"
Harold Arlin said. "I go up, audition for an announcing job, and get it."

KDKA began broadcasting on Election Night. Arlin soon did college football, Davis Cup tennis, and baseball scores. A Quebec housewife wrote: "Tell your
announcer that I have four boys who listen to him every night. His pronunciation
is so perfect that even though they speak French, they can still understand him."

Baseball seemed as obvious. In August 1921, Harold bought a Forbes Field
seat, put a scorecard on a wooden plank, and used a telephone as microphone.
The Pirates were first to use a tarpaulin (1906); put padding on the outfield wall
(1933); host an eveningAll-Star Game (1944); wear knit uniforms (1970); berth
a night Series game (1971); and have a 7-for-7 player (Rennie Stennett, 1975).

The most vital first: KDKA, and Arlin, siring baseball on the air.

What did he sound like that summer afternoon? Few live to say. Western
Pennsylvania had a few hundred radio sets. Did anyone hear, or care? "Sometimes the transmitter wouldn't work. Often the crowd noise drowned us
out. We didn't know whether we'd talk into a vacuum." Known: game score
(Pirates 8, Phillies 5) and time (one hour, 57 minutes). Unknown: the sequel.
"No one had an inking if we'd do baseball again."

Arlin did, through 1924. "Not enough time," he mused, repairing to the
studio to interview, among others, Will Rogers, Lillian Gish, and David
Lloyd George. One day Babe Ruth appeared. "I even wrote his speech. I
introduce him and this garrulous guy-he can't say a word."

"Babe Ruth froze?" a reporter said.

"Mute. I grab the speech and now I'm Ruth. I read it and Babe tries to
compose himself, smoking and leaning against the wall. We pulled it off. I
sign off and Babe Ruth hasn't made a sound." Hundreds of letters praised his
gloss and voice. The problem was time.

"By day, I was a foreman," said Arlin. "At night, I'd do KDKA." In 1925, he
took aWestinghouse personnel job in Mansfield, Ohio. Stunned, a writer said:
"Thousands of radio fans will regret loss of dear friend." About one million
Americans now owned a receiver. "Don't much like TV," Harold said later. "It
leaves nothing to the imagination." His medium, on the other hand, left all.

Arlin became Mansfield school board president, watched grandson Steve
pitch in the 1970s big leagues, and died March 15, 1986, at 90, in Bakersfield, California. "Hard to imagine how far the wireless has come." Harder:
baseball bereft of radio.

HAROLD ARLIN

Early-twenties America worshiped the celebrity of the self-made man. F.
Scott Fitzgerald wrote This Side of Paradise. Macy's Department Store
hyped posh top coats from $28.25 to $57.50. The New York Herald Tribune
told New York's baseball cognoscenti, "May we suggest the following
items to contribute to your enjoyment of the National Game: Italian briar
pipes; Three Castle cigarettes, packed in airtight tins of fifty each; or Tampa blunts." Like radio, America-in-bloom was a view crossing age or
class.

In 1921, Westinghouse, feeding WJZ Newark and WBZ Springfield,
Massachusetts, aired its first World Series. Columnist Grantland Rice
announced from field level. Arlin and Tommy Cowan gave half-inning bulletins. "Cowan sat atop ... a building in a tiny shack," observed the Newark
Call. "At the other end of a telephone was a man in the Polo Grounds, telling
Cowan what happened [Giants' victory, 5 games to 3]."

On October 4, 1922, radio "for the first time carried the opening game
... to great crowds [5 million] throughout the eastern part of the country,"
said The New York Times. Rice and W. O. "Bill" McGeehan did balls and strikes.
"In place of the scorecards and megaphones of the past, amplifiers connected
to radio instruments . . . made listeners feel as if they were in the grandstand." Huzzahs for Ruth "could be heard throughout the land."

Five miles from the Polo Grounds, a piano player pictured himself
replacing Rice. Ultimately, more people heard his voice than any other
broadcaster's of the first half-century.

Graham McNamee was born July 10, 1888, grew up in the Pacific Northwest,
clerked for the Rock Island Railroad, and at 22 moved to New York with his
mother. The divorcee insisted that her son take voice lessons. In 192 1, he
began as a professional, said The NewYork Sun, "with a justness, care, and style."

In May 1923, Graham entered the A.T.&T. Building on lunch break from
jury duty, won a WEAF audition, and soon called the Johnny Wilson-Harry
Greb middleweight fight. That October, the tenor became Series color man.
["Stations from Washington to Massachusetts]," said the Times, "will radiate
the contests simultaneously with WEAF . . . connected with special land
wires to microphones."At first McNamee said little. In Game Four, his bornfor-wireless voice bumped McGeehan's play-by-play.

The Series ended Monday. By Saturday, WEAF got 1,700 letters: "With
so few radios," said Jack Brickhouse, "it's like a million now." The natural
called foreign visits, coronations, and at least ten sports, including boxing,
football, and marbles. 1923: Calvin Coolidge addresses Congress. 1924:
Democrats nominate John W. Davis on the 103rd ballot. 1927: Lindbergh
returns from Paris. Graham did each. "How do you do, ladies and gentlemen
of the radio audience?" he began, closing "This is Graham McNamee
speaking. Good night, all"-radio's first leading name.

"During the year, few clubs used radio," Jack Buck recalled. "The emphasis
was on the network Series, where McNamee stood alone." In 1925, more than 50,000 wrote after rain pelted Forbes Field, Graham's coat covered the mike,
and Heywood Broun said, "He made me feel the temperature and the tension."
Next year the first network started: NBC's "Red" (music/comedy) and "Blue"
(public affairs). McNamee did the next nine Series-often more bodacious
than the game.

"You must make each of your listeners," he said, "though miles away from
the spot, feel that he or she too is there with you in the press stand, watching
the pop bottle thrown in the air; Gloria Swanson arriving in her new ermine
coat; McGraw in his dugout, apparently motionless, but giving signals all the
time." In 1927, Graham was there for theYankees' sweep of Pittsburgh; 1929,
Hack Wilson's .471 average; 1933, Mel Ott's homer off Fred Schulte's glove.

"The Series was sport," Buck recalled, "and McNamee was the Series."
The headliner knew it. So did writers of the day.

"I will freely admit," Graham said, "to being an entertainer first and broadcaster second." On January 1, 1927, he broadcast NBC's first Rose Bowl,
etching Pasadena's greenery. That fall, Ring Lardner typed: "I don't know
which game to write about, the one I saw or heard Graham McNamee
announce." Once a reporter pierced the air: "McNamee, will you pipe
down?" Bile flowed from envy-and inchoate fear. "Radio threatened
papers," said Buck. "Why read if you could hear?"

In 1934, Graham motored to Detroit. "In just about 15 minutes, the
World Series will be opened by the umpire who will howl `play ball.' "
"Wild-eyed rabid fans" jammed the stands. "All hint of rain has been dispelled." Next year, Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis rained on his
parade. "He chose Series Voices," said Red Barber, "and thought Graham
inflated." Baseball's Pinza missed his first Classic since 1922. He never called
another big-league a.k.a. bigs game.

For a decade, Graham's name, apart from voice, etched gravitas. "If an
event was big," said Mel Allen, "McNamee was there." In April 1942, he
graced "Elsa Maxwell's Story Line": "This is Graham McNamee, saying,
`Good night, all, and good-bye.' " Next day he entered the hospital, dying
May 9, at 53, of a streptococcus infection.

Broun observed: "McNamee justified the whole activity of radio broadcasting. A thing may be a marvelous invention and still dull as dish water."
Only personality could make water ripple. "He has been able to take a new
medium of expression and through it transit himself-to give it vividly a
sense of movement and of feeling. Of such is the kingdom of art."

Long live the king.

GRAHAM MCNAMEE

The first daily play-by-play man grew up at a time when baseball meant pen,
not mike. "In the 191 Os," he said, "the game was for writers. They blanketed
the sport."

Special editions hailed "our national game." Newspaper windows blared
a daily inning-by-inning score. Bylines read Rice, the courser of the press
box; Damon Runyon, Salieri of the short story; and Lardner, le pere grand of
Alibi Ike.

Born in Newark, Hal Totten moved to Ithaca, NewYork, then to Chicago
at 11, and Northwestern University in 1919. "1 knew I wanted to work in
baseball." He (lid not know it would involve his tongue, not his hand.

In college, Hal was a Chicago Journal and Daily News stringer and football
writer. "I got seven cents an [column] inch and $13 a week in summer."
Strapped, he joined the journal full-time, took night courses at Northwestern, and earned a 1924 degree.

Joining the News, Totten called the first game (that April 23) of the first
station (WMAQ) to air an entire home schedule (Cubs 12, Cardinals 1).
Originally Cubs owner Philip Wrigley wanted an ex-jock. "When Solly
Hofman bombed, I volunteered lickety-split," said Hal. "It was a great way to
see games free." In 1926, he added the White Sox. Exclusivity, schmivity:
outlets eyed listeners, not rights.

"Forget sponsors. Nobody paid for the privilege of carrying games." By
1929, five stations aired the Sox and Cubs. Johnny O'Hara bucked WJKS;
Quin Ryan and Bob Elson,WGN; Pat Flanagan and Truman Bradley, WBBM.
"Wrigley made Chicago radio baseball's Mecca. `The more outlets, the better.
That way we'll own the city.' "Actually, Wrigley already did.

He lowered the field, built a scoreboard, and double-decked the grandstand
-ergo, Friendly Confines. Even friendlier were four flags from 1929 to
1938. Antipodal were the Pale Hose: said Totten, "a synonym for their fans.
They didn't expect notice, and didn't get it." In 1934, Hal took them (Cubs,
too) to NBC's "Blue Network"WCFL.

"It was a stronger station. I could do things like road trips" and hiring a
No. 2. "Before, I'd done it by myself-no relief or sponsor." Also soloing:
Boston's Fred Hoey, Cleveland's Tom Manning, Cincinnati's Barber, and St.
Louis's France Laux.

Network coverage was different. For a time, it became Totten's winnowing force for good.

Baseball can mean odd plays, blown calls, and beguiling memory. Hal aired
Daily News 1926-27 World Series coverage-also, with Ted Husing, the
1928-29 infant Columbia Broadcasting System's. Later he joined NBC. A listener heard "foot on the slab," "funny little hop," and "pretty husky fellow":
not "flashy like McNamee," said Elson, "just baseball like it was." In 1926, it
was Grover Cleveland Alexander fanningTony Lazzeri; 1928, Lou Gehrig hitting .625; 1929, the A's scoring 10 runs in an inning. Totten called 12 Series,
tying McNamee and Elson.

In 1933, another Classic began at Comiskey Park. Before the All-Star
Game, Hal interviewed its apotheosis. "We're ducking pre-game fouls, and
Babe's getting the raspberry from Sox fans, who hated his Yanks." Ruth
homered, made a diving catch, and led a 4-2 A.L. victory. Less lucky: the
greatest Voice who then existed in the Republic.