Baseball in October: Crowds, cool temps and Tom Hamilton make it all perfect

One game. The Guardians play the White Sox in a do or die game tonight at Progressive Field. The American League Championship Series awaits the winner. Baseball is never better than when it is played in October. I have a romance with it all. Progressive Field is sold out. People will walk down Carnegie and Ontario, Ninth Street and Euclid Avenue from parked cars and bars and restaurants. People will walk across the Hope Memorial Bridge from the West Side Market. People will come. The air tonight will be brisk as the temperature drops into the 50s. The anticipation, nerves and hope in the hearts of all will work to warm the night and the competition of it all will create a feeling only the lucky will experience. And for those faithful not at the game — in cars, living rooms, back porch radios and on cellphone apps — they will hear a familiar voice. Tom Hamilton's voice. "Sox at the corners, two down, ninth inning. Swung on. Line drive to left. Coming in Kwan. Makes the running catch. Ballgame! And. There will be ANOTHER ballgame, a Saturday night date at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario." Hammy has been bringing us October baseball on the radio for nearly four decades. "Not many people get to wake up everyday and can't wait to get to work," Tom told me. "I do. I've been the most blessed person that's ever walked the earth." Steers, sheep and poultry Tom grew up near Waterloo, Wisconsin. His father and mother had a dairy farm. "I know how hard my parents worked and how selfless they were," he said. "They really worked." Frank and Theresa Hamilton were Tom's example. In 1970, they may have wondered about their son. The Milwaukee Brewers had just moved to Wisconsin after one failed season in Seattle as the Pilots. Tom was 15 years old. "As most kids of that age, I was completely absorbed in the team and my parents were probably wondering if I was going to be living with them until I was 40," he said with his signature chuckle. Tom cut lawns in his neighborhood for money and he peddled newspapers. He'd beat the sun up every morning and ride his bike to get his stack of Wisconsin State Journals to deliver. He'd get to the drop-off point early. "I'd get there at 5:30 in the morning so I could open the paper to the sports page and read the morning scores and stories." But the headlines of the fall in Tom's childhood were dominated by football, not baseball. "It was almost mandatory," he said. "It might have been a mortal sin to not watch Vince Lombardi and the Green Bay Packers." It was Mass, Vince Lombardi and the Packers on the Sundays of his formative falls. You could make an argument that if it weren't for the wisdom of a station manager in Watertown, Wisconsin, in the mid 1970s, Tom Hamilton wouldn't have had the broadcasting career that led to him being given the Ford C. Frick Award from the National Baseball Hall of Fame. One of his first play-by-play jobs was at the Jefferson County Fair. He was the voice of the livestock show. It was three solid hours of describing steers, sheep and poultry for the dozens tuned in to the Watertown radio station broadcast. Herbie, Frank, a Cadillac and wisdom Tom's first year in the radio booth for Cleveland Indians games was the 1990 season. In spring training, he would take long rides to games across Arizona in Herb Score's Cadillac. "My job was to change the cassette tapes of Herb's compilation of Frank Sinatra songs," Tom said, laughing at the memory. Score, of course, was the play-by-play voice of the Indians from 1964 to 1997. When he retired, he was the longest tenured voice in club history until Hamilton topped Score's mark two seasons ago. Score didn't say much on those long drives; he liked to listen to Sinatra as he drove across the desert, but "one of the greatest pieces of advice I ever got was when Herb told me to always remember that our broadcast may be the only thing that someone is looking forward to on any given day," Tom said. " I've never forgotten his advice." Season of Dreams Tonight, Tom Hamilton will be calling his 119th postseason game. The Indians, now Guardians, are playing October baseball for the 16th time in the last 32 seasons. Tom is 72 years old. He was 41 and on the call on Sept. 8, 1995, when the Indians clinched the Central Division championship with a 3-2 win over Baltimore. It was the organization's first postseason appearance since 1954, the year Hamilton was born. The 41-year drought ended in his 41st year on the planet. "Herb was calling that game on the radio and I was calling it on television for the Baseball Night in America broadcast," Tom said. "Now first off, no one is thinking that on the 8th of September there is going to be a clinch game. Secondly, it was Cal Ripken's first road game after breaking Lou Gehrig's consecutive games played streak of 2,130." Baseball Night in America hit the jackpot. Hamilton's call of the final out that night went like this … "In the air, Thome at third and the season of dreams has become a reality. Cleveland you will have an October to remember." "I had never expected to be in that position (to make that call) and I remember the night before thinking, I sure as hell hope I don't screw this up," Tom said. I wondered if he had a favorite October call? Admittingly a difficult question to answer given the magical moments he has been on the mic for and he rattled off several but, "I think the Rajai Davis home run off Aroldis Chapman in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series is a moment that I will take to my grave. Unless the team wins a World Series while I am still calling the games, that'll be the best moment I've called in the ballpark. Here's his call… "6 to 4 Cubs leading the Indians. Game 7 of what has been a classic World Series between two teams that have longed for the championship more years than any other two franchises in baseball. Sixty-eight years for the Indians. One hundred and eight years for the Cubs. Now the pitch. Swung on, lined deep to left field — it is — GONE!" The spontaneity of the moment is so special," he said. "I just let the moments play themselves out." Open Window The window in the broadcast booth will be open tonight. It always is. During the 1997 World Series when the temperatures were in the 30s, snow flurries fell and they played Christmas music over the Jacobs Field speakers. Tom Hamilton will feel the air tonight. He will smell the ballpark food. He will hear the crowd in full throat. He will feel the moments as they play out in front of him. And we will hear it and feel it ourselves, through his voice and his call. "I'm not saving lives. I'm not teaching our kids. I'm not doing things to help mankind but I feel I have the greatest job in the world. I can't wait to get to the booth and I have never taken these October moments for granted." Contact Ron Jantz at rjantz@chroniclet.com.