1959 White Sox: On the Air

This article appears in SABR’s “Go-Go to Glory: The 1959 Chicago White Sox” (2019), edited by Don Zminda.

On May 7, 2000, Dodgers announcer Vin Scully gave Fordham University’s 155th commencement speech. “Don’t let the winds blow away your dreams or your faith in God,” he said. “And remember, sometimes your wildest dreams come true.”1 Airing NBC Television’s 1959 World Series, Scully had covered an American League team for whom many of its fandom’s wildest dreams already had.

In autumn 1959 I was eight, raised in Upstate New York and a Yankees fan, to the degree I was aware of baseball. In a sense, that fall’s Series was my real TV introduction to the game. Scully’s partner in my TV introduction was Jack Brickhouse, his trademark cry “Hey-Hey!”, the Go-Go White Sox, a tiara of a team.

Some terms need no embroidery: D-Day, Sputnik, 9/11. Teams can be as vivid: Brooklyn, 1951; the Red Sox, 1978. Ibid, 1959: still as vivid as a day behind the rain. The Bible describes 40 years in the wilderness. The Pale Hose had wandered pennant-less since 1919. Retrieve TV’s Brickhouse and Vince Lloyd, radio’s Bob Elson and Don Wells, and a year in which the cow jumped over the moon. To those of a certain generation, the Go-Go has never gone.

Elson’s photo lit The Sporting News April 11, 1959 preview issue:2 balding, bespectacled, like the speed, defense, and pitching Sox, perhaps slightly behind his time. He and Wells buoyed WCFL 1000 AM: The Voice of Labor in Chicago.3 At the time, Cleveland’s Jimmy Dudley sold Carling’s “Mabel, Black Label”; Philadelphia’s Byrum Saam, Phillies cigars; and Mel Allen, Ballantine beer.4 One Sox sponsor was fictive: General Finance Company’s Friendly Bob Adams. Others were Budweiser Beer, General Cigar, and Butternut Bread: Saukville on parade.5

As a boy, Elson sang in Chicago’s famed Paulist Chorister Choir, later entered Loyola, transferred to Northwestern, and visited pool whiz Willie Hoppe in St. Louis. His hotel’s top floor housed KWK. Touring, Bob found 40 aspirants in line for an announcer’s job.6 “You’re the last today [for an audition],” a woman told him.7 His career soon caromed: a listener vote chose Elson.

Before long the manager of WGN Chicago read about Bob’s coup, offering a job. He debuted March 11, 1928, hooked the Cubs and Hose, and became baseball’s pre-war network prism.8 “I was close to Commissioner] Kenesaw [Mountain] Landis when he made assignments. He’d bellow, ‘Don’t mention any movie stars attending the World Series even if they slide into second base.’”9

Elson’s first Series was 1930. In 1939, the Gillette Company began exclusivity. “Bob got the assignment [with Red Barber],” said 1960s Sox Voice Milo Hamilton. “If he did an event, it mattered.”10 Elson aired 1933’s first All-Star Game at Comiskey Park: also, 1943-48’s Series highlight film. “He had an excitement,” Brickhouse recalled. “His voice cut through the air.”11

Bob interviewed actors, pols, and singers from the Chicago Theatre, Ambassador East Hotel Pump Room, and LaSalle Street Station “Twentieth Century Limited.” By day, he patented the on-field interview, noting how “at first players were antsy. Then they got the swing.”12 At night the gin rummy whiz cut the cards. Chicago Tribune columnist and later official baseball historian Jerome Holtzman asked about lessons. “That’s like asking Jascha Heifetz to play fiddle,” Bob snapped. “I give lessons, but they will cost.”13

In 1943, “The Old Commander,” named for wartime Naval service, got leave to call the Series.14 “Franklin Roosevelt had been in office a decade, and asked that Bob announce,” Brickhouse said. “Only time that a president pulled rank to get a uniformed baseball guy home.”15 Listening was a GI who as a boy threw a ball against dad’s corn crib. “I’d hear Bob in [Sacramento] California,” said Wells. “Such a creative announcer. No one had such energy.”16

Wells later entered broadcast school, did play-by-play in Salinas of the old Sunset League, and joined White Sox radio in 1953. One day Don, future CBS Voice Mike Wallace, and 18 others paid a stripper $40 to crash Elson’s daily 15-minute program. “I’m reading sports, minding my own business,” said Bob, “and this woman takes everything off except her shoes.”17 In the background, roaring, was a lead conspirator and friend.

Brickhouse was born in 1916, as the Cubs debuted at Wrigley Field. The Sox’ post-’19 disgrace made Jack a Cubbies’ fan. At 18, he “got a job as a $17 a week WMBD Peoria spare announcer and switchboard operator.”18 In 1940, Bob telegrammed: “Expect call from WGN as a staff announcer and sports assistant. Remember, if asked, you know all about baseball.”19 Hired, Jack introduced Les Brown’s band, accompanied Kay Kyser, and in 1942 replaced Navy-bound Elson as WGN’s bigs Voice. “People called me gee-whiz,” he said. “I’ve never seen a mirror that doesn’t smile back if you do first.”20

Unforeseen: WGN, axing the Cubs after 1943, day baseball costing the station profitable children’s shows. The team blew to WIND, Bert Wilson voicing. Elson’s post-war return to WJJD also cost Jack the Sox. In 1947, Brickhouse turned not to radio but a rectangular tube, infant television booming in post-war Chicago. A year later WGN Channel 9 turned pioneer: each home game, live, from its South and North Side.21

“It worked because the Cubs and Sox weren’t home at the same time,” Jack said. “You aired whichever was.”22 In 1959, the Cubs televised their entire home schedule. The Hose aired all (54) home day games, sponsored by Oklahoma Oil Co. and Theodore Hamm Brewery.23 “Wrigley didn’t have lights, so kids came home from school and turned TV on. You win Chicago by winning kids,”24 he mused.

Cassandras feared less interest. Instead, “continuity made life-long fans.” Brickhouse soon did “a day game, studio, wrestling three nights a week”—precedents including “daily Voice [180 games yearly], WGN mikeman [boxing], and center-field camera [1951].”25 Jack wed Franklin Roosevelt’s inaugural, five political conventions, golf, Notre Dame and Bears football, wrestling, boxing, golf,26 “Churchill’s funeral, one-on-one with numerous U.S. Presidents, and an audience with Leo Durocher and Pope Paul VI – ‘alas,’ a writer said, ‘not simultaneously,’”27 Jack laughed.

Brickhouse aired three pre-1959 Series. Locally, his calling card “Hey-hey!” upon a homer roused each side of the Second City. Elson patented “He’s out!” Brickhouse’s TV bud cried “Holy Mackerel!” William F. Buckley, Jr. famously said he would rather be governed by the first 400 people in the Boston telephone directory than by the Harvard University faculty.28 A Soxaphile would rather Vince Lloyd list them than hear most Voices do a game.

Born: 1917, South Dakota. Graduated: Yankton College. Early stops: Sioux City, Bloomington, and Peoria. In 1949, the World War II Marine arrived at WGN. Next year Lloyd joined the Cubs, adding the White Sox from 1954-64. Vince would air the Chicago Bears and Bulls, De Paul basketball, and professional wrestling.29 Above all, there was 1959 to savor. For South Siders, it began in winter when Bill Veeck announced that he would exercise his option to buy 54 percent of the Sox for $2.7 million from Charles Comiskey’s grand-daughter Dorothy. For the first time in 50 years a non-Comiskey owned Comiskey Park. Veeck shocked many merely by his presence.

At one time or another, Barnum Bill had previously signed Satchel Paige, brought midget Eddie Gaedel at bat, and held a funeral service for the 1948 pennant when the Indians failed to encore a year later.30 On May 26, 1959, the less con than common man ordered a helicopter landed behind second base before a game. Four midgets—again, Gaedel—dressed as spacemen gave tiny Nellie Fox and Luis Aparicio a tandem ray gun.31 Fox hit a Most Valuable Player .306. Aparicio stole 56 bases. Sherm Lollar had a team-best 22 homers and 84 RBIs. Early Wynn and Bob Shaw finished 22–10 and 18– 6, respectively. Turk Lown and Gerry Staley had 30 saves.32

“We beat you, 2 to 1,” said Elson. “A rally meant a single, steal, passed ball, and sacrifice.”33 The Yankees had won nine of the last 10 pennants and 10 of the last 12. The ’59 Hose seemed unlikely to intrude.

The regular season began in Detroit: White Sox, 9–7, on Fox’s 14th-inning belt. Only 19,303 specked Chicago’s home opener: White Sox 2, Kansas City 0. On April 22 at Kansas City, an11-run seventh inning mixed one hit, 10 walks, hit batsmen, and three errors. The South Siders nabbed first place for the first time since June 1957, lost five straight, then fell to fourth. The ultimate Cy Younger Wynn, 39, homered and one-hit Boston, 1– 0. Even better: the Sox took first for good July 28.34

Next month they swept a four-game set at Cleveland. Later a Comiskey-high 45,410 saw Wynn unhorse the Tribe. The ‘59ers broke their attendance mark (1,423,144), clinching September 22, 4–2. “The Sox are champions!”35The Old Commander repeated for the author his call 35 years later of Indian Vic Power’s game-ending 6–3. WGN had broadcast from a United charter returning from Ohio, Brickhouse asking if Fox ever swallowed his chewing tobacco. “Remember it!” said the Mighty Mite. “I don’t even want to think about it. But it happened once in Kansas City. I thought I’d swallowed a volcano!”36

At Midway Airport, a crowd estimated as high as 100,000 howled as the plane arrived after 2 A.M. “And hey, whatever happened to the Yankees?”37 Jim Rivera taunted. Veeck caught the moment: “The magic number is none!”38 Mayor Richard Daley errantly activated city air sirens. “Prophetic,”39 mused Elson, their wail preceding his. From 1947-65, the Commissioner, NBC TV, and sponsor Gillette chose Series mikemen, each team’s Voice telecasting half of each set. “With the Sox in, it couldn’t be Mel Allen,” said NBC’s Lindsey Nelson of the usual AL announcer. “The problem was that Tom Gallery didn’t think Elson was in Allen’s league.”40

Improbably, The Old Commander and NBC’s 1952-63 sports director had grown up loathing each other on the same Chicago block. “Tom’d shout, ‘That bastard won’t do our [TV] Series,’” said Lindsey, who set to thinking. “‘Brickhouse does Sox TV,’ Nelson mused. ‘You could put him on with Scully.’”41 Elson seethed as Allen and Saam also aired NBC radio. “Not doing the network Series,” he said, still bitter in 1975, “was the biggest hurt of my career.”42 Bob did air the Classic locally on WCFL.

No TV video preserves 1959 Classic play-by-play. “To record, you had to fuzzily shoot the screen,” said Brickhouse, etching a process called kinescope. “Even if you succeeded, it was bulky to store.”43 Only audio recalls a Series viewed or heard by a record 120 million, including the final’s still-high 90 million. Brooklyn had waited 55 years for a Dodgers title. Los Angeles beat Milwaukee in a best-of-three playoff, hosting the Series in California bigs year two. It began in Sinatra’s kind of town. (All play-by-play below heard on NBC’s more than 200 radio outlets).

“And so the [opener’s] scene is set,” Allen said, Chicago taking an early 3–0 lead. Ted Kluszewski then batted in its one-out/on third inning. “Klu hits a long fly to right!” bayed Saam. “Norm] Larker goes back, back! It … goes in for a home run!”—5–0. Later, Charlie Neal tried to nab Al Smith at the plate. “There’s a bounding ball to the second baseman. They’re coming to the plate. John] Roseboro lets it get by! … Another run scores!” The Sox led, 8–0, except that eight was not enough.

Thrice hitting 40 or more homers, Kluszewski had become baseball’s Christian Dior. “We had these heavy woolies. I’d feel cramped,” Ted explained, cutting sleeves at the shoulder. In the fourth, Nature Boy hit again. “Klu lets go another long salvo to right field! It’s a home run into the upper deck!” bayed Saam. “Pandemonium breaks loose in Chicago on the South Side as…the White Sox have two more. They’re running away from the Dodgers now, 11 to 0!”

“This is quite surprising,” Allen said, “in view of the fact the White Sox have been known as a team that beat you with a base hit or a walk, a bunt or sacrifice, a stolen base. Suddenly, they have broken loose with tremendous power.”

By replied, prophetically: “Maybe the Sox should have saved some runs.”

Readying to run for President, John F. Kennedy next day sat in Mayor Daley’s box. Early precincts pleased. “Lollar smacks the ball just out of Neal’s reach for a single,” said Scully, voicing the Series highlight film,44 “and Jim] Landis scores to give the Sox a quick 2–0 lead.” Neal later drove to left.” Unintentionally, an eager fans knocks over his drink. And in front of 40,000, Al Smith takes a [beer] bath in left field.” The photo won an Associated Press award. In the seventh, Chicago lost its 2–1 lead on Chuck Essegian’s pinch-dinger. “Neal then rips into the ball again for a long drive to deep center,” landing in the Sox bullpen in pitcher Billy Pierce’s glove.

Behind, 4–2, the Hose countered. “Smith gets ahold of one and drills it into deep left-center field!” Vin said. “Over goes Wally] Moon, but it’s going to the wall for a double. Earl] Torgeson scores. Moon plays the rebound to Maury Wills. His relay to Roseboro cuts Lollar down at the plate by a big margin.” Sox lose, 4–3. “The World Series is all even!” moving to a place it had never been.

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum had a 251-foot left-field pole, bleachers 700 feet from the plate, and grandstand in Orange County. Game Three’s record 92,394 record crowd rolled away, row after row. The Sox lost, 3–1.45 Next day “Norm Larker lines out over second into center for a base hit,” Mel said. Jim Landis’ throw to third evaded Billy Goodman. “Here comes Moon to the plate, and he scores!” Straightaway Gil Hodges “lofted over short. There’s Aparicio out, and it drops for a base hit!” 2–0, Dodgers.

In the seventh, behind, 4–1, Lollar “swings!” said Saam. “There’s a fly ball! Is it going to be a home run? Up she goes! It is a home run for Sherm Lollar! The White Sox have tied the ballgame!” Hodges then played screeno. “A long high fly to left. Will it get over the screen? Back she goes! It’s a home run!” Los Angeles, 5–4. A tear grew in Brooklyn.

Gillette wanted a seven-game Series. Less would cost it cash. “The question is,” Allen said before Game Five, “will the Series be ended or will we move back to Comiskey Park?” Fox scored on a double play. In the seventh, L.A. still trailed, 1–0: two out and on. “And it’s swung on [by Neal]. There’s a drive to deep right-center!” barked Mel. “Landis digging hard! And the ball is caught by Rivera! A tremendous catch by Jim Rivera as he raced over to right field!”46

Next inning Moon arced to center. “Landis moves in —and he loses the ball in the sun!” The Dodgers filled the bases. Two relievers replaced Shaw. A third straight Series record, 92,706, saw ex-Brooks Carl Furillo and Don Zimmer make out. Given Hose desperation, “The last half of the eighth inning was certainly one of the most dramatic in World Series history,” said Allen.47

Dodging expiration, 1–0, the Sox only postponed the reckoning. At Comiskey, Wynn was shelled, 9–3. Chicago skipper Al Lopez blamed reliever Larry Sherry’s 12 2/3 innings, two wins, and 0.71 ERA. Aparicio scored the Coliseum’s din, vastness, its burlesque dimensions. Said Fox: “It was a great year.” The Hose stranded 43 runners, including 11 in Game Three: Key hits would have made it greater. Solace was each player’s then-record losing share: $7,275.17 per man.48

Brickhouse, among others, foresaw of slew of flags. “Fox, Aparicio, I couldn’t wait.”49 Instead, the Hose began a long list downward. The ‘60ers finished third. Next year, returning home, Wells became the expansion Angels’ radio/TV duce. “One reason I left Chicago was because I was getting shell-shocked by Veeck’s scoreboard,” he said, seriously, of the exploding bells and whistles installed in 1960. “And the word had gone out that his next gimmick would be to blow up the press box.”50 In a cycle of irony, Kluszewski, picked in the expansion draft, hit the first Angels homer in the team’s 1961 opener.

That week a photo of Kennedy and aide David Powers at the Kluless Sox opener showed them reading The Sporting News. On WGN’s Leadoff Man, JFK became the first U.S. president interviewed on TV at a baseball game. Another 1961 Leadoffer vanished near airtime. “Where’s Roger Maris?” Lloyd told Whitey Ford, who nabbed Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle. Vince gaped: “I’ve got three great names.” Suddenly, Maris made it four. “I just got a call from my wife in Kansas City. She gave birth to a son!” Hair Arranger conditioner sponsored the post-game show. Vince gave a bottle to guest Rivera, who said, “Gee, thanks a lot,” thinking it shaving lotion. “I use this every time I shave.”51

Lloyd left the Sox in 1965. By 1970, attendance was 495,355. “‘Try broadcasting,’ Bob Elson would tell me,” Nelson mused, “‘with a lousy team and almost zero interest.’”52 Increasingly, The Old Commander turned to watering holes, gin rummy, and on-air clientele. “‘Ball two,’” Lindsey recalled Elson saying, “‘and we had a ball last night at Mama’s Restaurant.’” Nelson laughed. “Bob had to be on the take. His plugs weren’t even sponsors.”53

Axed in late 1970, Elson braved a year in Oakland, came home, began a never-completed memoir, and died in 1981, at 76.54 By then, Brickhouse had been gone from 35th and Shields since 1968. Till then, neither Chicago team telecast with the other at home. That year, starting daily coverage, Sox owner Arthur Allyn dumped WGN for Chicago’s first UHF (ultra-high frequency) outlet (WFLD). Livid, Cubs owner Philip Wrigley had Jack call the entire schedule. At Comiskey Park, Jack Drees tried vainly to replace his throaty cloud nine voice.

Brickhouse died in 1998, at 82, from cardiac arrest, after surgery to remove a tumor in his brain.55 Wells died in 2002, at 79.56 Lloyd retired to South Dakota, dying in 2003 of cancer.57 Each repeated “our side, “home team,” and “us.” Ken (Hawk) Harrelson became their kind of guy. In 1982-85 and 1990-2018, the ex-outfielder aired Hose TV, flaunting vim and verve. The Sox are “black shirts.” Upon a “good guys’” homer, “Yes! Put it on the board!”58

In June 2005, the Dodgers visited the South Side for the first time since 1959. Below were Chicago’s Ozzie Guillen and Paul Konerko and Jermaine Dye—or were they Klu and Jungle Jim and Little Looie? Jim Landis and Billy Pierce preceded me in Hawk’s WGN booth. Watching—as then-NBC TV avatar Jack Paar often said, “I kid you not”—I was again eight years old.

Radio/TV was still my window, retrieving Turk and Señor Al and the Mighty Mite. He’s out! Hey-hey! Holy Mackerel! The poet Sophocles said, “One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been.”59 Nineteen fifty-nine’s day is splendid, even now.

Sources

Grateful appreciation is made to reprint all play-by-play and color radio text courtesy of John Miley’s The Miley Collection. In addition to sources cited in the Notes, most especially the Society for American Baseball Research, the author also consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites box scores, player, season, and team pages, batting and pitching logs, and other material relevant to this history. FanGraphs.com provided statistical information. In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also consulted:

Books

Condon, Dave. The Go-Go Chicago White Sox (New York: Coward-McCann, 1960).

Patterson, Ted. The Golden Voices of Baseball (Champaign, Illinois: Sports Publishing L.L.C., 2002).

Rickey, Branch, and Robert Riger. The American Diamond (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965).

Vanderberg, Bob. Minnie and The Mick: The Go-Go White Sox Challenge the Fabled Yankee Dynasty, 1951 to 1964 (South Bend, Indiana: Diamond, 1996).

Wood, Gerald C. Wood and Andrew Hazucha. Northsiders: Essays on the History and Culture of the Chicago Cubs (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2008).

Newspapers

The Chicago Tribune was a primary source of information about the 1959 Chicago White Sox team and broadcasters. The Sporting News and Sports Illustrated also were extremely helpful. Other contemporary sources include Associated Press, Baseball Digest, and the Los Angeles Times.

Interviews

Jack Brickhouse, with author, May 1981 and June 1988.

Bob Elson, with author, March 1970 and April 1974.

Milo Hamilton, with author, October 1985

Vince Lloyd, with author, July 1998.

Lindsey Nelson, with author, June 1984 and January 1986.

Don Wells, with author, November 1980.

Notes

1 https://news.fordham.edu./university-news-/vin-scully-tells-graduates-dreams-do-come-true/. “Fordham News: Vin Scully Tele Graduates Dreams Do Come True”

2 “Log of Play-by-Play Broadcasts and Telecasts,” The Sporting News, April 8, 1959: 38.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Ted Patterson, The Golden Voices of Baseball. (Champaign, Illinois: Sports Publishing, L.L.C., 2002), 41-42.

7 Bob Elson interview with author, March 1970.

8 Patterson, The Golden Voices, 42.

9 Bob Elson April 1974 interview.

10 Milo Hamilton interview with author, October 1985.

11 Jack Brickhouse interview with author, June 1988.

12 Elson April 1974 interview.

13 Ibid.

14 Patterson, The Golden Voices, 43.

15 Brickhouse June 1988 interview.

16 Don Wells interview with author, November 1980.

17 Elson March 1970 interview.

18 Brickhouse June 1988 interview.

19 Elson March 1970 interview.

20 Brickhouse interview.

21 https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/2945bb7f. Tim Wiles, “Jack Brickhouse.” Society for American Baseball Research.

22 Brickhouse May 1981 interview.

23 “Log of Play-by-Play Broadcasts and Telecasts,” The Sporting News, April 8, 1959: 38.

24 Brickhouse May 1981 interview.

25 Ibid.

26 https://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/07/sports/jack-brickhouse-dies-at-82-colorful-chicago-broadcaster.html. Richard Sandomir, The New York Times, “Jack Brickhouse Dies at 82: Colorful Chicago Broadcaster.”

27 Brickhouse May 1981 interview.

28 https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/william_f_buckley_jr_400600.

29 https://sabr.org/node/51081. Brian Wood, “Vince Lloyd,” Society for American Baseball Research.

30 Dave Condon, The Co-Go Chicago White Sox (New York: Coward-McCann, 1960), 28-29.

31 https://sabr.org/node/51081 Brian McKenna, “Eddie Gaedel,” Society for American Baseball Research.

32 Statistics in this graph www.baseball-rererence.com and www.retrosheet.org.

33 Elson April 1974 interview.

34 Condon, The Go-Go White Sox, 173-178.

35 Elson April 1974 interview.

36 Condon, The Go-Go White Sox, 14.

37 Ibid., 15.

38 Ibid., 18.

39 Elson May 1970 interview.

40 Lindsey Nelson interview with author, June 1984.

41 Ibid.

42 Elson, April 1974 interview.

43 Brickhouse, May 1981 interview.

44 From 1959-65, the Voice of the winning World Series team broadcast its official highlight film: Dodgers’ Scully (1959), Pirates’ Bob Prince (1960), Yankees’ Allen (1961-62), Scully (1963), Cardinals’ Harry Caray (1964), and Scully again (1965). Thereafter: NBC’s Curt Gowdy aired it for almost a decade.

45 Condon, The Go-Go White Sox, 193.

46 Ibid, 199.

47 Ibid, 199 and 201.

48 Ibid, 203.

49 Brickhouse June 1988 interview.

50 Wells interview.

51 Vince Lloyd interview with author, July 1998.

52 Lindsey Nelson interview with author, January 1986

53 Ibid.

54 Patterson, 44.

55 https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/2945bb7f.

56 https://articles.latimes.com/2002/Oct/05/sports/sp-wells5.

57 https:///sabr.org/node/51081.

58 https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/whitesox/ct-hawk-harrelson-final-year-20170531-story.html. “Ken ‘Hawk’ Harrelson to Retire In 2018 After ‘Greatest Ride of my Life.’” Chicago Tribune, May 31, 2017.

59 https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/29214/one-must-wait-until-the-evening-to-see-how-splendid.