Chuck Thompson, Orioles' Voice For Nearly 30 Years, Dies at 83

Publish date: 2024-08-21

Chuck Thompson, 83, the longtime broadcast voice of the Baltimore Orioles and Baltimore Colts, whose easygoing but memorable play-by-play calls led to his enshrinement in the broadcast wing of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, died March 6 at Greater Baltimore Medical Center in Towson, Md. He had a stroke the day before.

Known for his staccato delivery, his gentlemanly manner and the hats he often wore on the air, Mr. Thompson had a soothing, amiable voice that connected generations of fans with Baltimore's sports heroes from the 1950s through the 1990s. In 1958, he announced the famous championship football game between the Colts and the New York Giants.

In 1995, when Orioles star Cal Ripken Jr. broke a major league record by playing in his 2,131st consecutive game, Mr. Thompson's voice was heard on a video tribute that was played to the fans in Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

"Chuck Thompson was as much a part of the fabric and history of Orioles baseball as the players on the field," team owner Peter G. Angelos told the Associated Press.

"He was one of a kind," said Washington Nationals Manager Frank Robinson, who played for the Orioles from 1966 to 1971. "He didn't copy anybody's style. The people sitting at home really enjoyed listening to him because he made them feel like they were at the ballpark. And that's not easy to do on the radio."

In 1993, Mr. Thompson was presented the Ford C. Frick Award and became the 17th announcer to enter the broadcast wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

"Chuck had one of the all-time great voices of the game," said Jon Miller, who succeeded Mr. Thompson as the Orioles' play-by-play radio broadcaster in 1983 and now broadcasts for the San Francisco Giants and ESPN. "He was instantly recognizable, clear, authoritative and enthusiastic."

Mr. Thompson broke into major league broadcasting in September 1946, when the regular announcer for the Philadelphia Phillies was detained by a ceremony on the field between games of a doubleheader.

"So the next thing I know," he told William Gildea of The Washington Post in 1993, "the first batter steps in for the Giants and the second game is underway. I didn't have a lineup. I didn't have a scorecard. But I had 26 stations on the network waiting to hear something. So I had to try to do what I could with baseball play-by-play."

By 1949, Mr. Thompson was in Baltimore as a radio broadcaster for the Orioles, then a minor league franchise. He also announced Navy football games for three years before becoming the voice of the Baltimore Colts in 1953, when the team entered the National Football League.

In 1955, one year after the St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore and were renamed the Orioles, Mr. Thompson stepped into the baseball club's broadcast booth. After two seasons, when the team's broadcast sponsor was changed from one beer company to another, Mr. Thompson was fired.

The new company, Miller said, thought Mr. Thompson's voice would be too closely identified with its competitor. For four seasons, 1957 through 1960, Mr. Thompson broadcast games for the Washington Senators before returning to Baltimore in 1961.

One of his most famous broadcasts, though, was for a football game Dec. 28, 1958. He lost a coin toss to fellow NBC-TV broadcaster Chris Schenkel, who chose to announce the second half of the Colts-Giants championship game at Yankee Stadium. When the game ended in a 17-17 tie, Mr. Thompson returned to the microphone for the sport's first-ever overtime period and called the one-yard plunge by fullback Alan Ameche that gave the Colts the victory. Often called the greatest football game ever played, it was seen by a television audience of 40 million.

Besides Miller, Mr. Thompson teamed up over the years with Ernie Harwell, Bob Wolff, Bill O'Donnell, Joe Angel and current Orioles broadcasters Fred Manfra and Jim Hunter. For 10 years, his television partner was the Orioles' great third baseman Brooks Robinson.

Besides his trademark hats, which he began wearing when one of his television bosses took note of his bald head, Mr. Thompson was known for his unflappable, gentlemanly style. He sometimes called ballplayers "mister" and had a habit of backing into sentences, as in, "A terrific change-up, has Dave McNally."

When the Orioles made a spectacular play or won a game, he often blurted out his trademark expressions of joy, "Go to war, Miss Agnes!" or "Ain't the beer cold!" (He used the latter phrase as the title of his 1996 autobiography.)

In general, though, his style was precise, with quick, sharp diction that never overshadowed the game.

"I was not a screamer," he told The Post's Leonard Shapiro in 2000. "When I think of the great broadcasters in baseball I've known, you don't find that very often. Vin Scully, Ernie Harwell, even Mel Allen. No screamers there."

Mr. Thompson, a native of Pennsylvania, was a big-band singer before beginning his broadcasting career in 1939 while he was a student at Albright College in Reading, Pa. After serving in an Army reconnaissance unit during World War II, he moved to Philadelphia, where he covered baseball, football, basketball and hockey.

For nearly 30 years, he announced almost every Orioles game, on radio or television, except on days when he did play-by-play for NBC's Game of the Week. After retiring in 1987, he returned to his seat high above home plate in 1990 and continued to announce a few games a year until 2000.

Beloved by fans throughout Maryland and Washington, Mr. Thompson was honored at a ceremony before a game in 1991.

"When I introduced Chuck," Miller recalled, "54,000 people gave an ovation that wouldn't quit. It went on for six, seven, eight minutes. To this day, I've never seen anything like that, except for a great ballplayer."

In recent years, Mr. Thompson's eyesight began to fail because of macular degeneration. He became a spokesman for the degenerative eye disease and participated in experimental therapies at Johns Hopkins University.

He lived in Timonium, Md., and later in Mays Park, Md.

He was widowed from his first wife, Rose Thompson.

Survivors include his wife, Betty Thompson; four children; and 12 grandchildren.

Chuck Thompson, a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame's broadcast wing, was known for a staccato delivery and such sayings as "Ain't the beer cold!"

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Chuck Thompson, Orioles' Voice For Nearly 30 Years, Dies at 83