Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball's 101 All-Time Best Announcers (15 page)

Dudley ended a game by saying "So long and lots of luck, ya heah?" Each
began: "Hello, Baseball Fans Everywhere." In between, he oozed "The string
is out [3-2 count]," "stay-alive fouls," and "come on down to the old ball
orchard."The post-game guest came on for an electric razor. "I'm just glad
it's not a straight razor," said one, Jimmy Dykes. "Watching some of our
players play can drive you to cut your throat."

Five times the 1951-56 Tribe finished second to New York. Casey
Stengel knocked skipper Al Lopez for using only three starting pitchers
one September: "I knew it couldn't be done but somehow, it don't always
work."A friend of Dudley's put Al's picture in her kitchen. "Lopez, you do
as I tell you, or I'll use this on your head," she said, bashing his photo with
a rolling pin.

Point: 1956 attendance fell to 722,256. Counterpoint: the second place
' S9ers so matched strength with Chicago that more than three decades later
an Ohioan might say, "There was our last hurrah, if only we had known it."
The Indians next won a pennant in 1995.

Oil and water. France and Britain. Jimmy Dudley and Bob Neal. In 1957,
Neal left TV for radio. Jimmy was soft, quick, and fairly sang even ads:
"Garfield- 1, 2-3, 2-3," of an aluminum siding firm. Neal was loud, brash, and
could not brook being Number two. They never talked on the air, or off.

Point: Neal blocked Dudley's view of a game by raising a briefcase lid on
the countertop. Counterpoint: Jimmy cracked peanuts into a mike as Bob did
play-by-play. Point: Talk host Pete Franklin once sat between the egotists.
Counterpoint: speaking to him, they ignored each other. "Their chill," he
said, "could cause pneumonia."

Dudley lit what there was of sixties Tribe warmth. "He was a man
with a smile in his voice and a warm handshake for strangers," wrote Terry
Pluto. "No broadcaster ate more bad chicken, swilled more cups of bitter
coffee, and made more speeches to Rotary Clubs." He tethered Erie and
Ashtabula and Meadville and Oil City. Detroit's Joe Falls thought Jimmy "a baseball broadcaster broadcasting a baseball game-not a soap
salesman."

Point: Dudley was named 1967 NSSA Sportscaster of the Year. Counterpoint: In January 1968, he was bounced. "We were not dissatisfied," a WERE
lackey said. "It's just a changing world." Not at liberty for long, he became
Seattle's 1969 expansion Voice. Each lasted a year. In 1970, the renamed
Brewers moved to Milwaukee. Jimmy spent the next few years on the phone.
"Jobs came up with the White Sox, Blue Jays, Pirates, Mariners," said a
friend. "They all went to an ex-player or younger guy."

The 1947-92 Tribe trained in Tucson, Arizona. In 1976, the man pen pals
titled "Baseball Fans Everywhere, Cleveland, Ohio" called its P.C.L. Toros.
Next season Seattle rejoined the bigs. TSN wrote, falsely: "Rumor has it that
Dudley will be returning." At 89, Dudley returned to the ground from a
Tucson convalescent home.

Once, a blind boy in Ontario wrote letters in Braille transcribed by his
father. He ended, "God bless you, Jimmy, and remember you are my eyes."
Cleveland's baseball prosopopeia doubtless watches from above.

JIMMY DUDLEY

On July 31, 1983, John Beasley Brickhouse gave a talk devoid of dogma. In a
moment rich with feeling, he evoked a restless boy, unaware of himself, yet aware of a larger world. "I stand on what I consider the hallowed ground of
Cooperstown. I feel at this moment like a man who is sixty feet, six inches tall."

On Induction Eve, Jack and Joe DiMaggio began talking in the Otesaga
Hotel. A man interrupted for the Clipper's autograph. Said Joe D.: "I'm sure
you'd also like the autograph of another Hall of Famer, Jack Brickhouse."

Stunned, Brickhouse recalled Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park and rain
delays and hot afternoons. For five decades, his calling card, "Back, back, back!
That's it! Hey-Hey!" upon a homer, roused each side of the Second City.

A reporter mused that even if Jack didn't make Cooperstown, his suitcase would. "Fortunately for me," said Brickhouse, "we arrived together."

Wrigley opened the year of Hey-Hey!'s 1916 birth in Peoria. The White Sox'
post-'I 9 quiet desperation made Jack a Cubbies fan. He played basketball,
was a newspaper boy, and "tried to cover a lack of sports knowledge with
slang." At 18, Brickhouse finished fifth in a WMBD broadcast contest, but
"got a job as a $17-a-week spare announcer and switchboard operator." Offduty, he tuned to the master of the day.

"Elson got us identifying with baseball." Jack did news, called the Three-I
League, and got a 1940 telegram: "Expect call from WGN as a staff announcer
and sports assistant. Remember, if asked, you know all about baseball. Best of
luck, Bob Elson." Hired, he introduced Les Brown's band, became Kay Kyser's
Voice, and "had to fight the urge to imitate Bob." In 1942, Brickhouse replaced
the Navy-bound Commander, inheriting the Sox and Cubs.

"I didn't like that sophisticated approach of New York," he said, dripping hope and vim. "People call me gee-whiz! I've never seen a mirror
that doesn't smile back if you smile first." Unforeseen: WGN, axing baseball after 1943. "Mutual was the parent, and day games killed profitable
kiddie shows." By 1944 Jack's WJJD darned the Sox. Next year WIND's
Cubs won a pennant.

"On the last weekend Bert Wilson's berserk, and I'm doing the Sox by
ticker tape." In 1946, Elson rejoined them, booting him to the Polo Grounds.
A year later Brickhouse returned not to Midwest ticker tape but a protean
rectangular tube.

"Anyone who could see beyond their nose knew that television would be
important," he said. More than one in ten U.S. TV sets spiked Chicago. In
1948, WGN Channel 9 turned pioneer: each home game, live, from its two
big-league teams.

"It worked because the Cubs and White Sox weren't home at the same
time. You aired the Sox at Comiskey, or Cubs at Wrigley Field." Daytime
forged the edge. "Wrigley didn't have lights, so kids came home from school,
had a sandwich, and turned the TV on. You win Chicago by winning kids."

At first, carpers feared less interest. Instead, it ballooned. "Maybe you'd
draw a thousand less because the game was on," said Brickhouse, televising
more baseball than anyone-more than 5,000 games. "But long-term continuity made lifetime fans."

Ultimately, baseball looked at television and saw that it was good-especially
the large man with the large voice who was seemingly, like Elson, everywhere.

"I'd do a day game, studio, wrestling three nights a week," Brickhouse said.
Firsts included TV's daily Voice (140-180 games yearly); WGN mikeman
(boxing, Chicago Stadium); center field camera (1951). "A guy at a
schoolboy game saw the scoreboard and thought, `A camera there'd show the
hitter and pitcher.' "All envied Hey-Hey!'s energy: "If you worked 80 hours
a week, you were (logging it."

Jack aired fires, barn (lances, "Marriage License Renewals" with couples
at City Hall, one-on-one with seven U.S. presidents, 1945 and 1969 Inaugurals, 1944, 1960, 1964, and 1968 political conventions, Churchill's funeral,
Berlin Wall's rise, and audience with Cubs manager Leo Durocher and Pope
Paul VI alas, a writer said, not simultaneously. "He and I go hack a long
way," Ronald Reagan said. "That personality, that voice, that charisma." Pause.
"Have you thought about going into politics?"

In 1950, Brickhouse did CBS's Series; 1952, perked Mutual's 700 outlets;
1954, beamed NBC's Tribe-Giants opener: eighth inning, 2-all. "There's a
long drive way back in center field. Way hack, back! It is ... oh, what a catch
by Mays! ... Willie Mays just brought this crowd to its feet with a catch which
must have been an optical illusion to a lot of people! Boy! ... Notice where
that 483-foot mark is in center field?" he asked Russ Hodges. "The ball itself
... had to go about 460, didn't it?" It did, the fifties becoming his Holy See.

"Name it, I did it"-golf, boxing, wrestling, hoops, and Notre Dame,
College All-Star, Orange, Rose, and Sugar Bowl, 1947 Cardinals and
1953-76 Bears football-too busy, Jack said, to he tired. "I feel sorry for
folks stuck in a job because of security. Especially in baseball, I loved where
I worked." Comiskey greased pitching, had an ardor for the underdog, and
hated the Cubs and don't you forget it. Wrigley was tended, painted white,
and lacked a bad seat in the house.

"Walking through the crowds into that great small old stadium, and there
they were in the flesh," wrote poet Donald Hall. "I can see them now in their
baggy old pants, the players that I had heard about, of whom I'd seen photographs, but there they were, really walking around, live people, and the absolute
enchantment, the enthrallment, the tension of starting the game, `Play ball.' "

Brickhouse was asked if the wait was worth it. "The Cubs fan is born so
that he can suffer," Jack said. He did, again and again.

Hey-Hey!'s 1947-66 Cubs matured not knowing the first division. Once Lou
Novikoff-"The Mad Russian"-hit to right-center field. A runner rounded
third base, held up, and regressed. Head down, Novikoff passed second and
slid into third.

"Where the hell ya going?" said coach Charlie Grimm.

Rising, Lou said, "Back to second if I can make it."

Novikoff called the outfield's ivy poison; others thought him wall-shy.
Dying is easy. Cubs comedy was hard. In 1959, umpire Vic Delmore called
Bobby Anderson's pitch to Stan Musial ball four. It rolled to the screen, was
retrieved by the batboy, and given to P.A. Voice Pat Pieper. "Looked good to
me," said third baseman Alvin Dark, throwing to shortstop Ernie Banks. In
the genes: the Cubs forgot to call time out.

Born to suffer: Delmore and catcher Sammy Taylor never saw the heist.
Vic gave another ball to Sammy, who threw to Anderson, who, seeing Musial
near second, threw into right-center field. "I figure it's the only ball," said
Stan, "so I get up and Ernie tags me." Delmore ruled him out. Later Brickhouse asked why Vic put a second ball in play. "I've been lying in my room
looking at the ceiling, asking myself the same question and I don't know."

Postscript: May 6, 1960. "I want you to make a trade," said Philip Wrigley.
"[Cubs radio analyst Lou] Boudreau for [then-manager] Grimm."

"Boudreau for Grimm?" Jack said.

"Yes," Wrigley said. "Charlie's worrying himself sick over the team, out
walking the streets when he should be resting. If the Cubs don't kill him his
sore feet will."

Grimm moved to radio. Lou replaced him on the field. "A manager for a
broadcaster," said Brickhouse. Only with the Cubs.

Frank Sinatra sang "My Kind of Town" about a North Siders' town, at heart.
TV, the Friendly Confines, and slapstick: How could the White Sox compete?
The '59ers had a thought: their first pennant in forty years. Jack and Vin Scully did the Series. The Hose won the 11-0 opener; Los Angeles, Games
Two-Four. Postponing the inevitable, the Sox won, 1-0, then lost, 9-3. "It
was a great year," mused Brickhouse. Chicago left 43 runners: key hits would
have made it greater. He foresaw a blur of flags. "Fox, Aparicio, I couldn't
wait." Instead, the Hose refound the fringe.

In 1968, dumping WGN for Chicago's first UHF (ultra-high frequency)
outlet (WFLD), Sox owner Arthur Allyn began each-game coverage. "Until
now," said Jack, "neither team had televised away with the other at home."
Livid, Wrigley telecast the Cubs' entire schedule, blaring "[Brickhouse's]
boyish enthusiasm that nothing could shake," said producer Jack Rosenberg.
"Didn't matter whether the team was in first or last."

We knew where the Cubs usually were. Another Chicago team was luckier.

In 1924, Jack, eight, heard Illinois's Red Grange score four touchdowns vs.
Michigan. A listener called WGN to urge Quin Ryan's firing: "He obviously
doesn't know a touchdown from a first down. No man can score that often in that
short a time [less than 12 minutes]." By contrast, the Bears accented defense-the "Monsters of the Midway." In 1965, owner George Halas-to Brickhouse,
"the kindest and cheapest man I ever knew"-signed Dick Butkus to a $200,000
pact. "George," Jack told him, "knowing you that's $1,000 a year for 200 years."

Yearly Brickhouse plucked pro football's War of the Roses. One Sunday
a brigade of Packers drunks woke him at 2 A.M. "Fellas, how 'bout toning it
down? I have to work today."

A boozer recognized him. "Hey, ain't you Brickhouse?"

"I am."

"Brickhouse is a jackass," he yelled. "Hey-hey!"

Doors opened. The hotel hall filled. Soon Jack was singing the team
theme song, "Bear Down, Chicago Bears." Analyst and columnist Irv
Kupcinet had officiated the NFL. No one was better wired. Brickhouse
"never forgot the day Harry Truman, Bob Hope, and middleweight champ
Carmen Basilio walked into the booth looking for Kup."

Once Chicago led, 10-3, near halftime. "It's comforting that even if
something catastrophic happens the worst the Bears can be at halftime against
these powerful Vikings is a 10-10 tie," said Jack. A Minnesota touchdown and
field goal then bookended a Bears fumble.