Herb Score, the long time play-by-play announcer for the Indians in the 70s, 80s and 90s, has died.
We all have our favorite baseball radio announcers growing up. I was lucky enough to be in Baltimore for middle school and high school and loved to listen to the polished broadcasts of Joe Angel and Jon Miller. When I went to Cleveland for college, however, I got Herb doing the Tribe games. I think it is safe to say that Miller and Score have completely opposite announcing styles.
I grew to love Herb and his low-key, minimalist style. It was a running joke between Janice and I when we were down here in Cincinnati and I would search the radio for the Tribe broadcast from Cleveland. We would stop on what I thought was 1100 AM and hear silence for 3-5 seconds. Was this the broadcast or jst dead air?
"Low, ball 3" bellowed a voice out of the darkness to interrupt the quiet.
Steve and I did a pretty good impersonation of the Tribe annoucing team in the 90s - me as the happy go lucky Tom Hamilton, and Steve as Herb. I'll haev to dig that tape out from a box.
I think the ultimate coincidence is that the last call Herb made on the radio was Game 7 of the 1997 World Series. The Lord could have sent Herb out on the ultimate high note, but no, that was not in the cards for Herb. It never was.
3 comments:
I still have a scar on my leg from Herb Score.
We were at an O's Indians game at Memorial Park and we were sitting in our Dad's company seats in the lower box. Back then, they would have little metal signs hanging in back of the seats showing which company owned the seats. So Eric, my Dad, and I were sitting there before the game, and Eric gets up in a hurry and is all excited about someone signing autographs. He goes off running, and as a young kid, I follow my older brother. Well, one of the signs jabbed me in my quad, and gashed open my leg. I still hobbled over to see who was signing autographs, and realized it was an old man. "Who is he?" I asked Eric. "Oh its Herb Score!!!!!". What? How disappointing.
How about this sotry about a possible public gooch of the Indians:
"And of course after Tony Fernandez hit the go-ahead homer in the top (Note key word: TOP) of the 11th inning of Game 6 of the ALCS in Baltimore in '97, Score yelped, "And the Indians are going to the World Series! ... Maybe."
Luckily, that key word "Maybe" helped save the Tribe from the Gooching Gods and the Tribe went on to win.
And I forgot abotu that story at Memorial stadium. I think I have the tribe pennant with Score's signature....his autograph is right next to Candy Maldonado's.
It is a sad day. My favorite Herb Score memory involves Ken W. an infamous member of the Case Golf Team in the late 80's and early 90's. At that time I, along with Dean Chance ('64 Cy Young Award), promoted some baseball card shows in Cleveland. Ken W. liked to hang around these events. Dean and I had many of Dean's old teammates appear at the show to sign autographs. This drew people from all over the Eastern United States. One guy came from Staten Island and immediately befriended Ken and I (Now that I think about it this guy was more than a little creepy). For some reason, Mr. Staten Island was a huge Herb Score fan. When Ken found out about this he claimed to know the Score family and promised Mr. Staten Island an autographed ball. A few weeks later, Ken gave me a ball with what appeared to be Herb Score's signature. I sent it to Mr. Staten Island who was so happy he mailed me back all sorts of gifts including an autographed copy of Bob Feller's book "Strikeout Story" (which I did not share with Ken - Sorry Ken). A few years later Ken asked me if I had ever heard from Mr. Staten Island.
STEVE: "No, why?"
KEN: "Oh just wondering if he figured out the ball we sent him was a forgery"
STEVE: "WHAT!!!"
KEN: "Yeah, I lied - I don't know the Score family. I signed the ball you sent him".
Ah memories.
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