Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball's 101 All-Time Best Announcers (7 page)

In 1956, Cleveland held his day. "I've wondered for 30 years how Tom
Manning kept so active," said Bob Hope, a native. "His winter invasions of the
West Coast consistently led to the big question, `Who does his hair?' "That
year he reclaimed Tribe radio. "I needed a partner," said Dudley, "but Tom was
losing his hearing, and the jet travel, night games, were too much."

Manning died, at 69, September 3, 1969, the ex-newsboy who preached
the fast-lane life. He no longer needed that extra gland.

Recall Dizzy Dean's "sludding into third." Joe Garagiola, doing play-byplay in the bullpen. Bob Uecker, signing with the Braves for $3,000. "That
bothered my dad because he didn't have that kind of dough. But he eventually scraped it up." Jack Graney commenced the athlete-becomeannouncer.

"I'd hear McNamee and Manning on day network stuff," Jack Buck said
of the 1930s, "but what I loved was lying in bed at night." Graney described
Hal Trosky and Earl Averill and Bob Feller. To a young Clevelander, it fused
Bali Hai, Timbuktu, and the Czar's Winter Palace.

"I didn't want to be a policeman or fireman," Buck mused. "Jack made me
want a living calling ball." He enjoyed being odd man out: a Canadian in
America's game; player-turned-mikeman; rough voice in a velvet craft. "I didn't
dislike being in the minority," said Graney. Fact is, he liked breaking the mold.

Jack played in 1908 and 1910-22, averaged .250 in 1,402 games, and
was first to bat vs. Babe Ruth (1914) and wear a uniform number (1916).
Later the outfielder became "the best play-by-play man the Indians ever had
. . . short on ego and long on talent," wrote Plain Dealer columnist Bob
Dolgan. Today radio no longer deems jocks unfit.

Born June 10, 1886, in St. Thomas, Ontario, John Gladstone Graney tried
hockey, preferred baseball, and turned to pitching. One nickname was "Glad."
The other augured wildness: "Three and Two Jack."

One day N.L. umpire Bob Emslie saw Graney K several batters. Jack was
drafted, gladhanded Cubs farm spots at Rochester, Erie, and Wilkes-Barre,
and joined Cleveland at 1908 spring training. Quickly he yearned for a night
train out of Georgia.

Nap Lajoie entered the cage as Graney began to throw: "so wild," said the Tribe player/manager, "each batter stood over the plate for five minutes
before he got in the vicinity." Pining to impress, Jack threw "the fastest ball I
had ever pitched. I thought it would strike him out." Instead, it knocked him
out. That evening the lefty found Nap with an ice bag on his head.

"Anyone as wild as you belongs in the Wild West," he said. "You're going
to [Pacific Coast League] Portland." In 1910, Graney returned to Cleveland.
New League Park tied the A.L.'s smallest size (21,000), nearest fence (290
feet), and farthest turf (505). Gentling, Lajoie gave Jack a bull terrier he
named Larry. "Not everyone liked me," Glad said, "but they all liked him."

At night, Larry relieved himself, "found his way to the stairs or elevator,
and came to the right room." Often he crossed Lake Erie to Ontario. Put on
shore, the Tribe mascot got on a trolley, rode to St. Thomas, and raced to the
Graney home. In 1913, visiting the White House, Jack left him with a
doorman. "Where's Larry?" said Woodrow Wilson. "I've got to meet that
remarkable dog"

Six times Wilson's first pitch opened the season. "Three and Two Jack"
now meant a discerning eye: "I was told to take two strikes for the team and
one for me," averaging more than 100 walks a year. In 1919, Tris Speaker
became player/manager. A year later the Indians won their first World Series.
They got there enfamille.

The '20 Tribe hit .303. Speaker rapped a record 11 straight hits. In August,
New York's Carl Mays beaned Ray Chapman at the Polo Grounds. The ball
broke the Cleveland shortstop's neck, fractured his skull, and rebounded to
Mays on the fly. In the clubhouse, Jack tried to revive his roommate. "Give
him a pencil, something to hold on to." Dropping it, Ray died 12 hours later:
baseball's first fatality from a thrown or batted ball.

Bill Wambsganss played second base. A scout was asked, "What's he got?"
Response: "The funniest damn name I ever heard"-German for a kind of
overcoat. In the Series, a writer told Wambsganss, hitting .154, to "Stay with
it. This [Game Five] could be your day." Brooklyn's Pete Kilduff and Otto
Miller led off the fifth inning safely. Clarence Mitchell lined to Wambsganss,
who touched second, tagged Miller, and effected the first Classic triple play.

Next year, Graney hit a career-high .299. In 1922, he retired, later managed a Western League team, and, buying a Ford agency, left baseball "to
make some money." At the time there was a lot to make.

By 1929, the average of common prices on the NewYork Stock Exchange had leapt 123 percent since 1926. On October 29, 16,410,030 shares were
traded: thousands of speculators threw holdings in the pit. Depression
knocked "the legs out from under me," Graney said. For a while, he sold used
cars. For escape, he bought a radio.

In 1931, 32 million homes owned a wireless. "It was cheap," mused
Buck, "filled the hours, the one medium Depression hadn't crushed." That
fall, the Indians joined WHK, whose Ellis Vander Pyle flopped. General manager Billy Evans's square peg fit Graney's round hole. "I was broke, and he
needed an announcer," said Glad. "Before my first game, I was so nervous I
almost changed my mind and ran out of the booth."

At League, the Tribe ran out of room. In 1932, vast Municipal Stadium
became a holiday/weekend home. Jack liked the old. Girders cloaked the
right-field wall. Hitting one, a ball stayed in play. "Away I'd re-recreate,"
often waking in a lather. Had he botched a name, put a man on the wrong
base, reversed two Indians scoring? "I'd get letters: `It's Trosky, then Averill,
not the other way around!' "Telegraphy favored him. "Having played, I knew
each park."

In 1934, CBS gave Glad the Series. "Too partial," huffed Landis. "He
played in the American League." Graney wrote a letter: "I am now a sportscaster, and should be regarded as such."

Next season, he became the first ex-jock to cover the Series and All-Star
Game. "I just follow the ball, leave knocks to others." What Jack didn't leave
was Cleveland.

On August 23, 1936, Bob Feller, 16, fanned 15 Browns in his first big-league
start. He won 266 games, led the A.L. seven times in Ks, and had a record
12 one-hitters. Glad saw each. Feller opened 1940 at Chicago. "Grannie
Mack is on the ground with one knee, scrapes it up with his glove hand, flips
it over to Trosky at first," Graney said. "A close decision-and he's out! Bob
Feller has his first no-hit game! Boy, listen to that crowd!"

In 1941, Joe DiMaggio's single began a 56-game hit streak. On July 17,
baseball's then-largest night crowd, 67,648, packed Municipal. In the eighth,
DiMag lashed Jim Bagby's 1-1 pitch. "On the ground to shortstop! Boudreau
has it. Throw to second, on to first! Double play! The streak may be over!"
Players soon streaked to war. "Look out, Bud [forties partner Richmond]!"
Jack said, striking the desk to denote a foul. "Whew! That was a close one."
The hitter took a pitch. "Strike through the center." Next: "A hot smash! It's
a h-i-g-h throw!"

Graney's was "a high voice, but distinctive," said Buck, in bobbed rhythm
with his game. The Indians hadn't won since Verdun. Said Glad: "I'm tired of
having the patience of job."

"Remember," Bob Baucher wrote of post-World War II. "There was almost
no television or air conditioning, so people sat on porches and cooled off listening to the game." Buying the Tribe, Bill Veeck closed League in 1946--too
peewee for what he had in mind. The '48ers won the Series. Jack wrongly
thought that "with our club I'd see more." Luke Easter's dingers became
"bazooka shots." A pitcher threw a "sad iron" fastball. New flagship WERE
tripled the Indians network.

"It's time," Glad said, retiring in 195 3. The Tribe honored him at the Stadium: Feller and Speaker spoke. He did TV, moved with wife Pauline near
their daughter in Missouri, and knocked baseball on the air. "They don't give
a complete description. Tell about the ball as it takes a roll through the
infield!"Years earlier Buck had fallen asleep to Graney. Glad now heard him
daily over KMOX.

In 1977, the Graneys feted their 61st anniversary. "I guarantee there are
no perils with Pauline," Jack quipped, "or it wouldn't have lasted that long."
Glad, 91, lasted till the next April. "Three and Two" had run out the string:
full count, full life.

JACK GRANBY

For a long time, the re-creation was a rite like gloves left between innings on
the field. A stick on hollow wood simulated bat vs. ball. The soundtrack
included background murmur. Infielder: "Come on, babe, bear down." Manager: "Don't give in!" Fan: "You couldn't hit my house!" Not much was real.
Reality: It didn't matter to "the Rembrandt of Re-Creations."

Arch McDonald did them in a People's drug store three blocks from the
White House. Said the Washington Star's Morris Siegel: "He'd draw more
people than the Senators at Griffith Stadium." Recalling the ex-butcher, crop
hand, fight referee, oil rigger, patent medicine man, peanut vendor, refrigerator salesman, and soda jerk, it is easy to see why.

On March 4, 1933, Franklin Roosevelt took the oath of office. A banking
crisis veiled his inauguration. Contagion roiled 16 million unemployed. A
year earlier, Arch became the first TSN "Announcer of the Year." "At [ClassA] Chattanooga!" gaped Washington Post writer Shirley Povich. "He wins a fan
vote over big-league guys."The Arkansan had struggled to make a living. "All
owners have a players' scouting system," he allowed. "Thank God [Senators']
Clark Griffith had one for announcers, too."

In 1934, Arch trudged to Washington, second division for 20 of the next 2 3
years. Presently it heard "right down Broadway" (strike) and "ducks on the
pond" (runners) and "There she goes, Mrs. Murphy" (Nats home run). Upon a
save, key hit, or "bur boys"' 6-4-3, Washington, brace thyself: McDonald
would sing a hillbilly ballad, "They Cut Down the Old PineTree."

In 1937, Arch began daily exhibition coverage. In 1939, small-town and
-timev, he entered, despite its bombast, a phantasmagoric place. "Feel you
will go over as big in New York City as you did in Washington," wrote umpire
Bill McGowan. He didn't: "Yanks fans thought him country," said Siegel. After
a year McDonald sailed home. D.C. still loved him. The Nats still swam in
catatonia and disarray. Some people impress you most on first meeting. Arch
grew, like the bourbon he inhaled.

In 1942, TSN again honored him. "McDonald can emit a banshee wail
when a player hits into a bases-loaded double play," it read. "And he can
whoop it up like a holy roller when Washington runs are crossing the plate."
The Old Pine Tree broadcast in pre-air conditioning undies. In 1946, Arch
ran for Congress, losing to Republican Glen Beall in suburban Montgomery
County.

"Politics, broadcasting, it's entertainment!" McDonald howled. Proof:
his cave of re-created peals.

Roy Campanella said famously, "You have to be a man to he a big leaguer, but
you have to have a lot of little bov in you, too." There was a lot-260
pounds-of McDonald. Much was little boy. Arch filled the G Street drug
store's second floor. "He's beside a window with crowd noise and taped bells
going off," said Povich. "He'd broadcast, and outside groupies'd roar."

Ultimately, he moved to the basement studio. "Dad was in a glass booth,
with bleachers around," said son Arch Jr. "The Senators were always in the
cellar-but all the seats [3501 were gone."Western Union brought nuts and
bolts. On each safety, pop struck a gong. "Clint Courtney singles, and Dad hit
it once. Roy Sievers parks one, four times it's crashed."

McDonald made each game a carnival, day a Mardi Gras, and fan a king
(Bill Veeck). The Senators left D. C. in 1960. Four years earlier, they left Arch.
"It was a sponsor change," Siegel explained. "He never saw another game." On
October 16, 1960, the football Redskins entrained for Yankee Stadium.
Returning, The Old PineTree, 59, died of a heart attack while playing hearts.

Many Washingtonians would like to re-create his life.

ARCH MCDONALD