Voices of Summer: Ranking Baseball's 101 All-Time Best Announcers (5 page)

Bob's first Series was 1930. 1932: Babe Ruth did/did not prophesy a
homer. "He really did point." 1935: Mutual's first Classic used Elson, Barber,
and Chicago's Quin Ryan. 1937: "Yankees 1, Giants 0 ... And there's a long
one! It's going toward the stands! ... Joe DiMaggio has hit a home run over
the roof!" 1939: Ending multiple coverage, the Gillette Company gave exclusivity to Red and TOC. "The parallel was McNamee in the twenties," said
Hamilton. "Bob on an event meant it mattered."

Like Totten, O'Hara, and Flanagan, Elson did the first All-Star Game. In
1941 ,Ted Williams's ninth-inning belt won Detroit's, 7-5: "Ted told me later
his mother did a backward somersault when she heard me call the homer."
Two years later baseball released its first Series film. Bob narrated them
through 1948. "There was an excitement to him," Brickhouse said. "His voice
cut through the air."

Jack reddened. "If Bob had lived in New York, he'd have been the first
inducted into the Hall of Fame [receiving its Ford C. Frick Award]." He was
third, in 1979. Brickhouse asked for a recount, even then.

"You're like shit," Ralph Houk once told Howard Cosell. "You're everywhere." So was Elson. He read ads, hyped bands, and interviewed actors,
singers, and politicos from the Chicago Theatre, Pump Room (Ambassador
East Hotel), and "Twentieth Century Limited" (LaSalle Street Station). Bob's
worst guest was DiMag: "the world's greatest introvert, who married the
world's greatest extrovert, [another guest] Marilyn Monroe." In 1930, TOC
quizzed Connie Mack. "First interview on the field. Judge Landis said it was
okay to run a wire from the booth. At first players were antsy. Before long
they got the swing." Everywhere.

"Either place was great," Elson described his day job. Comiskey swung to an
old-timey feel. "Luke Appling catches cleats on a coffee pot in the ground from
when it was a [truck garden and garbage] dump." Bob Michel was 1981-95 U.S.
House Minority Leader. "I remember him from Wrigley Field. I'd be painting
screens in my folks' Peoria yard. Great marriage of guy and team."

In 1946, he returned from World War 11 to find WIND's Bert Wilson
blowing for the Cubs. Rowing to W JJD,The Commander tried to bail out the
Sox. Don Wells grew up in Pontiac, Illinois, throwing a ball against a corn crib. "I heard Bob, now 1195 311 join him. No one had such energy." One day
he, Brickhouse, and 18 others paid a stripper $40 to crash Elson's 15-minute
show. "I'm reading sports, and she takes everything off except her shoes."

By 1959, the Hose could finally take on the Yanks. New York had waved
nine flags since 1949. The South Side was pennantless in forty years. Cy
Younger Early Wynn went 22-10. Nellie Fox hit an MVP . 306. Luis Aparicio
presaged Garciaparra, Rodriguez, and Vizquel-the first great Latin shortstop. "We beat you, 2 to I," Bob said. "No Murderers' Row"-instead,
pitching, defense, and speed.

Chicago clinched September 22 over Cleveland. On the final out, Mayor
Richard Daley ordered city air raid sirens to blast. "Prophetic," mused Elson,
later. Their wail preceded his.

From 1947 to 1965, Gillette, the Commissioner, and NBC TV chose Series
mikemen. "They'd pick one guy from each team," said Bill Veeck. "Both called
half of each game." The Yanks' Mel Allen had done the Classic since 1946.
"With the Sox in, it couldn't be him," said the Peacocks' Lindsey Nelson.
"The problem was that Tom Gallery didn't think Elson was in Allen's league."

Improbably, TOC and NBC's 1952-63 sports head had grown up on the
same block. "They'd rubbed each other wrong as kids," said Nelson. "I remember
Tom shouting, `That bastard will not do our Series!' " Lindsey set to thinking.
"`You know,' I said, `Jack Brickhouse does SoxTV.You could always pick him.' "

The NBC audience topped 120 million. Shunted to W CFL, "I reached 10
people," Elson said, still bitter, in 1975. "Not doing it was the biggest hurt of
my career." The Sox and he began a slow list leeward. Fewer peopled the
ancient park, under a cloudless sky, with the moon over 35th and Shields.

"Try broadcasting," Bob mused, "with a lousy team and interest."The age
made it worse. "I've made it a point never to criticize a player, never second-guess
a manager."The Commander hated the mid-to-late sixties muck of"Do your own
thing,""Don't trust anyone over 30," and self-congratulatory "Tell it like it is."

Milo Hamilton grew up in Iowa. "Bob didn't feel you tuned in to hear
him. The game was the thing." Now Elson's 1961-65 colleague saw the public
ebbing. "People began calling him a square." Once TOC asked how a Depression giant could become a Woodstock gnat.

Bob was more relaxed with family, in watering holes, and at the gin rummy
table. Univac even tried to match him against a machine. Daily he read box
scores, taxied to the park, and phoned his broker. Shilling was as chronic. "Ball two," Bob said, "and we had a ball at Mama's restaurant." Nelson
laughed. "Elson had to be on the take. His plugs weren't even sponsors."

In 1969, Richard Nixon hailed baseball's centennial at the White House.
"Oh, I know Bob," he said, halting an aide's introduction. "I even knew him
back when the White Sox had a good team." Axed in late 1970, TOC visited
troops in Viet Nam. "One of the great experiences of my life." Less grand:
1971 Oakland. "I didn't agree," said A's owner Charlie Finley, "but people
said he talked too much about old-timers like Landis and Connie Mack."

Elson returned to Chicago, did commentary, and began a memoir. "If I wrote
a thousand pages, I still wouldn't be able to thank all the people who helped me."
In 1976,"a failing heart," wrote David Condon, "forced him to lighten his load."

Bob died March 10, 1981, at 76. Said Irv Kupcinet: "No one doubts that
he has already found a gin rummy pigeon among the angels." Hold 'em, fold
'em. For the first time, the dealmaker owned allThe Old Commander's cards.

BOB ELSON

"Swarming up from the Texas wheat fields, the Georgia cotton lands, the
West Virginia coal mines, the Oklahoma cow ranges, [they] redramatized for the public that old traditional story about the talent of common men," drama
critic Lloyd Lewis wrote of the thirties Cardinals. They wed spunk, zest, and
a grand sobriquet.

The Gas House Gang mimed Willard Mullin's sketch of clubs, not bats,
on players' shoulders fleeing the bare gas tank part of town. Their Voice
turned the century. Born: Guthrie, Oklahoma, 1897; degree, Oklahoma City
College; service, U.S. Army Air; after World War I, insurance and real estate
broker and football referee.

The 1927 World Series opened October S. By noon KVOO Tulsa station
head Fred Yates was in a world of trouble. "I didn't have a guy to re-create,"
he said. France Laux lived in nearby Bristow. "Someone said his name. I get
in my car and find him" driving down a street.

"Can you broadcast baseball?" he shouted, pointing France's car to the
shoulder.

"Never done it. Why?"

"Get in. We're going to the studio."

Arriving minutes before the game, Laux did Bucs-Yanks, added college
football, and in 1929 got a KMOX St. Louis 30-day trial.Through 1942, he aired
the Browns, baseball's Anna, a salaried governess, and Redbirds, the Royal
Palace of Siam. "Forget a booth," France said. "At Sportsman's I sat in boxes near
the field."

The Gas Housers baited umpires, dropped water bags from windows,
and filled lobbies with workmen's tools. Their Mississippi Mudcats band
played "Rock Island Line" and "The Wreck of the Old '97" on fiddles, harmonicas, washboards, and guitars. Said Frank Frisch: "I am possibly the only
manager that carried an orchestra. We traveled with more instruments than
we did shirts or anything else," winning flags in 1930, 1931, and 1934.

For nearly a decade Pepper Martin manned their minor-league assembly
factory. In 1931, promoted, he got a Series record-tying 12 hits. "Wild, he
had a lot of company," Globe Democrat writer Bob Burnes said. Joe Medwick
had a stevedore's body. Leo Durocher earned the signet Lip. Dizzy Dean
treated discipline like cyanide. By contrast, France sought, if not anonymity,
a certain distance and reserve.

"Laux spoke in a flat, metallic way," said Bob Broeg, with a soft tone and clipped
precision. He worked alone, even on a doubleheader. Few found fault in an
Okie whose propriety, not newly formed, was neither bogus nor offensive.

KMOX helped. "It went everywhere," said Burnes. "Score there, the network noticed." CBS gave Laux the 1933 All-Star Game and Series. Carl Hubbell K'd
five straight A. L.ers in 1934. "You can imagine the thrill when I said, `Hubbell has
struck out Ruth,' " said France, "`also, he puts over a third strike on Gehrig and
down the line.' "

That October, saturnine in success, Laux, Flanagan, and Ted Husing
called the "first sponsored Series [Ford gave CBS and NBC each $500,000],"
said France. Will Rogers, making more than both, snatched the mike in
Detroit.

"You don't happen to know judge Laux out in Oklahoma, do you?"Will said.

Laux replied, "Just slightly. He's only my dad."

Two years later Tony Lazzeri hit a Series slam. "He jogs in and stabs the
plate for the fourth run on that hit!" cried France. "This has been quite an
inning for the Yanks!" Game Six began quite a skein. "A ground ball to
Gehrig. Scoops it up! Touches the hag for the third out-and the 1936 World
Series is over!"--first of fourYanks titles in a row.

Next season Laux became first TSN staff-picked "Announcer of the
Year" for "outstanding service to radio and baseball ... and being chosen
oftener than any other announcer to report World Series and All-Star
Games." His adieu was 1941. "And there goes a drive going out to right
field! Looks like it's going to be a home run . . . for [Pittsburgh's] Arky
Vaughan!" Williams gave the A.L. a 7-5 stunner. Gillette then dropped
France like a loaf of stale bread.

"It decided who got assignments," said Broeg. "Competition killed him.
France wasn't hip enough nationally." He drifted back to St. Louis, which
soon found him lacking, too.

In 1945, Harry Caray and Gabby Street began on WEW and WTMV East
St. Louis. Dean keyed St. Louis' WIL. "They called the Browns and Cardinals," said Broeg, "and were flashier than France." In 1947, Caray won Redbirds exclusivity. France bought a bowling house, became American
Bowling Congress secretary, and called the Browns (regularly, through
1948; weekends, 1953).

"Baseball people knew who Laux was," said Jack Buck, joining Caray in
1954. "If others did, it was through bowling or like, `Gee, he was a pioneer,' "
less skin and bones than catchphrase or caricature. Many forgot he had called
a strike.

In 1976, wife Pearl died after 47 years of marriage. Laux moved to a
nursing home, dying two years later. "I just lived too long," he told a friend.

FRANCE LAUX

Fancy two strangers from Providence, Rhode Island, and Penobscot, Maine,
stranded on a South Sea isle. They clash in age, race, and faith. Their tie is the
Red Sox. Boston won five of baseball's first 15 Series-but none for 86 years
after the Twenty-sixth Division entered France. Its moniker was the Yankee.
Who says the military lacks wit?

In New England, Sox 'r' us. Fenway Park's odd angles, high and low fences,
and drop-dead closeness are, in turn, the Sox. Fred Hoey was 27 when it opened
in 1912. In 1925, he joined WNAC Boston's six-state 22-station Yankee (later,
Colonial) Network.

By then, Red Sox aped Dead Sox: second division, 1919-33. "No
wonder they gave me a Day in '31 [and gold, a pipe, and $ 3,000 certificate
of deposit]," blurted Hoey, exiting in 1938. "Fred also did the Braves, but it's
the Sox who registered," mused once-Voice Ken Coleman. "In each case, he
was the first-and the first, you don't forget."

Raised in Saxonville, near Framingham, a Boston suburb, Hoey, 12, saw his
first game in 1897 (Temple Cup Series: Beaneaters vs. Baltimore). Later he
played amateur and semipro baseball, ushered at the Red Sox' Huntington Avenue Grounds, and wrote schoolboy and big-league sports. "I never met
or heard him," said Ned Martin, joining the Sox in 1961. "But I feel I knew
him, because people still swear by him."