Legendary Cleveland broadcaster Hamilton takes his place in Cooperstown

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. -- When Tom Hamilton introduced his Wisconsinite parents to the legendary Bob Uecker in the radio booth one day many years ago, Uecker jokingly apologized to them that they were forced to listen to him and not their son when they tuned into Brewers games.

“Well, Bob,” Theresa Hamilton said, “you take what you can get.”

Uecker belly laughed. But Hamilton was mortified.

“Mom,” he said to Theresa later, “why did you say that?”

“Because,” she answered, “I believe it.”

Hamilton, the longtime voice of the Cleveland Guardians and Indians, recalled that story fondly on the day his name, like that of Uecker, entered the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum as the winner of the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting excellence. In the presentation ceremony Saturday at the Alice Busch Opera Theater, Hamilton accepted his special place in baseball broadcasting history with an emotional speech that harkened back to what his mother had once said.

“I certainly do not feel deserving or worthy of this incredible honor,” a teary-eyed Hamilton said. “But wow, Mom was right. We'll take what we can get.”

The voice that has, for so long, been the sound of summer in Cleveland -- cordial, comforting and unmistakably Midwestern -- entered ears in an unfamiliar place.

Not on the “corner of Carnegie and Ontario,” but in a corner of Cooperstown. Hamilton’s receipt of the sport’s highest broadcasting honor can be seen as validation of that voice, which can at one moment be so candid and conversational and the next boom with the boldness the big moments deserve.

But of course, in Cleveland, where the now-70-year-old Hamilton began as a mere “play-by-play person” in 1990, only to quickly ingratiate himself as something so much more familial and familiar, the man known as “Hammy” long ago established himself as a legend.

And you could feel Hamilton’s impact on people from the moment Saturday’s ceremony began. Hammy’s cheering section at a theater ordinarily reserved for the performing arts was made up of a large throng of friends, family members, Guardians employees and fans who gave him a loud and lengthy standing ovation the moment his name was first uttered by Hall of Fame president Josh Rawitch.

“You know who he is,” Rawitch joked.

Long ago, Hamilton was an unknown.

A native of Waterloo, Wis., he worked his way up, from the upper stands of remote high school gyms, where he would use a cheap tape recorder he bought at a Walgreens to produce practice play-by-play that one of his professors at Minnesota’s Brown College would critique. He got his first break with a radio station in Appleton, Wis., where he read the news, played music and called sports, then he wound his way up the Wisconsin radio ladder.

During his speech, Hamilton recalled the story of one particularly memorable assignment from those days when he was working in Watertown, Wis.

“I get called into the boss’ office,” Hamilton said. “He is so excited because he's got this great opportunity for me. And I'm thinking, ‘yes, I'm doing Friday night football, I'm going to finally graduate to the big time.’ … No, instead, I'm going to get to do the play-by-play of the Jefferson County Fair 4-H competition.”

It was a three-hour live broadcast of a livestock event.

“You learn how little creativity you actually possess when you’re describing farm animals for that long,” Hamilton joked. “‘OK, folks, he’s another steer. He’s very big. Black and white. Yes, this one, too, has four legs.’”

Driving home that night, an MLB broadcasting career and Cooperstown legacy was the furthest thing from Hammy’s mind.

But an opportunity arrived at WBNS in Columbus, Ohio, where he hosted morning drive sports, broadcasted Ohio State basketball and did the Buckeyes’ football pregame and postgame shows. He would help out on Triple-A baseball coverage pro bono.

That meant working deep into the night, then waking up for his morning host gig, leaving precious little time for his new bride, Wendy.

Come the fall of 1989, Wendy was pregnant with the couple’s first child when Hamilton saw an article in the Plain Dealer about Paul Olden leaving the Indians’ broadcast booth and the team searching for his replacement. Though interested in the job, Hamilton procrastinated, doubting he had much of a chance. But when he read an update about a month later that the club had narrowed its candidate pool down to three, he kicked himself.

“Hey,” Wendy told him, “it’s not too late.”

So there he was on Christmas Day, spending eight hours whittling his best moments down to a three-minute audition tape. His program director at WBNS and the WWWE co-program directors had a longstanding working relationship that allowed Hamilton to get it heard at that late stage of the process.

Two weeks later, Hammy was offered the job.

And now, he’s a Hall of Famer.

“This great life that we have lived is because of you,” he told Wendy during his speech. “Your belief in me, and your belief in our family. You made the real sacrifices, the late nights, the solo parenting, the chaos. You did it with love, with strength, with grace. No husband has ever been luckier than me, and I love you so much, dear.”

Hamilton began as the emotive counter to baseball lifer Herb Score’s more even-keeled delivery. Then, as the team moved into Jacobs Field in 1994 and experienced a golden era of sellouts and contention that included Score’s final assignment in the 1997 World Series, Hamilton wound his way into the hearts of his listeners.

In the best of games and seasons, Hammy’s earnest enthusiasm is infectious. His ability to quickly summon the context and meaning of a moment with a few perfectly placed words is his calling card, as is a home run call up there with the best in baseball history:

“A swing and a drive to deep right. A-waaaaay back! Gone!”

Hamilton is never unprepared. If a boxing match breaks out, as it did when White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson challenged José Ramírez to a duel that ended poorly for him, Hamilton can seamlessly shift from baseball nuts and bolts to prizefight play-by-play:

“Down goes Anderson!”

These are the moments that get widely shared and strung together now that the YouTubers make their own Hammy mixtapes.

But one could argue that Hamilton’s greatest skill is his ability to make even the worst games and seasons so listenable. He has a beautiful -- and sometimes irascible -- wit. And his honesty is refreshing in a business where that can be hard to come by.

In his speech, he thanked his many broadcasting partners through the years, from Score to Mike Hegan to Jim Rosenhaus and everybody in-between.

Hamilton specifically recalled the day he was driving with Score during the Spring Training preceding his first season with the Indians. He made some remark about how good the Tribe would be that year.

Score knew better.

“We are a blankety-blank team. We are not going to the playoffs,” Score informed his new partner. “But that will not impact us or affect us in how we call the game. Once that game begins, it’s all about that game. And you may see something that night that you’ve never seen before in a Major League game, and you may never see it again. And that night’s broadcast might be the one thing that one person has to look forward to the entire day, and we owe that one person the very best that we can do.”

Said Hamilton: “Folks, that was the best advice ever.”

For 35 years, Hamilton has let us into that conversation, and his voice has, quite literally, always risen to the occasion.

It’s a voice that still belongs to the “corner of Carnegie and Ontario.” But now it will also be one with a forever home in Cooperstown.