Milo Hamilton sits in the cramped Wrigley Field broadcast booth and ponders his past as well as his future. Hamilton, who served two tours of duties with the Cubs and one with the White Sox, is about to become the 16th sportscaster honored with the Ford Frick Award.
Hamilton, the voice on Henry Aaron`s record-breaking home run and the voice of a thousand Delta Airline commercials, will be honored Sunday at the Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremonies for his 40 years as a play-by-play announcer.
It`s an honor Hamilton, who has been with the Houston Astros since his untidy leave-taking of the Cubs in 1984, was sure had passed him by for the umpteenth time, even though friends like Jack Brickhouse, Jack Buck and Ernie Harwell (past Frick winners all) kept encouraging him.
”I`ve thought about it,” Hamilton, 65, says. ”But I never politicked for it. And I never begged for it, because I figured the years were there. And if the votes were there, I would get it.”
Only this year, there was a twist. Normally announced in January in conjunction with the regular Hall of Fame inductees, the Frick Award somehow slipped by. When Hamilton finally received the call from Hall executive (and old friend) Bill Guilfoile a couple of weeks later, it was a complete surprise. He even had told his son, Mark, ”I didn`t get it this year. It`s been done and they just haven`t announced it.”
When Guilfoile called, he asked ”to speak to the newest member of the Baseball Hall of Fame,” Hamilton recalls. ”I got a little teary-eyed. It was a surprise. I was around (Bob) Elson and Brickhouse when they won it. But you can`t describe it until you get the call yourself.”
Since the Frick Award started in 1978, four winners have had Chicago connections-Elson, Brickhouse, Harry Caray and now Hamilton, who worked with the other three after starting his major-league career in St. Louis, first with the Browns and then the Cardinals, where he was bumped from the booth by Joe Garagiola.
In 1955, Hamilton came to Chicago, joined WIND Radio and spent three seasons doing Cubs games with Bert Wilson and Jack Quinlan. Among the early highlights of Hamilton`s career were Sam Jones` no-hitter in May 1955 and Ernie Banks` record five grand slams that same year. ”Banks always tells everyone I`m the first one who interviewed him on `Leadoff Man,` ” Hamilton says. ”Whether that`s true or not, it makes a hell of a story.”
When the Cubs switched to WGN in 1958, Hamilton lost his spot to Lou Boudreau. Rather than leave Chicago in search of another baseball job, and with a young family to raise, Hamilton stayed at WIND as a staff announcer until Elson, the White Sox and WCFL boss Bob Finnigan beckoned after the 1961 season.
”Maybe that interruption makes me savor this award and career more,”
says Hamilton. ”Lord knows, I missed it those years. But with two little babies and a new mortgage, I felt some stabilization for them was important.” Just as important was working with Elson, ”who had been my idol while growing up in (Fairfield) Iowa.”
There are other memories for Hamilton, who left the Sox after the 1965 season for Atlanta and then Pittsburgh 10 years later before bouncing back to Wrigley Field in 1980. There were Aaron`s home run that broke Babe Ruth`s career mark of course, the Pirates` 1979 World Series title and five no-hitters, including the ”most memorable” by Mike Scott that clinched the Astros` 1986 division title. Hamilton, who has fought and beaten leukemia, has become such a part of Houston in eight years that the Astros` booster club has named its award after him. Just last November, he was named Houston Sportsman of the Year.
But those memories meant little when Hamilton recalls the rancor surrounding his second tenure with the Cubs. In Pittsburgh, he had been criticized mercilessly for not being Bob Prince, the legendary Pirates announcer whose place he took. After what he thought was a warm homecoming to Chicago, he awoke one morning in 1981 to find out he wasn`t replacing Brickhouse on Cubs telecasts as he thought. Rather, WGN was hiring Caray.
”Those were two major incidents that were career-threatening,” says Hamilton. ”The headlines were as big as World War III when they (Cubs officials) brought me back. It couldn`t have been my imagination that I was brought back here for any other reason (than to replace Brickhouse).”
The only problem was that in the meantime, the Cubs had been bought by Tribune Co. And Brickhouse, who had anointed Hamilton, didn`t have the same clout under the new regime. At first, Hamilton was relegated to radio, which was fine with him.
”Baseball is a radio game,” he says. ”If I had my way, I wouldn`t be doing television.”
But, he says, fans began writing letters saying they were turning down their TV sets to listen to Hamilton`s radio broadcasts.
”That was one of the reasons I was let go here,” he says. ”That was something (Caray) couldn`t live with.”
(”I didn`t fire him,” says Caray. ”He left the best job in baseball.” But, Caray adds, ”I`m pleased he`s going into the Hall of Fame. I told him so. I congratulated him. It`s an honor for anyone to be recognized that way.”)
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Now, Hamilton says, whenever he sees Caray, ”I just nod.”
He also was disappointed that when the Hall of Fame announcement was made, he heard from a lot of old Chicago friends, from Boudreau to Chet Coppock, but ”WGN never mentioned it. To have four announcers who worked for the same station in the Hall of Fame would have been something to brag about.”
But he trades that bitterness this weekend for a little bragging of his own. Holy Toledo!
– ESPN again will have same-day coverage of the Hall of Fame ceremonies from Cooperstown at 5 p.m. Sunday. A day earlier, the cable network will televise the Pro Football Hall of Fame ceremonies from Canton, Ohio, at 7:30 p.m.
– Apparently, Chicago isn`t as big a baseball town as Atlanta, where ratings this week for Braves games on WTBS have surpassed the ratings for the Olympic Games on the local NBC affiliate. And Atlanta`s the site of the 1996 Summer Olympics. Monday night`s Cubs-Pirates game on WGN-Ch. 9 had an 8 Nielsen rating with a 12 share, while the Olympics telecast on WMAQ-Ch. 5 had a blockbuster 25/41.