Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball's 101 All-Time Best Announcers (62 page)

"I remember joining the Cubs," said the San Jose University alumnus. "I was
uprooting one daughter from first grade. I'm not a gypsy. I felt I'd be content
to stay here the rest of my life."

Feeling had become fidelity. "Oh-three's collapse was indelible, Sammy,
incredible. I think of Earl Gillespie [1957 Braves], or Ken Coleman with the
Impossible Dream. One year, one guy."

In Casablanca, Bogart tells Bergman, "We'll always have Paris." Like
Wrigleyville, Hughes will always have The Race.

PAT HUGHES

The Cubs' Vince Lloyd would say, "Come on, let's score a run." Pittsburgh's
Bob Prince often chimed as in a seance, "We had 'em! We had 'em! We had 'em!" Many mikemen use "our side ,""home team," and "us."The Hawk is their
kind of guy.

Mel Allen balked at being called a homer: "I'm partisan, not prejudiced."
Since 1989, Ken Harrelson has colored White Sox for Chicago. Partisan or
prejudiced: the Hawk is a hoot to hear.

At Comiskey Park, the Pale Hose may be albino. The Hawk still owns his
nest. The Sox are "black shirts." "Yes!" affirms a knockout play. The "good
guys" may smack a homer. "Put it on the board!" he says.

My fondness is heretical: elites dislike Harrelson's beating his own drum.
I like how Ken follows his own drummer. Ibid, most viewers, craving personality and opinion. Fun is not a four-letter word.

Born in Woodruff, South Carolina, Harrelson, 10, moved to Savannah in
1951. Mother Jesse loved baseball. Sonny fancied "a [hoops] scholarship with
Kentucky," played four sports at Benedictine College, and signed with Kansas
City in 1959.

Charles O. Finley soon bought the Athletics. "Cheap! Italicize it!" said
Ken, joining them in 1963. On August 3, 1967, he flew from Boston to Missouri. "Other teams took charters. We took a regularly scheduled plane."

Somewhere over Pennsylvania, pitcher Lew Krausse allegedly harassed a
flight attendant. Charlie dunned him $ 500. Ken stormed, "Finley is a menace."
The A's could deal him, or claim a $50,000 waiver. Instead, Finley released
Hawk unconditionally: "a rare case," said the first baseman/outfielder, "where
temper overrode his wallet."

Baseball's first free agent signed with Boston, which "won the pennant
in spite of me!" said Ken, hitting .200. Mate Carl Yastrzemski won the 1967
Triple Crown. "That winter I worked my butt off to beat him," forging a
1968 35 homers and A.L.-high 109 RBI. "Better, fans wanted a character, so
I gave 'em flair, bigger than life, the clothes"-love beads, bellbottoms, and
cowboy hat.

"This was my Utopia," Hawk said. "You know how it is. A gentleman
meets a lady. They've never seen each other before. Suddenly, sparks fly. It
just happens. That's how it was here."At one point, he had 150 pairs of pants.
A cedar chest housed seventy sweaters. "Remember the Nehru suit?" Harrelson bought thirty. "Before I wore five, they were out of style."

De trop: "Hawk," Duke Sims's name for Ken's aquiline nose. "I'd get mail
addressed to `Hawk,"' becoming his alter ego. "In the on-deck circle I'd say,
`Get out of Hawk's way and let him go.'" Later, announcing, "I'd let my partner call a good game. But in a rout, you need entertainment. I'd tell
myself, `Enter Hawk."'

Enter Cleveland in 1969.

"Where else in the A.L. is the lake brown and the river a fire hazard?" Ken
said. "I couldn't believe [nor the Hub] where I'd been traded." Fans picketed.
Switchboards jammed. Vowing to quit, he cried "like a baby. Baseball was
never fun again."

A year later, Harrelson broke a leg, took up golf, and found it a handicap.
November 1974: "I decided to give it up. Golf ain't cuttin' it." At 3 A.M.,
clammy, he awoke. That morning the Red Sox called. "A year before, G.M.
Dick O' Connell'd offered TV color. Now to renew it when he didn't know I
was shucking golf-unbelievable."

The first exhibition ensued, Ken surviving till Tim Foli hit. "He's a feisty
little guy," ad-libbed the Hawk. "Lot of balls." WSBK TV Voice Dick
Stockton's jaw dropped. Even golf looked good. Quickly, he learned that Red
Sox Nation is a forgiving, if not forgetting, lot. Hawk learned not to refer onair to gonads. He also learned what worked.

"Some guys, especially ex-jocks, coast on their name. Others numb you
with statistics. I try to avoid each." He did up to 97 games yearly, called (1975)
and blew (1978) a pennant, and chased a Series like Ahab, Moby Dick.

"Lots of New England is remote. Radio matters," said Ned Martin,
spreading with Jim Woods a portable seventies feast. "TV was second
banana," Hawk rued. Working, learning, he hoped to climb the tree.

In early 1981, Boston mailed Carlton Fisk's contract after the deadline. "The
Red Sox," Ken said, are "in disarray, confused, and chaotic."The free agent bolted
to Comiskey Park. Next year Harrelson, joining him, replaced Cubs-bound
Holy cow! "Yes! He's Harry Caray," Hawk bayed of kitsch, heart, and camp.
"And these were the Cubs"-America's teddy bear of a team. "All we could do
was have fun, not number you to death." Harry could not have said it better.

The 198 3 White Sox won the A. L. West.Tom Seaver won game 300 in August
1985. "Two outs! Fans come to their feet .... The biggest media representation in
Yankee Stadium in years!" said Harrelson. "So it'll be two veterans Seaver and
Don Baylor, who represents the tying run. Baylor hitting at .240, 18 homers, 67
RBIs. High to left, playable! Reid Nichols camps underneath it! History!"

Ken became history after the next year as Sox G.M. "Why'd I try it? My
mama said, `Son, you're a good kid and I love you, but you ain't the smartest thing I ever saw."' Hawk flapped toYanks' 1987-88 SportsChannelTV. Axed
again-"overwhelming negative reaction from viewers and executives," cited
the New York Post-he refetched the white-cubed rectangle on Chicago's
South Side.

Comiskey turned 80 July 1, 1990: NewYork's Andy Hawkins lost a 4-0 nohitter. On September 30, the once-Baseball Palace closed: Sox 2, Seattle 1,
before 42,849. "THANKS for the Memories, 1910-90," read the board.

In 1991, its namesake copied the original's grass, exploding scoreboard,
and rose exterior. Missing: charm, caprice, and the old park's open arches.
New Comiskey solidified the Cubs' prepotency. "They have atmosphere and
location," said pitcher Bill Simas. The Sox had Harrelson: reading notes,
citing birthdays, and wooing viewers one by one.

The 1993 and 2002ers won their division. "Good guy" FrankThomas was
named back-to-back MVP in 1993-94. Sadly, disdain for Comiskey grew.
Owner Eddie Einhorn began a facelift. The Big Guy didn't need one. "Let the
home team win!" boomed Ken, or was it Bert Wilson, Brickhouse, or Llovd?
Maybe Hawk belonged at Wrigley Field.

Advice, and dissent. "[He grows] on you as little as the taste of lima beans," wrote USA Today's Stephen Borrelli. What seems vanilla to you may
taste like chocolate to me.

BEN HARRBLSON

Hawk's eight-year contract runs through 2008. Thankfully, you can put
that one on the board.

Remember a time before elbow-in-rib scatology? When cool and mean were
contrary? When the wiseacre deserved contempt, not praise? Boy, those
were the days.

"That quaint period," Tennessee Williams described the 1930s, "when
the huge middle class of America was matriculating in a school for the blind."
For a son of Richmond, Missouri, the scales fell in the middle-class and -
brow 1950s. Pudgy and bespectacled, John Rooney wanted to call ball.

He did at Oklahoma City, then Cardinals' Triple-A Louisville. In 1984,
the Swifties' Dan Kelly aired preseason hockey. "They asked me to sub for
him in a game against Cincinnati," Rooney noted, falling silent. The game
wrung a date with his past.

"My father'd sit in the car, get the only bigs station he could," and hear
KMOX's Buck and Caray cut the air like Zeus. A quarter-century later, Jack
and John man the booth. A bunter struck by the throw is ruled out by the
umpire. Buck says the ball hit him leaving the batter's box. John corrects
him-"He's out for running in fair territory"-on the air.

Cincy's Dick Wagner nods. Jack splashes egg from his face. In a tizzy"My career's going up in smoke"-Rooney resumes play-by-play. Soon Buck
hits the mute button. "Son, slow down," he says, gently. "You'll be on 190
games a year if you do a team full-time. You'll wear the guy out by the end
of the inning."

The rookie was already worn.

The guest spot caromed Rooney to CBS Radio's 1985 "Game of the Week."
Lions in winter included Jerry Coleman, Gene Elston, Curt Gowdy, and
Lindsey Nelson. John and Ted Robinson allayed age.

Nelson did a game from Minnesota. "He'd been known for those wild
sport coats," said Rooney, "and I couldn't wait to see what he had on."

He wore a pale blue jacket. "The first time we meet," John moaned, "and
you're wearing this conservative outfit."

Lindsey smiled. "Young fellow, it's a perfect choice for radio."

Coleman was even better. "It's so beautiful here in Kansas City that you
can see Missouri." Rooney paused, unsure what to say. Finally: "Jerry, we're
in Missouri. You used to play down the road five miles west of here [TripleA Blues]."

"Well, John, it's a beautiful day, anyway."

Later Jerry was reading notes when the batter fouled a pitch.
"Grounded on the right," he told his audience. At that moment the ball
struck the booth.

In 1938, Edward R. Murrow and William S. Shirer sired CBS's "World
News Roundup." Rooney's network roundup added the 1987-93 and
1995-97 L.C.S. and Series and 1990-97 All-Star Game to "Game"'s 6
million listeners.

A 1990 Reds throw swung the N.L. playoff. "A drive into center field!
Back to the wall. [Billy Hatcher] leaps! The ball goes over his glove and off
the wall! [Pittsburgh's Bobby] Bonilla had a double-he's going for third!
Here comes the throw into third and he's out!" Next year a Game Six hit
waved Georgia's first pennant. "Olson swings and rips it down the left-field
line! The ball goes to the corner-Ronnie Gant scores! ... One-nothing,
Atlanta!"

Still, memory scent of dad, tuned to KMOX, in love with local radio.
John's first team was 1987 Minnesota. Next year he joined the White Sox.
An old friend brooked broken doors, chipped asphalt, and paint on a
weary face. "I saw Comiskey as a kid. It was strange seeing it like this."
One night a stranger body reached first, forgot mind and place, and began
pulling down his pants. Steve Lyons flushed. "Psycho" rose. "It may be an
overcast night," said John, "but the moon's shining brightly inside Tiger
Stadium."

In 1997, the sun set on CBS Radio. Rooney was concerned, not crushed.
A year earlier, Fox began "Same game, new attitude" coverage. Ignoring
John's, it hired a man who, though not naive or sentimental, was neither
snide or mean.

"Not hip or edgy enough," a producer said after Fox canned him.
Locally Rooney returned to his famously unedgy sport. "I just tell the
story," John said, letting others coarsen it. For Soxaphiles, it seems quite
enough.

JOHN ROONEY