Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball's 101 All-Time Best Announcers (35 page)

In 1973, NBC launched the "celebrity in the booth." Kubek panned it at a network luncheon. "Cosell? Bobby Riggs? Danny Kaye? A great guy, but come
on." Why not Marcel Marceau, Harpo Marx, and Linda Lovelace? Designated hitter? "Dumb rule." Salary structure: "Completely irrational." Replacement
players: "I'm a union guy. They'd have to be called scabs."

Tony called the 1969-75 All-Star Game and post-season. In 1972,
knocked down, Oakland's Bert Campaneris threw his bat at Detroit's Lerrin
LaGrow. "It's justified," Kubek said. "Any pitch like that," aimed squarely at
Bert's legs, "endangers his career." Incensed, Motown's Chrysler Corporation
phoned Bowie Kuhn, who called NBC, which pressured Tony. A day later he
stiffed them all.

Would Kubek speak off-season? "Some guys write jokes for you. It
wouldn't be me." National ads found the can: "I don't need the money."
Winter meant family. "I go hunting, coach junior high basketball, and wait for
baseball." To TSN, he had "really no sense of humor, speaks a little too often,
and may be too much in love with his sport. Still, one listens," as in the 1975
World Series.

Cincy's Cesar Geronimo reached first in Game Three's 10th inning.
Boston catcher Carlton Fisk then flung Ed Armbrister's bunt into center
field. "Armbrister interfered [with the attempted forceout]"! charged Kubek.
Plate umpire Larry Barnett disagreed. Joe Morgan plated the 6-5 winning
run. Barnett blamed Tony for death alarum. Later the NBCer got 1,000 letters dubbing him a Boston stooge.

"It would be unfair to call him the last honest network broadcaster," wrote
Jack Craig. "But he may be the most honest." For a long time that sufficed.

Tony called Gowdy his favorite partner. Garagiola changed "Game"'s tone
and feel. "I grew up with a baseball of legend," said Lindsey Nelson.
Antipodal: sport as job, not lore. "To players, it's a livelihood. That's how they
treat it." Scully's and Caray's menu starred wine and beer, respectively. Joe's
and Tony's listed meat and spuds.

"A great example of black and white," said Connal. A pitcher throws
badly to third. "Joe says, `The third baseman's fault.' Tony: `The pitcher's."'
Media critic Gary Deeb termed theirs "the finest baseball commentary ever
carried on network TV." In 1978, Kubek targeted another critic: Boss
George.

"He's got an expensive toy," Tony said of George Steinbrenner. "Baseball's tough enough without an owner harassing you." Irked, the Yanks
owner memoed each owner, Kuhn, and NBC about "biting the fan that
feeds it."

Tony: "George likes to use people as pawns."

King George: No player will grant an interview.

"A lot of owners were ready to cave to Steinbrenner's bullying," said
Kubek.

Diogenes was not.

Most Voices would kill for an Olympics. Tony's pact forbade it. He
seemed as steady as 27 outs until the 1983 pact returned him to the B's. "I'm
not crazy about being assigned to the backup game, but it's no big ego deal."
NBC's tourniquet doubled salary to $350,000. Costas proved a newcomer,
not neophyte. "I think my humor loosened Tony, and his knowledge
improved me."

Increasingly, many preferred them to Vin's musings and Joe's asides.
Then, in late 1988, Kubek went back to a future where he never expected to
reside.

"I can't believe it," Tony said of NBC losing baseball. On September 30,
1989, he aired its 981st and last "Game" from SkyDome, having manned
Canada's The Sports Network since 1977. "Kubek educated a whole generation of Canadian baseball fans without being condescending or simplistic,"
said the Toronto Star. In 1990, he joined the Yanks' Madison Square Garden
Network. Steinbrenner's ode spurned joy.

"Kubek's style is not cuddly," wrote The New York Times's Richard Sandomir. "His intensity costs popularity." Ask Ken Burns and David Halberstam:
"I wouldn't talk with ... interlopers coming in to take over our game." Peter
Ueberroth: "To say that baseball's drug-free, the big-lie theory lives." George,
firing Bucky Dent: "If you are really a winner,"Tony said on MSG, "you should
not have handled this like a loser."

After five years, "the last honest broadcaster" picked up a scorebook,
scrapped a final $525,000 MSG season, and walked away. "I hate what the
game's become-the greed, the nastiness. You can be married to baseball,
give your heart to it, but when it starts taking over your soul, it's time to
say whoa."

The decision stunned TV brass. What could he be thinking? Actually, priorities a sane man might cheer.

"I want to go home [Menosha, near Appleton] and spend more time with
my family. They deserve it more than anyone. I don't need that ego stuff. I
feel sorry for those who do."

Baseball's tough break (Tony, retiring) sprung from Kubek's good (life
sans cant). Seldom had Forbes Field seemed so far away.

TONY KUBEK

At one time or another, Ernie Harwell, Herb Carneal, and Jon Miller called
the Orioles. None denote Charm City. A child who learned it in a home that
lodged Connie Mack does. "Chuck Thompson is Baltimore," mused Brooks
Robinson. "Anyone will tell you that."

There was something special about the warm, beguiling voice. "Excellent
flow, easy to hear," wrote John Steadman, "as old-shoe as a diner." Thompson
credits grandma's renters house, near his Palmer, Massachusetts, birthplace
for "giving me a love of baseball." Like Homer, Mack told tales to the hawknosed youth. The man later filled the air.

At 18, a friend dared an audition at WRAW Reading. Chuck became a
singer, moved to WIBG Philadelphia, joined the 30th Army Division, and
returned to Center City. In 1946, a balky elevator delayed the Athletics'
Byrum Saam and Claude Haring. The tyro began talking. Impressed, the A's
and Phils hired him "Did each at home, no travel, as good as baseball
gets"-too, hoops Warriors, football Eagles, then I.L. Orioles.

Thompson lived near an "avid golfer, but formal," who never swore on
missing a putt. "I'd hear Bob [Sharman] in the yard, shouting a phrase I never
understood." Intrigued, he borrowed "Go to war, Miss Agnes!" for the A.L.
1955-56 O's and 1957-60 Senators. Thrice D.C. dredged last. Once Chuck
and a colleague recalled the grunge.

"As I remember," Bob Wolff said, "we rarely gave the score of the Senators games. That wasn't an oversight. It was well-planned, believe me."

Worse than watching the Nats drunk was seeing them sober. Future O's
owner Jerold C. Hoffberger bought a table at the annual New York Baseball
Writers dinner. "`I'm going to get some sleep. See ya tomorrow,"'Thompson
said, hailing a cab to Toots Shor's. "All my Senators pals were there. We start
drinking up a storm."

Near midnight, Hoffberger put a hand on Chuck's shoulder. "Kid, you
got a hell of a bedroom."

"I feel there's not a better game than baseball, but it's tough to do. Every pitch
you have to say in a different way," he would say. Football, on the other hand, "is
once a week. Prepare, you're fine. Just easier to call." Chuck was even better
on first and ten than three and two, calling Albright, Temple, Navy, DuMont
"Game of the Week," and the Baltimore Colts. As a boy, Miller watched CBS
each Sunday. "`Lenny Moore gets five yards of real estate,"' he mimicked.
"What a voice! It doesn't matter what Chuck says-as long as he says it."

If timing is all, December 28, 1958, had everything: John Unitas, the
Giants' marquee defense, 50 million NBC viewers, and Thompson, doing
Baltimore's 23-17 title victory, in the twilight, with a dreamboat denouement. The Colts reached the one-yard line in overtime. Suddenly the screen
blackened. "The cable wire's loose," said Chuck. "No picture, and we're about
to score." Saving the day, a man abruptly weaved across the field, making referee Ron Gibbs call time. The wire fixed, Alan Ameche scored over tackle.
"We found the drunk was an NBC executive. He got the game stopped-and
I hope got a raise."

Colts-Giants blessed football's ministry. In 1960, baseball was the sport.
Chuck aired the Series on NBC Radio. Game Seven:Yanks, 7-6. "[Hal] Smith
swings-a long fly ball deep to left field! ... It is going, going, gone! [Pirates,
9-7, eighth inning] Forbes Field is at this moment an outdoor insane asylum!
We have seen and shared in one of baseball's great moments!"

The ninth inning crowned another. "Well, a little while ago when we
mentioned that this one ... was going right to the wire, little did we know. Art Ditmar [sic] throws. There's a swing and a high fly ball going deep to left!
Back to the wall goes Berra! It is ... over the fence, home run, the Pirates
win! Ladies and gentlemen, Mazeroski has hit a one-nothing pitch over the
left-field fence here at Forbes Field to win the 1960 World Series for the
Pittsburgh Pirates, 10 to 0 [sic]!"

Neither glitch cut ice. "People didn't notice because they were berserk,"
Thompson said. A year later the Bucs asked if he wanted a voice-over correction on a souvenir LP. "Hey, it was a horrible mistake, but I said it, so keep
it in." In 1985, a gauzy Anheuser Busch Series TV ad used his call. Hundreds
phoned the brewery. Ralph Terry! 10 to 9!

The flak endeared Thompson even more to Baltimore. Go to war, Miss
Agnes! The city might, for him.

"For a long time breweries were baseball's big sponsor. They owned you, not
the club." In 1957, the National Brewing Co. left the Orioles for Senators. In
1962, it, and Chuck, returned. September 1964 bunched the White Sox,
Stripes, and O's. On Long Island, Bob Costas sat in a car, adjusted the radio,
and fixed WBAL Baltimore. "If theYankees played at day, I'd listen to the Orioles at night, and in truth I'd try to will them to lose."

Boston's Lee Thomas's ground-rule double rebounded on the field and
was grabbed by a labrador retriever. "Well,"Thompson said, "that was a doggoned double." Saleable, he mused, "Mmm, ain't the beer cold!" upon an O's
homer, save, or 4-6-3. Said Costas: "It seemed to sum up baseball so perfectly, a guy sipping a beer on his back porch, keeping up with his team."

In 1966, the team kept up with Chuck. "We were good until we got
Frank [Robinson, from Cincinnati]," said Brooks. "He made us a winner":
Triple Crown .316, 49 homers, and 122 RBI. Boog Powell added 34 taters.
Luis Aparicio, Davey Johnson, and Paul Blair sealed the middle. Baltimore
clinched September 22. The Dodgers won that "other league." B. Robby:
"They looked at us like hired help." The serfs swept the Series.

They made another in 1969. "I've done a Classic," said Chuck, ceding
NBC to his partner. Gawked Bill O'Donnell: "Name one guy who would voluntarily yield his sport's top event."Thompson's last Series were 1970-71 vs.
Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, respectively. Said Brooks: "We won the two we
should have lost [ 1966 and 1970], and lost the two we should have won."

Some players have children out of wedlock. In Baltimore, babies are named
for a man mom never met. Brooks entered Cooperstown in 1983 holding records for best third base fielding average, chances, assists, putouts, and
double plays. The '70 Series evinced his Velcro mitt. "Swing, ground ball,
third-base side. Brooks Robinson's got it, throwing from foul ground toward
first base! It is . . . in time! And the Golden Glove artistry of Brooks
Robinson was never more apparent than on that last play." He "played a
simple game," said Chuck. "Hit it to him and he'd catch it-on grass, turf,
concrete, in a swamp. Throw it to him, and Brooks hit it": 2,848 hits,
including 268 homers.

His last studded 1977. "It was a rainy night, 7,000 people." Brooks's
pinch-dinger won the game. "Spectators then ran down to the field. Maybe
they sensed this was Brooks's last blast. Whatever, the crowd made as much
noise as I've heard at a World Series"-one course in a menu of plot and
place. Thompson hoarded ballpark yarns like Imelda Marcos, shoes.

At Seattle's Sick's Stadium, "The away Voice looked down the first-base
line. You could only see right of shortstop." Chuck hung a mirror for balls hit
to left: "That way you refract the play." At Fenway Park, P.A. Voice Sherm
Feller announced Neil Armstrong's 1969 moonwalk. Applause began. The
umpire called time. Due to hit, Brooks asked what Feller said. Told, he started
clapping. A fan warbled "God Bless America." Soon Fenway housed teary carolers. Caruso never sounded better.

One day Blair led off third base in Detroit. Swinging, F. Robby hurled a
bat near the seats. Blair faced them-"worried," said Chuck, "about a fan
injury"-whereupon catcher Bill Freehan tagged him.

"You're out," said the umpire.

"You can't do that," said Blair.

"Why not?"

"Because when I get back to the dugout, [manager] Earl [Weaver]'s going
to kill me."

The O's bantamweight won six divisions, four flags, and one Series"unique, like his double-billed cap," said Chuck, "so he could argue any way
he turned." One day, homering, outfielder-turned-minister Pat Kelly
touched the plate, raised an arm, and pointed skyward.

"What's this pointin'?" Weaver asked.