Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball's 101 All-Time Best Announcers (54 page)

PHIL RIZZUTO

"He seems to hit a baseball on the dead run," wrote Time magazine. "Once in
motion, he wobbles along, elbows flying.... shoulders rocking.... He is not
only jack-rabbit fast, but about one thought and two steps ahead of every
base-runner in the business."

Jackie Robinson broke the color line in 1947. In 1965, he became the
bigs' first black analyst on "Game of the Week." One Saturday, Robinson listened by earpiece to producer Chuck Howard. "Chuck said something,"
mused Voice Merle Harmon, "and Jackie said, `Okay.'You heard it on the air."

Braving diabetes, Robinson died, at 53, in 1972. "He had a high, stabbing
voice, great presence, and sharp mind," said Howard. "All he lacked was time." "Here is a man," said Branch Rickey, signing Jackie in 1945, "whose wounds
you could not feel or share." In 1997, baseball retired No. 42 on the golden
anniversary of his debut. "No one could grasp his trial," said Bill White, baseball's first black play-by-playman, "but at least I got a sense of the loneliness
he knew."

As a boy, the son of a steelworker and Air Force clerk left Florida for
Ohio. Picking Hiram College, Bill hoped to practice medicine. "Baseball was
only for money for my pre-med courses."

In a 1952 tryout, White, 18, sprayed Forbes Field's vast depths.

"Get him out of here!" yelled Giants skipper Leo Durocher. "If [then-Bucs
head] Rickey sees this kid, he'll get him."

Bill joined Carolina League Danville, Virginia. Segregation soiled towns
like Greensboro, Durham, and Winston-Salem. White abided "colored-only"
restrooms, was barred in hotels and lunch counters, and stayed with black
families on the road. One crowd stoned his bus. "The uglier people got, the
more I turned to baseball-and the harder I hit the ball."

The Giants first basemen led 1956 N.L.ers in putouts and assists.
Drafted, he quit the Army post baseball team. "All I remember is a guy calling
me a nigger." The Jints moved to San Francisco. Joining them, he met a wall:
Orlando Cepeda. A 1959 deal to St. Louis posed another: Stan Musial. "The
minors' hate now this!"

White won the 1960-66 Gold Glove, four years had at least 100 RBI,
and got the 1961 Redbirds to leave a segregated St. Petersburg hotel.
Players' wives began a color-blind day school and kindergarten. "Training
camp actually became a tourist attraction," said The New York Times. "People
[drove] out of their way to see and gawk at the [then and there] remarkable
sight of integration." St. Louis won a pennant in 1964.

"So good-bye, dear," wrote Cole Porter, "and amen." In 1966, the fivetime All-Star went to Philadelphia, later rejoined the Cards, and retired
in 1969.

The decision was less lonely than inevitable. "When you hit .211, you
know it's time to change your job."

In St. Louis, he did a weekly KMOX Radio five-minute show. "I'd told Harry
Caray, `Broadcasting's easy." Oh, yeah, try it,' he said. He was right." In 1970,
Philadelphia ABC TV outlet WFIL began a nightly segment. Howard Cosell,
hearing White call basketball, phonedYankees head Michael Burke, who proffered play-by-play.

"I got the job because they wanted a black," said Bill. Baseball's pilgrim
knew the stakes: failure might sink others. "My first year I was terrible. The
next year I was a little less terrible. The Yankees could easily have fired me."
Blanche DuBois relied on the kindness of strangers. White relied on his
work, not team.

The 1971-73 Yanks finished 241-238. "It'd have been nice," he allowed,
"to still have Mantle and Maris." Instead, commuting two hours from Bucks
County, outside Philadelphia, "he critiqued his taped segment of every game
on radio," said partner Frank Messer, "something I never did even when I
started." Slowly, White improved. A cause: Rizzuto, becoming Costello to his
Abbott.

"Some guys just click," Phil chimed. Jon Miller revived Ken Coleman.
Tim McCarver renewed Ralph Kiner. Phil unlocked Bill's wit. White stirred
his eccentricity. "You wouldn't think so, but deep down they were alike," said
Messer-ex-jocks, minorities, latecomers to language.

If the Yanks couldn't interest you, Phil and Bill might.

"I love to listen to Rizzuto," White said. "He makes me laugh." Phil starts
reading a long list of birthdays. Bill interrupts: "Hey, don't you have a name
in there that doesn't end in a vowel?" Rizzuto begins another telecast. "Hi,
everybody, this is New York Yankees baseball. I'm Bill White. Wait a minute!
I swear to God I didn't." The straight man to Scooter, always "White"-laughed. "How'd you like to work 18 years with a guy who still doesn't know
your first name?"

Viewers heard White's on ABC's "Monday Night Baseball," CBS Radio
L.C.S. and Series, and October 2, 1978, A.L. East playoff. Boston led, 2--0:
seventh inning, two out and on. "Deep to left!" Bill cried on WPIX TV. "Yastrzemski will not get it! It's a home run! A three-run homer by Bucky Dent!
And the Yankees now lead by a score of 3 to 2!" winning, 5-4.

New York made the Series. "Popped up behind the plate!" White said.
"Coming back, Munson! Throws the mask away! He's there! It's all over-the Yankees charge out on the field! They mob Goose Gossage! The Yankees
have won their second straight world championship!" The '80 Stripes drew a
record 2,627,417. The '81ers again reached the Classic. George Steinbrenner named/axed Billy Martin a fifth/final time.

Bill rarely sweat hiring/firing. "I do my best. If they don't want me, I'll
go somewhere else" anywhere to fuse game, frill, and time. His 40-foot
trawler on Chesapeake Bay lured like a hanging curve. "The Yankees took a trip to the West Coast. I worked a game in Seattle and then flew to Alaska and
fished for five days," jetted to Oakland, did a game, fished four more, then
heard Peter O'Malley suggest he toss leisure in the can.

The Dodgers owner headed the search committee for a new N.L. head.
"It's his [White's] if he wants it," said an owner. Ultimately, he did, becoming
the majors' first black president (1989-94). "It's time to move on after 18
years of saying, `Ground ball to shortstop.' If I didn't think I could do it, I
would have been foolish to take it for social significance."

White's significance is more than 50 minority big-league Voices. An outsider might not share his wounds. You might, however, feel the pride.

BILL WHITE

Dub Allen Citation; Caray, War Admiral; Scully, Kelso. DeWayne Staats was
more an up-to-snuff mare. "I give you meat and potatoes," he laughed, having
grown up thinking baseball light and airy, like chiffon.

Staats consumed it in the Bermuda Triangle of central (Wood River) Illinois. "You've got Cubs, White Sox, Cardinal fans. At night, you'd pull them in." Strangely, another team wooed over WWL New Orleans. To the fourthgrader, Houston might have been the moon.

"I'd tune in Gene Elston," he said, sending a note. Answering, Staats's
hero became a pal. DeWayne graduated from Southern Illinois University,
joined KPLR TV St. Louis, and did Triple-A Oklahoma City. Small world: in
1976, he auditioned with Elston's Astros (nee Colt .45s).

"Bob Prince had come from Pittsburgh that season and didn't like it," said
Staats. Gunner, spying him, hugged his might-be successor. "Don't worry,
kid, we'll fuck it up together." DeWayne replaced him next year.

Ninety percent of baseball, Elston told the rookie, is preparation. Staats,
then 23, had been preparing since age nine.

"I'd grown up with Jack Buck," DeWayne would say. "Now I see him when the
Cards are in town. Lou Boudreau and Milo Hamilton were icons of my youth.
Now I'm eating dinner with them." He relished another hero's bonhomie. "Harry
wakes up and says it's August 7. That day, like every day, meant something."

Caray: "Today's the anniversary of a day I wrote an alimony check for my
first wife. I compose, `_, How long must this go on?"' Her reply read:
"Dear Harry. Till death do us part."

Harry dueled Hamilton at Wrigley. In late 1984, Milo and Staats
swapped jobs. "The quintessential baseball experience," DeWayne called the
Confines. In 1987, MVP Andre Dawson's 49 dingers bound Wrigleyville.
Change split it. "Activists had kept lights out." Finally, "Baseball [sic, network
TV] ordered the Cubs to play postseason at night, or move the games to St.
Louis." Prime time crashed August 9, 1988. Arcs bred revenue, not the elu-
sive-since-'08 world title.

The '89ers slumped in June. A patron mailed a parody of Macbeth, which
Staats one day read: "Anson, Chance, and Wilson, Hartnett, Hornsby, Brown,
and Grimm / hex the Mets, the Birds, and Expos / stand behind the Cubs
and Zim. Double, double, toil, and trouble / fire burn and Cubbies bubble.
Eye of newt and raven beak / presto, it's a winning streak. So heed this curse
from Bill Veeck's vines. Our Cubs are the champs of '89."

Rallying, Cubs win! The ballad works!-till the L.C.S. Next year Staats
joined theYankees' MSG TV. In 1995, he left the Bronx-"theYanks reneged
on salary," said a friend, "as they [MSG parent Viacom] cut costs"--did ESPN
"Wednesday Night Baseball," and helped wife Dee endure brain tumor surgery. "ESPN was a blessing," DeWayne mused. "Unlike, say, a team, I was
home on weekends and with my wife when she went through it all."

In 1998, it all led to Tropicana Field. The name implied sun, fun, and
breeze. Actually, "the sterile park," wrote Sports Illustrated, "has the ambiance
of a warehouse." The Trop did afford a great view of Tampa-St. Petersburg's
Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Sadly, it required that you sit on the roof.

What he wanted, Staats would say, is to "help the community, take care of my
family, and live on the beach." His Devil Rays commenced March 31, 1998.
"His pacing is great for 162 games," said partner Joe Magrane. "He's not
going to wear you out with adrenaline in the first game where you go, `I gotta
listen to this guy all year.'"

As the Rays dimmed, attendance missed a million, and Commissioner
Bud Selig scurried to Florida to ask what gave, DeWayne tried to "look at life
as a positive." It wasn't easy in their "Ballpark of the 21st Century." A writer
said, "We need some old-fashioned baseball."They got it, temporarily, August
7, 1999.

Needing three hits for 3,000, "All I could think of was Little League,"
mused Tampa-reared Wade Boggs. Getting two, the five-time batting champion faced Cleveland's Chris Haney. "Swung on and a long drive! Hit deep to left! That baby's going to go!" said DeWayne. "Number 3,000-it's a home
run for Wade Boggs! On a 2-2 pitch! Simply unbelievable!"

DBWAYNE STARTS

Near second base, Boggs pointed upward and blew his late mother,
killed in a 1986 car accident, a kiss. Then he kissed home plate. "Something ran through my mind to say, `You stepped on it enough, you might
as well kiss it."'

Generations hugged: Wade, mates, father, wife, and 12-year-old son
Brett, the Rays batboy. "His godfather is [fellow 3,000er] George Brett," said
Staats. "Sometimes the magic overcomes the park." At that moment, even
inside baseball tasted like chiffon.