Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball's 101 All-Time Best Announcers (51 page)

Driftless is the lot of a bigs broadcast man. He leaves the plane, finds his hotel,
and migrates to the park. Dugout talk precedes the game. Tedium succeeds it.

Ernie Harwell visited pals in every city. Harry Caray never met a bar he
didn't like. Bob Wolff made a list of celebrities to meet: in Kansas City, near
Independence, he phoned Harry S Truman out of the blue.

Fearing feeling blue, Mel Proctor used travel to act and write. Proctor
was a tour guide and reporter, respectively, on TV's "Hawaii 5-0" and "Homicide." In 1995, he authored The Official Fan's Guide to The Fugitive.

"I identified. He was a loner, and so was I," Proctor said of ABC's
1962-67 series. "It was fun to learn about David Janssen, a social animal who
loved wooing gorgeous women." He forged a half-smile, memory pleasing
him. Writing evoked a magical time.

"We feel things more deeply when we're young," Mel mused, sounding eerily like
Lon Simmons. Raised in Denver, he doted on the Double-A Bears. Bill Reed was
a swell. "Re-creating, he'd sound like he was at, say, Nicolet Field in Minneapolis."

Proctor attended The Colorado College, did the World Football League
and University of Hawaii, and aired the 1973-78 Hawaii Islanders. Like Reed,
he made radio art, not Armageddon: not easy, nor necessarily on time.

"Sometimes guys forgot to call from location, so you imagined things like
a streaker," chased by cops, running near the mound. Would the phone ring?
If not, sick people got attended to, rain began, the grounds crew turned cavalry. In 1978, Mel got married. Ceremony: 9 P.M. Game time: 7:30. The recreation ended at 8:36.

Proctor's last game "had every sound effect conceivable"-fire engines,
sirens, cannon. "A lion's roaring in the jungle, must be the pen. Any other
time, I'm fired." Instead, he bounced to the NBA Bullets. "D.C. wasn't what
I knew-too trendy." Nearby blue-collar Baltimore was. In 1984, the O's
cable-TV network Home Team Sports tapped Mel and a fruit loops of a man.

Their first game ex-outfielder John Lowenstein hailed a vendor: "Give
me a sandwich and lots of mustard." Years later Wade Boggs's affair with
Margo Adams soaked tabloids. Mel mused how the superstitious Boggs had
wife Debbie cook chicken before each game.

"Who cooks his chicken now?" asked Brother Lo.

"I don't know," said Proctor, "but we know who's cooked his goose." In
the mid-to-late eighties, the Orioles' seemed fried.

Seat Cushion Night, Memorial Stadium. "Hold up your seat cushions," P.A.
mikeman Rex Barney said. Lowenstein threw his toward the field. Like
lemmings, the crowd obeyed. Play was stopped, John reproved. It was a feeling the last-place 1986 and '88ers could share. "I take it seriously,"
Proctor said. "But I also learned-John taught me-that baseball's a game.
If people sense you're having fun, they'll have fun watching."

Mel watched CamdenYards open, Cal Ripken, Jr. pass Ernie Banks for most
homers by a shortstop, and Baltimore draw a single-season high. He spiced
pro/college basketball, TNT/TBS boxing, and Mutual,Turner, and NBC football, and wrote a sequel to The Fugitive increasingly, feeling one himself.

As Orioles owner Peter Angelos sent players, skippers, and general managers packing, Mel got out while the getting was good. By 1997, he joined
ex-boss Larry Lucchino in San Diego. Later a group including Lucchino
bought the Red Sox. Proctor left the Pads for Fox TV.

"The more you do, the more you find you can do," said Lucille Ball. Mel
still does by habit. "I'm writing a new book," he said in 2004. Screentests
welcome, too.

MEL PROCTOR

Like Jack Brickhouse, he was born in Illinois (Elmhurst, 1945). Like Gene
Elston, he went to school in Iowa (speech major, Wartburg College). Like Milo Hamilton, he left the Midwest for the Lone Star State. Unlike them,
Mark Holtz lived an unfinished life. TV's Texas Rangers demanded justice.
Shorn of it, the Rangers' Voice died of leukemia at 52.

In 1965, Holtz, 20, was paying for Wartburg by selling shirts at Chicago's
Marshall Field's. On a bet, he asked Alice Rudge, a store clothing model, for
a date. They married in 1967. Graduating, Mark meandered to Scottsbluff,
Nebraska, Omaha, Peoria, and Denver.

"I paid my dues," he said. "That's why I was full of myself when I got
to do some Rangers TV games [ 19811." In Detroit, assigned a pre-game
interview, Holtz approached the trainer wearing ego and a smile. "I'm
Mark Holtz. Where's [starting pitcher] Danny Darwin?" The trainer
pointed to the dugout. Holtz found a man in jacket and ear muffs sitting
on the bench.

"I'd like to ask a few questions," he said.

"Glad to," said the man, "except there's one thing you should know."

"What?"

"I'm not Danny Darwin," said Charlie Hough.

Ultimately, the knuckling Hough retired as Texas's all-time winning pitcher.
In 1981, he was an ex-Dodgers hack. "I didn't really want to interview him,"
said Mark, "but it was near game time and I couldn't find Darwin, so we
begin."

Holtz asked about the American League. "I don't know," said Hough. "I've
only pitched in two games."

A.L. parks: "Don't know. I've only pitched at home." Detroit: Did the
ball travel? "Don't know. I've never pitched here."

Q & A ends. Mark finds the booth, head between his legs. "Charlie
Hough?" rasped the WAP Radio producer. "If Darwin goes nine innings, we
won't have a word."

In the third, he pulls a muscle. Relieving, Don Zimmer picks the least
likely starter. Amazingly, Hough apes Cy Young. The interview proudly runs.
"Ability is fine," said Napoleon, "but give me commanders who have luck."
Holtz seemed to have it. The team did not.

"Most years, we were dead by July," Mark rued. The miasma spread.
Partner Eric Nadel, opening his attache case, spilled a Coca-Cola cup. "It
had all his baseball records. Eric's face was terrified. An entire career consumed by foam."

In 1989, a group led by George W Bush bought a franchise short of fizz. Attendance broke 2 million-first of five straight years. That April Nolan
Ryan first pitched for Texas. On August 22, lost in thought, he drove past
Arlington Stadium. "Never happened before. Guess I had a lot on my mind."

At 8:42 P.M. Central Time, Ryan got K 5,000. Later, leaving the clubhouse, Holtz spied him on the stationary bicycle.

"I can't believe you're not out celebrating!" Mark gaped.

"I'm in my forties," Nolan smiled. "If I don't ride this bicycle, I won't get
ready for my next start."

"Can't you skip this one?"

"Nope. Got to ride a bike for 45 minutes after everybody leaves the day
I pitch."

Holtz joined the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame in 1990. Ryan later joined
Cooperstown: 27 years, 324 victories, and 5,714 Ks. In 1993, the Rangers
lost their last game at Arlington Stadium. Ahead: The Ballpark at Arlington.
Few would confuse them.

"Arlington was a minor-league park," said Mark, "built in stages." Bush built
The Ballpark like Caesar out of Marco Polo by way of Sam Houston because
this, after all, was Texas. Nooks summoned Fenway Park; right field,
Detroit's overhang; a sign, "Hit It Here and Win A Free Suit," Ebbets Field. A
four-story office building of Cajun twist, steel trusses, wrought-iron decor,
and glass abutted center field.

Opening April 11, 1994, the new home housed a better club. "Hello, win
column!" Holtz cried after each victory, the future suddenly as green as
winter oats. "He was copasetic," said Alice, "the losing about to end." In
August, a strike ended the division-leading Rangers' year.

Usually, the homebody would have tended his dog, friends, and Alice and
daughter Cindy. "My life totally revolves around family," he said. "When Alice
was diagnosed 11989, of cancer], I thought I would be left alone." Now Mark
himself was diagnosed with a bone marrow disease, myelodysplasia.

"His blood-forming cells don't function normally," said Alice. "He takes
medication, but the pain is awful." The soldier soldiered on. In February
1997, he began blood transplants and hormone injections. "He could barely
lift a cup, or talk for thirty seconds," said Nadel, visiting in the hospital. "The
handshake was wasted," like his life.

On May 22, Mark called his peroration. "I'd give anything to have
another game, but I know my situation. It's over." Next month he entered
Baylor University Medical Center for a bone marrow transplant. A huge card, signed by thousands at The Ballpark, flanked the bed. "Mark took care
of me all those years," said Mrs. Holtz. "Now I'm taking care of him."

Her husband died September 7. Alice followed in 1999. "The place of
justice is a hallowed place," said Francis Bacon. Injustice is always hollow.

MARK HOLTZ

Baseball is a game of stop and start. Put another way, a broadcaster must
cross a sea of dead air. "There's not a lot going on," said Hank Greenwald.
"You must create the illusion that there is." A nine-inning game may put the
ball in play only 10-12 minutes. "Baseball is not an inherently exciting sport.
It's interesting, subtle, contemplative, but tough to broadcast"-even
tougher, without wit.

Greenwald was horn in Detroit, raised in Rochester, and weaned on
Harry Heilmann and Mel Allen. At Syracuse University, he met Jim Brown,
joined the campus radio station, and decided to junk the law.

In one class Hank waited six months to appear.

"May I help you?" said the instructor.

"I'm in the class," he said.

"What's your name?

"Greenwald."

"Where you been, Greenwald?"

"I couldn't find the room."

Graduating in 1957, he began calling the Orange-Ernie Davis, Jim Nance,
Floyd Little. "They made you sound good"-NBA Nationals, and I. L. Chiefs
in 1960. In 1962, visiting San Francisco, Hank, 29, fell for a loop. "I did what
any level-headed mature individual would do-quit my job," heading unemployed to California. Said a friend: "If you're going to starve to death you
might as well do it in a place you love."

Bart Giamatti was once asked about pro basketball. "Young woman!" he
huffed. "You want me to talk about thumpety, thumpety, thumpety, swish?"
Greenwald loved a game less hip-hop than today's. By 1965, he did Frisco's
Warriors and P.C.L. Hawaii. The Honolulu radio booth had four phones. "If
line four rang, it was a wrong number because no one knew how to reach us."

One day it rang. Answering, partner Lyle Nelson presumed an errant
call. "Ball one," said Greenwald. Then: "Who is it? Anyone we know?"

Lyle shook his head: "You know anyone named Clem?"

"Only Bill Klem [ 1905-40 umpire who said, "I never made a wrong call,
at least in my heart"]. Maybe it's him," said Hank.

"No, it couldn't be Bill Klem," Nelson said. "He never made a wrong
call." Greenwald finished the inning on the floor. A wrong number still makes
him reel.

Hank spent a decade calling charging and traveling. Then, in 1979, KNBR San
Francisco hired him and Lindsey Nelson. Each had a Down's syndrome
daughter. Nelson's warmth leapfrogged the lines. "Don't get caught up in
wins and losses. If you do, and you're with a bad team, you'll sound like
them." Nodding, Hank was caught up with baseball. "Prepare yourself for the
worst game ever played, then hope you never have to use it. The best way to
learn is to watch, read," and act like the devil is your guide.

In Montreal, Greenwald yamped at mass smoking. "When you ask for the
non-smoking section, they send you to Buffalo." Philadelphia: "It's such a
rabid baseball town, even trucks are named for Connie Mack." Ken Caminiti
left another game with "stomach problems." Hank couldn't help himself:
"Why shouldn't the guy with all the hits and RBIs also have the runs?"

One day Pedro Borbon reached first base. Billy North singled him to third. Checking his scorecard, Greenwald looked up to find Pedro MIA, not
LOB. "Borbon is missing," he told the audience. "I don't know what's going
on, but I'll try to find out."The press box solved the puzzle: out on appeal,
for missing second.