Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball's 101 All-Time Best Announcers (45 page)

Thomas Wolfe wrote of baseball, "Almost everything I know about spring is
in it." Al Michaels's knowledge of baseball sprang from growing up near
Ebbets Field. "My school day went until only noon," he said: Dodgers game,
at 1:30. A quarter and a G.O.-General Organization-card bought a leftfield seat.

Each weekend, Al's clan walked hand-in-hand to seats high behind home
plate. "My first remembrance in life is looking down into the booth at the
back of Red Barber's head and saying, `What a job. Can you imagine seeing
every game for free?"'

In 1953, Vin Scully succeeded Barber. The Dodgers scamped to Los
Angeles in 1958. By coincidence, so did Al's agent dad. "Baseball's best two
Voices," said Michaels, "and I get to hear 'em both."

Al had not studied Clough: "Westward look, the land is bright." He did
share the view. In 1968, the Arizona State radio/ television major flew to
Hawaii, never paying to see another game.

Michaels re-created the P. C. L. Islanders from a downtown Honolulu studio. A
Cuban refugee ran the board. From the road, "all depended on the press box to
send balls and strikes." One night Al preps for three innings vs. Tucson. Minutes
lapse: No report. Finally, he speaks: "That's it. Here's Ken Wilson with the
fourth,"then leaves. In November 1970, at 26, Michaels swapped Oahu for Ohio.

That year's Reds won the pennant. The 1972 L.C.S. linked river towns.
Pittsburgh led its final: 3-2. "The [ninth-inning] pitch to Bench. Change-hit in the air to deep right field!" shrieked Al. "Back goes Clemente! At the
fence--she's gone! Johnny Bench-who hits almost every home run to left
field, hits one to right! The game is tied!"

Two Reds singled. The flag led off third. "In the dirt-it's a wild pitch!
Here comes Foster! The Reds win the pennant!"The voice rose an octave. Al
did his first Series-or Scully's ninth? "When he is sitting in your living room
talking about the nation's best-known baseball broadcaster," wrote Wells
Twombly, "he sounds identical."You couldn't tell.

"It was subconscious from all the years I'd heard him," Al surmised.
"When I discovered I sounded like Vin, I stopped listening." Celebrity, in
turn, began. He was more exciting than Waite Hoyt," said Joe Nuxhall, and
more of a homer than later," riding the Big Red Machine in seven midwest
and southern states.

They heard: Joe Morgan, winning with his glove, bat, and legs. Dave Concepcion, siring the bounce throw to first. Pete Rose, "giving me a baseball Ph.
D." Johnny Bench, 1972 MVP. "Growing up, we called catching the tools of
ignorance. John changed that," said Al, like 1970s Cincy changed him.

"My time there made me." His unmaking: the Reds then-vice president.

In 1973, Michaels asked for $ 119,150. Aghast, Dick Wagner knocked a
"figure quite high for a baseball announcer with three years of major league
experience. At thirty, [he] needs some maturing." Screw you, Al replied. "I
have known Dick Wagner for five years and have come to the conclusion that
his definition of maturity is total subservience."

That fall, Michaels joined a team whose attendance approximated the
swallows at Capistrano. One night he announced the crowd. "Mr. and Mrs.
Jim McAlpine, Palo Alto." Another: "That's 1967. There are 1967 people
here. Don't worry, folks ... that's a great year ... 1967 ... a great year for
Inglenook Wine. Not so good for the Giants, however."

San Francisco was greased for sarcasm. Al inherited much to be sarcastic
about. "The score at the end of six is San Diego 9, the Giants 9. Unfortunately, the Giants are playing in German." Their mid-seventies resembled
Stalingrad. "It has been said, not altogether humorously," wrote Twombly,
"that the reason the Giants are last in home attendance is because everybody
stays home and listens to Michaels."

ABC Sports head Roone Arledge hired him in 1976. In 1980, Al did his
second hockey game-"No one at ABC had done any" Lake Placid's
Olympic Miracle on Ice: U.S. 4, Soviets 3. "Do you believe in miracles?Yes!"
he bayed. Punier was "Monday Night Baseball"'s backup niche. The hitch:
lead Voice Keith Jackson's idyll was South Bend or Happy Valley, not Fenway
Park or Wrigley Field. "A football guy, on baseball!" TV Guide huffed. "It was
no secret that Al was miffed that network execs took their sweet time making
him No. 1 announcer."

Michaels debuted June 6, 1983, with ex-O's Jim Palmer and Earl
Weaver. Flammable on the field, they fizzled above. Earl quickly left.
Replacing him: the gadfly who left school (New York University), fifties ABC
Radio ("SportsFocus"), and 1962-63 Mets radio (pre-game) for "Wide World
of Sports," TVS boxing, and "Monday Night Football." In 1985, slamming
ABC, Howard Cosell released I Never Played the Game. Already he and Al had
fought off-air. Now Tim McCarver replaced him on the Series.

"Howard had become a cruel, evil, vicious person," said Michaels. "He's always had some of those traits, but they've now manifested themselves in
spades."Al manifested play-by-play. Dane Iorg's Game Six hit tied the Classic.
"And there's a blooper to right field for a base hit! Concepcion scores! Here
comes Sundberg! Here comes the throw! He scores [Royals, 2-11! And we
go to the seventh!"

Next year Michaels went to "the greatest of all the thousands of games
I've done"-Game Five, American League L.C.S.

Ahead, 3 games to 1, California trailed, 2-1, until Boston outfielder Dave
Henderson, nearly catching Bobby Grich's drive, knocked it over the wall. In
the ninth, up 5--4, the Angels were one out from the pennant. Gary Lucas's
first pitch plunked Rich Gedman. Relieving, Donnie Moore went 2-2 on
Henderson. The Red Sox had one strike left.

Champagne iced the Halos clubhouse. "The pitch ... deep to left and
Downing goes back! And it's gone! Unbelievable!" Michaels yelled. "You're
looking at one for the ages here! Astonishing! Anaheim Stadium was one
strike away from turning into Fantasyland! And now the Red Sox lead, 6 to
5! The Red Sox get four runs in the ninth on a pair of two-run homers by
Don Baylor and Dave Henderson!" Effect: Man bites dog.

"This is supposed to happen to, not by, us," a Soxaphile said. It almost did
in the ninth inning: 6-all, bases full, Grich up. Steve Crawford got him and
Doug DeCinces. Boston: 7-6. "So many twists," Al said 18 years later. "Take
Crawford, ninth guy on a 10-guy staff, trying to save a pennant. Afterward,
he says, `If there was a bathroom on the mound, I'd have used it.' What an
unlikely hero. One day: Crawford's moment in the sun."

Michaels's dawned: college football and basketball, "Wide World of
Sports," "The Superstars," 1986- "Monday Night Football," multi-Super
Bowl, three-time Olympian and National Sportscaster of the Year. Slow in
coming, ABC baseball slowly went away. By 1986, "Monday" aired 13 games
vs. 1978's 18. Wrote TSN: "ABC pays baseball not to make it televise the regular season. The network only wants the sport for October, anyway."

Al's third Series was baseball's first inside (1987): its "decibel levels," a
writer said, "associated with jets in aircraft takeoffs." His next felt another
jolt. October 17, 1989, was clear and warm in San Francisco: "by local
notion, earthquake weather," said Michaels, a resident. At 5:04 P.M., Pacific
Time, on the pre-game show, he shouted, "We're having an [7.1 Richter
scale] earthquake!" then fell with McCarver and Palmer to the floor. For 30
seconds the Bay Area rocked.

Ruptured gas lines lit the Marina. Part of the Nimitz Freeway collapsed.
A Bay Bridge upper span section hit the lower level: 67 died. At Candlestick,
generators revived the TV picture. The crowd filed out quietly. Michaels won
a news category Emmy. "His hockey made him a celebrity sportscaster," said
Craig. "The earthquake showed he could handle everything else."

A month earlier, Bart Giamatti had died of a heart attack. Successor Fay Vincent now postponed for 10 days "our modest little sporting event," braving
an all-time low 16.4 Series rating. Next season, CBS began exclusivity:
"tough to accept," Al said, "because baseball was such an early stepchild at
ABC and had come such a long way."

In 1994-95, he surfaced on The Baseball Network. "Here Al is, having
done five games since 1989," said Palmer, "and steps right in. It's hard to
comprehend how one guy could so amaze."

Michaels retrieved "Monday Night Football," Stanley Cup, NBA final,
and 1998 NSSA Hall of Fame. "I don't want to believe in reincarnation because God has been so good to me this time around that I'd probably come
back as a cockroach in Cameroon."

AL MICHABLS

What Al knew of spring was still in baseball. To the public, other sports
and seasons were now more in him.

Johnny Carson dubbed him "Mr. Baseball."Wrote Sports Illustrated: "He is the
funniest man in sportscasting"-Joe Garagiola with hair. A Boys and Girls
Club of Milwaukee photo shows him making rabbit's ears behind a member.
Text reads: "And some of our kids never grow up."

Bob Uecker grew up to be a cult clown, film/TV actor, and Brewers and
"Monday Night Baseball" prosopopeia. Ah, those fans, he said, "I love 'em."
They love the man as memoir: the Catcher in the Wry.

To know Uke meant grasping "my lunch-bucket family type, Eastern
European kind of place."Twenties emigrants to Milwaukee included Sue and
Gus Uecker, a Swiss homemaker and tool and diemaker, respectively.

One night Michaels asked about Uecker's father. "He came from the old
country" and played soccer, Bob replied.

Did (lad play goal?

"Oh, he didn't play anything. He just blew up the balls. That's where I get
a lot of my talent."

Uke blamed his 1962-67 Braves, Cardinals, and Phillies .200 average on
Milwaukee's Boys Club's pool. "They made me swim without a suit. I kept
backing up against the wall, and they had those old iron radiators. I got too
close. Explains a lot."

Mr. B was born January 26, 1935, on "Mom and Dad's oleomargarine run to
Chicago because we couldn't get colored margarine in Milwaukee," he joked,
in an exit area, "sort of a Nativity-type setting, the light shining down and
three truck drivers present." By eighth grade, Uke made a team. Trying to
help, Mom "made me a protective cup from a flour sack." Dad "was a fan. He
booed me, too." Each feared that junior was not the brightest bulb. "Friends
are still amazed I made something of myself. They think hack on those three
years in the pen----oh, never mind."

Uecker learned boxing "The way I played ball, I had to defend
myself "-devolving into a sandlot pitcher. In 1953, the Braves arrived from Boston. A tryout ended after Bob was told to toss a fastball. Reply: "I was."
He became a catcher, got a tiny bonus, and signed in a "swanky" restaurant.
"Dad was thrilled, but so nervous he rolled down the window and the hamburgers fell off his tray."

Bob began at Class C Eau Claire. "Talk about vision. An early manager
suggested I announce." By 1962, Milwaukee's first native Brave became
minors Player of the Year-"not bad, considering it was my second bigleague year."