Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball's 101 All-Time Best Announcers (36 page)

Kelly said, "Without the Good Lord, I wouldn't be able to do that."

Earl: "The Good Lord didn't do much for the guy who threw the ball."

Yogi Berra was mystified by a streaker's sex: "He had a bag over his head."An
O's rain delay removed doubt-and dress. A man stripped, ran to second base, and slid on a tarp into third. Memorial Stadium security rushed him to
the dugout. The man leaves for jail. Raising a hand, umpire Nestor Chylak
separates his thumb and index finger by an inch. "There were 27,000 in the
park," said Thompson, and every one roared."

Once Al Bumbry tripled to left-center. "Listen to that guy!" a friend said
of Chuck's staccato. "What enthusiasm!" In 1979, it described a pennant; '8 1,
Eddie Murray, leading in A.L. homers and RBI; '82, Cal Ripken, Jr.'s debut
at third. The last weekend Baltimore thrice beat Milwaukee: the A.L. East
was tied; true believers packed Birdland's bowl. Weaver had announced
retirement. Would a Series postpone it?

"Take our last game," Thompson said, "and we got a flag." Losing, the
crowd wouldn't leave, chanting "Earl!" The '83ers won the Series. Chuck
completed a decade with Brooks on WMAR TV: "Here's the 2-1 pitch ...
let's watch the outfielder ... a mighty fine ballplayer is "-pick a name
and year. He missed Weaver riding players and kicking dirt. A listener missed
him, "retiring" in 1987. "Actually, the station had me do games each year.
Guess I never left."

In 1991,Thompson helped close the O's beloved "ramshackle, beat-up old
place [Baltimore Sun]." On October 4, Miller introduced him. The ovation
volleyed, rocked the girders, shook the field. Two days later Ripken banged
into a Memorial-ending double play. A limousine carted home plate to Oriole
Park at Camden Yards. The field was cleared. Music began from "Field of
Dreams." The first O's left the dugout: Brooks, for third; F. Robby, right field.

"Then came Jim Palmer pitching, Boog to first. This is how the team said
good-bye-ex-players coming back. The crowd hadn't expected this. When
it happened, they were stunned." More than 75 players ran in period uniforms to their position. "No introduction, just music rolling. I looked with
binoculars at Brooks and Powell and we were all fighting to keep from
breaking down."

Later, Thompson walked to his car through a sea of red-eyed love. "Whoever says, `There's no crying in baseball' would that day change his mind."

Opening April 6, 1992, the O's new home was a pop fly from the Inner
Harbor, near the Camden Railroad Station of the old Baltimore and Ohio. A
brick facade mimed old Comiskey Park. Left field was triple-tiered like the
Bronx. The 1,016-foot-long and 51-foot-wide 1898 brick B&O Railroad
Warehouse enfolded the park, like houses around Wrigley Field.

Memorial was big band, blue collar, and National Bohemian Beer: Camden, less rowdy than a baseball salon. "It was hip," said Chuck, "but wasn't home."
Cooperstown was, by 1993. "There is no way you can prepare yourself for the
emotion of the impact of the moment," Thompson told the crowd. "You wanted
it for me and I wanted it for you." For one day, Baltimore moved 340 miles north.

Later Chuck brooked eye disease, lost sight, and tried commentary. Said
O's Voice Jim Hunter: "He still has the mind and voice." Retiring, he relished
Chuck Thompson Bobble Head Day. "It's got the trademark fedora, the
[jagged] nose," mused colleague Fred Manfra. "Push a button and hear the
calls," including F. Robby's 500th homer.

Thompson converted to Catholicism, turning inward, but not hitter. Go
to war, Miss Agnes! He found inner peace. Ain't the beer cold! "He's ours,"
said Steadman, "and that's enough," love as clear as a day behind the rain.

CHUCK THOMPSON

Radio/TV often rewards the me-hymning, fast-talking, and fact-twisting
con. Exceptions seem old-world in an eat-your-young field. Until his death
at 56 of cancer, Orioles 1966-82 Voice Bill O'Donnell was such a gentleman. "Never, ever, did I hear him say a bad word about anyone," said Chuck
Thompson. "Never, ever, did I hear him utter one word of profanity." He was
honest, kind, and civilizing. The combination is hard to find.

Bill grew up in the Bronx, entered Fordham Prep School, and at 14
became a Times copy boy. Later: Fordham University, the Marines, and Navy
News editor. "After the war," he said, "I came back to find no room at
Fordham." Ex-classmate Vin Scully joined Brooklyn. O'Donnell slogged to
the World Telegram and Sun, Utica Daily News, WIBX Utica, and Mohawk Valley
Community College.

In 1951, he called Pioneer League Pocatello, Idaho. A year later Bill
returned to Upstate New York. Through 1965, he did the Triple-A Chiefs,
hitched Syracuse University hoops and football, and was WSYR TV/radio
sports director.

"I loved it, and tried not to get discouraged."At forty, he hadn't made the
bigs-and might never have, without luck.

In early 1966, the Red Sox' Curt Gowdy left for NBC. O'Donnell, then Colts
Voice, asked their ad agency for a plug. That day the O's added an announcer.
Skip Boston: the agency proposed Charm City.

Football owned Baltimore. Baseball's stupor was contagious. A Tribe
reliever threw two balls, was yanked by skipper Birdie Tebbetts, but got reinstated by the ump. "Birdie forgot the [minimum] one-batter rule," said Bill,
"so starts doing the breaststroke, waving his arms to the dugout." Asked to
explain, he said, "I was swimming through a sea of my own stupidity."

The 1966 Birds drew a record 1,203,366. "I'm not taking credit," said
their rookie Voice. "I think maybe winning our first pennant helped." In 1968,
he spurned the Yankees. By 1969, the Orioles 60-outlet network reached
Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and D.C. Baltimore reached the
Series.

In Game Three, New York's Tommie Agee homered, made a fourthinning backhand catch at the fence, and encored in the seventh.

"Here's a fly ball to right-center field!" Bill said on NBC Radio. "Shamsky
with Agee. Agee dives-and he makes the catch!" Davey Johnson was the O's
last Game Five-thus Series-hope. "Fly ball, deep left field! Jones is back
at the fence! Jones is on the warning track! The World Series is over! The
Mets have won it by a score of 5 to 3!"

The 1970 O's sought retribution. "Even when we won [its Series], we
focused on '71," said Bill. "Win, and people talk dynasty." Again he called the Classic. Pittsburgh took a 3-2 game lead. Game Six went overtime.
"Frank Robinson had bad legs. He walks, gets to third on a single, and barely
beats the throw to third with a belly-flop."

Brooks flew to shallow center. Heaving, Frank slid between catcher Manny
Sanguillen's legs. Pittsburgh took a 2-1 final. The Ming Dynasty was safe.

By now Bill did pro and college football, TVS Network hoops, and NBC's
backup "Game." Travel braced, not bored. "In Boston, I'll focus on the restaurants; Chicago, long walks; Kansas City, golf; Anaheim, the beaches," he said.
"Nothing comes to mind in New York"-just home. In 1979, new O's radio
household WFBR began hyping "Orioles Magic." Aptly, they began winning
games in an "Orioles Way." Wild Bill Hagy, a taxi driver in section 34, twisted
his body to spell O-R-I-O-L-E-S atop the dugout. Recalling the empty-seat
1971 Series, you sang, swung, and swigged.

Overnight, Baltimore became a baseball town. Attendance hit
1,681,009. The O's won the East, took the L.C.S., but lost again to Pittsburgh. "We've got to stop playing them," O'Donnell said. Soon the A.L.'s
longest radio/TV co-op nested in Birdland. "Seventeen years!" Thompson
exulted. A reason: Bill.

"Broadcasters spend seven months, every day, with the same person," said Chuck. "Some teams off the air are totally incompatible." By reckoning, he and
O'Donnell ate 95 of every 100 dinners together on the road. Slowly, pain
drove Bill off. He died, at Johns Hopkins Hospital, October 29, 1982, leaving
wife Patricia and five children. Next year,Thompson moved exclusively toTV.

BILL O'DONNELL

"Without this dear, sweet man," he said, "I knew radio wouldn't be the
same." Chuck ferried the Orioles through 2000. It seldom was.

In 1940, only England stood between Adolf Hitler and a new dark age. "Let us
therefore brace ourselves to our duties," said Prime Minister Winston
Churchill, "and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will say: `This was their finest hour."'

The Red Sox' post-1918 Everest was 2004. Until then, a Townie might
cite another year. Bill Clinton could fall again, and Al Gore rise again. Martha
Stewart could become a social worker, and the Rolling Stones retire. Bob
Uecker could find the front row, and Madonna become a nun. All this would
happen before a finer baseball hour than 1967.

The 1966 Sox finished ninth. Next year's 100-to-1 ers wrote "one of
baseball's great rags-to-riches stories," said Joseph Durso, by waving a lastday pennant. Pinching himself, Ken Coleman still did not believe it.

In the clubhouse, his suit oozed Great Western champagne. Outside, Red Sox
Nation replayed an Ozymandian year. So we beat on, F. Scott Fitzgerald
wrote, "boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
Coleman's past had never wandered far away.

It began in Quincy, a Boston suburb, eight miles from Fenway. Ken's ikon
was Jimmy Foxx. At age 12, a BB gun accident cost an eye. Heroes were
tradeable: Double X, for Fred Hoey. "We called him `The man who does the
games."' Coleman's was baseball as a hopeful, awkward child.

In 1943, he left high school, entered the Good War, and was asked to call
sports in India on Armed Forces Radio. "Try speaking with 12,000 troops listening." Released, Ken majored in Oratory at Curry College, partly to conquer fear. Next: Vermont's Northern Baseball League, Boston University
football, and 250-watt Worcester outlet. In 1952, he took port at Cleveland
Stadium. "Lindsey Nelson and I were Browns radio finalists." Nelson joined
NBC; Ken, a 125-station network.

In 1954, he tried Browns video. I still recall, from their lakeside fort,
Coleman's wise, knowing way. "When people mention him, they think baseball," said Jack Buck, "hut he's the best football announcer I ever heard." Ken
did the 1954-63 Indians. "My first year they won I 1 1 games, then not much
to tell."The exception was slugger Rocky Colavito.

In 1960, Cleveland dealt No. 6 for Harvey Kuenn. It took a while to
forget Ohio's greatest pin-up since Boudreau. Humor helped. Once Rocky
retreated to the wall. "Back goes Wally against the rock," Coleman said of the
now-Tiger. Red-faced, he amended: "For those of you interested in statistics,
this was my 11th fluff of this year. It puts me in third place in the American
League."

Ken called his last Cleveland game January 2, 1966. "Also my eighth
[Mutual or CBS/NBC TV] NFL title game [losing to Green Bay, 23-12],"
leaving at the top for baseball's bottom. In March, Curt Gowdy left the Sox
for NBC. You lucky stiff, Coleman told himself. "It was like a dream, going
back to my roots, taking Curt's and Hoey's job."

The nightmare was the team. In 1965, 1,247 watched Dave Morehead
no-hit Cleveland. Each 1966 pitcher had a losing record. Boston will win a
title, said a fan, when Tiny Tim sings bass.

'Sixty-seven made baseball cool again, revived the Boston American League
Baseball Company, and filled a funhouse of peals. Leonard Bernstein said,
"Music is something terribly special. It doesn't have to pass the censor of
the brain before it can reach the heart." Like music, the year cried gotcha to
the soul.

Drawing 8,324, Fenway's opener sang anonymity. That week Billy Rohr
pitched his first bigs game. "Eight hits . . . all of them belong to Boston,"
Ken's ninth inning began on WHDH Radio. "Fly ball to left field! Yastrzemski
is going hard, way back! Way back! And he dives-and makes a tremendous
catch!" The next batter singled. The rookie won only two more games. Later
WHDH released the LP "The Impossible Dream." Of Rohr, Coleman said:
"The fans began to sense it. This year was not quite the same."