Indians' Tom Hamilton doing calls on home videos

Thanks to COVID-19, Tom Hamilton isn't calling any games these days, but there's still ways for Tribe fans to hear the soothing sounds of the longtime Indians radio play-by-play man. Partnered with the organization, Hamilton, a longtime Avon Lake resident, is providing the calls on select videos of kids submitted from families in the Cleveland area. Something like, "A swing and a drive, a wayyyyy back, gone! Jimmy or Jenny from Elyria just belted a game- winning home run," as the child circles the bases in the backyard after clouting a homer with a Wiffle ball. First up was C.J. Scherer, a 5-year-old boy from Green. Scherer's father Matt submitted a video via the team's Facebook site and it ran last Friday on Indians.com in "At Home with Hammy" — a segment on the Tribe Inspires section of the team's website. "We're still at a point where I get a huge smile on my face," Matt Scherer said. "I know my father-in-law is a huge Indians fan and he probably watched the video like 15-20 times. We're still sharing it, texting it. "It was an awesome thing. It was really cool that (the Indians) were willing to do that, that Tom was willing to overlay those kinds of things. It was an awesome feeling. I'm glad it happened to us." Hamilton, who estimates he's done six or seven video calls, was happy to oblige. "It really is humbling, and I'm not trying to say that because it sounds good," he said. "First off, you're kinda like, "really, somebody wants to hear this?" I think it's because you don't think back to what it was like when you were that age. It's not only humbling, but it's really an honor that somebody would think that much of you, because I'm sure there's plenty of other people saying, 'The last thing I wanna do is hear that idiot.' So you better be very grateful for the ones that do like you. "I think sometimes the longer you're in any business, you can get cynical or you can get kinda caught up in whatever you're doing, and you forget about how much the game of baseball means to people and how much it still means to families. And this is where it starts — it starts with a mother and father passing their love of the game on to their young son or daughter. That's what our game needs and that's why the game has thrived all these years, because I really think it is passed on from generation to generation." Hamilton has been a fixture on the Cleveland radio waves since 1990, when he began his Indians career as color man for play-by-play man Herb Score. He filled that role for eight years before taking over for Score in 1998. Needless to say, this has been the strangest season of his career. "I know you hear it said all the time but it's so surreal," Hamilton said. "You wake up, you get into such a routine in your life and you're planning ahead for whatever it might be and all of sudden you wake up now and you realize you have no control over anything. "I just feel so bad for all of these kids, especially when I think of the high school seniors that are never gonna get to play a sport again. They won't play in college and they lost out on what would have been their senior year and graduation and all of that." On the positive side, the most recent reports show MLB targeting early July as a return to play — and a return to the microphone for Hamilton. "I'm optimistic that we're going to play at some point this summer," he said. "I don't know if it will exactly be July 1 or July 4. I think they've got to try to target a date, just to give (players) some kind of an idea of how to ramp up. I think we'll play at some point. I don't know about whether we'll ever play in front of fans (this year), but I do think we're going to have some sort of a season. "I think it's important from the standpoint of giving our society, obviously, something to watch and a diversion. I also think there could be a lot of things that come out of this that we do from an experimental stage this year, only because of the circumstances, that may go a long way in making our game even better in future years. "I think you've gotta try to take something like this that has been such a negative and try to gain some positives out of it. And maybe we will find some things that you normally wouldn't have thought of doing, and now you're kinda forced to think outside the box. And why not? Because it's going to be such an unusual season if we have one anyway, let's find out if some of these things are good for the game." Contact Chris Assenheimer at 329-7136 or cassenheimer@chroniclet.com. Like him on Facebook and follow him @CAwesomeheimer on Twitter.