I love Peoria like a mother and Chicago like a wife. I was born and raised in Peoria. My mother corrects me when I say that. She says, `Down here we rear children; we raise hogs.’
My father, Will, was in show business. He ran away from home when he was 14 years old and never went back except to visit. At one time he was a hypnotist’s assistant. Later he worked in carnivals before proceeding to Chicago, where he worked at the White City Amusement Park in its heyday.
He wound up running some vaudeville houses here, later becoming city sales manager for the Pathe Film Exchange. The late John Balaban of the Balaban & Katz theater chain, was trained as a film salesman by my father.
He met my mother, Daisy, while on a business trip to Peoria. She was working behind the cigar counter in his hotel. Three weeks later they were married. She was 15 years old, he was 39. Of course, the marriage didn’t have much of a chance. Unfortunately, my father contracted pneumonia at 42, and he died before I was 3.
After high school, I went to Bradley University for a short time. I wasn’t a great student or athlete, but I’ve lived to be on the board at Bradley and wound up with an honorary doctorate from there, one of four I have received.
The local radio station had a “So you want to be an announcer” contest, with a $50 watch for first prize. I figured I could hock that thing for $25, use it as a stake to go to the West Coast and maybe find a job there.
I didn’t win anything, but apparently the people who ran the station must have thought I had possibilities, because they asked if I’d be interested in working on an experimental basis for a week.
I was 18, and I fell in love with it the first time I was on the air. After working two weeks for free, I told them I needed to make some money. The scale for announcers then was $20 a week and for office help $14.
They made me a half-time announcer and half-time switchboard operator at $17 week. I grabbed it. I did everything, including sweeping up, doing man-on-the-street interviews, emceeing barn dances, reading the funnies on Sunday mornings to the kids and covering fires, parades and special events-you name it!
About that time, 1937, the famous Bradley basketball team was born. I wanted to broadcast the games, but we were a CBS outlet and couldn’t bump programs like those of Kate Smith, Paul Whiteman, Lily Pons and Andre Kostelanetz and Bing Crosby.
My idea was to record the games and replay them after the news. Our sponsors were Caterpillar Tractor, Keystone Steel and Wire, Peoria Waterworks and a bank.
Bradley went very big, and I came up to Chicago to audition in a bigger market. Fortunately, Bob Elson, a pioneer sports announcer for WGN-in my book, the most creative baseball announcer who ever lived-put in a good word for me.
I still have the wire he sent to me in 1940: “Expect call from WGN regarding position as staff announcer and sports assistant. Remember, if asked, you have a thorough knowledge of baseball.”
I auditioned and joined the staff at WGN in 1940 and have been here ever since.
Coming to Chicago to work for WGN meant Broadway and the Big Time! I moved into an apartment in Rogers Park.
WGN was the creator of the Big Band era. WGN’s Frank Schreiber and Otto Roth, who owned the Blackhawk Restaurant on Wabash Avenue, got together to broadcast bands who were playing there, among them the Coon-Sanders Orchestra, Kay Kyser and his Kollege of Musical Knowledge, Ted Weems (with Perry Como), the Ink Spots, Les Brown and Sammy Kaye.
When WGN joined the Mutual network, I worked the Aragon Ballroom with Eddie Howard, Wayne King and Dick Jurgens; the Trianon with Lawrence Welk; and the Empire Room at the Palmer House with Eddy Duchin.
Along came television in the late ’40s, and that was an interesting period before tape and instant replay came along. By this time I was identified as a sports broadcaster, doing baseball for the Cubs with “Whispering Joe” Wilson on WBKB.
When WGN-TV came on the air in 1948, they offered me a very good deal as their baseball broadcaster, doing both Cubs and Sox games. I’m proud to say I was the very first voice on Channel 9, broadcasting the Golden Gloves tournament from the Chicago Stadium.
Our guests were Arch Ward, the Tribune sports editor; Will Harridge, the president of the American League; and Ezzard Charles, who was then a heavyweight boxing contender.
There was a time when I turned down offers from the West Coast every hour on the hour. I worked one season in New York, and that was enough for me. I love to visit, but I’m a Midwesterner.
Chicago is my town. I’ve visited most of the big cities of the world, and I believe Chicago is the best big town in the whole world. I might even go outside the country for my No. 2 choice.
The object in Chicago is to compete with the other guy and beat him, but once you’ve beaten him, to pick him up and buy him a drink. There is a fairness about the sports fans here.
Look how they support the Cubs and White Sox despite the fact that neither team has won a World Series title in so many years. For the Sox, it was 1917 when they won, and for the Cubs, it was 1908. A Cubs fan once said to me, “Any team can have a bad century!”
We’ve learned through the years that the audience would like to have the broadcaster side with the home team. Neutrality is important at the national level, but here at home, 90 percent of the people want you to favor the home team.
I feel that you can root for the home ballclub and still maintain reportorial integrity. The secret is to give credit when credit is due to both sides. If you beat a good performer, it makes your victory all the sweeter.
I must have been doing something right because I’ve done more baseball games on TV than anyone else alive. They had a special ceremony at Wrigley Field on my 5,000th game in 1979.
Nowadays I do some broadcasts and make personal appearances. I believe I should give back to the city that’s been so great to me, so I do quite a bit of charity work. Right outside of Tribune Tower, there is a portion of Michigan Avenue known as “Jack Brickhouse Way.”
Last August on Venetian Night at Grant Park, I appeared at the Petrillo Music Shell to read baseball’s famous poem “Casey at the Bat,” with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra playing in the background. For a kid from Peoria to wind up appearing before thousands and backed by a world-famous orchestra, it was a dream come true!
