Ken Coleman
From SoSH
Kenneth Robert Coleman (born April 22, 1925 in Quincy, Massachusetts; died August 21, 2003 in Plymouth, Massachusetts) was a veteran sportscaster for 34 years, including 20 years as radio and TV voice of the Red Sox ver two separate stints. He is a four-time finalist for the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum's Ford C. Frick Award (2004-08) and was inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame on May 18, 2000.
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Career Overview
Growing up on Boston's South Shore, Coleman harbored dreams of one day playing for the Red Sox. However, at age 12 he lost sight in his left eye after being shot with a BB gun while trying to break up a neighborhood dispute. Afterward he set his mind to becoming the team's broadcaster. After graduating from high school, he served in the U.S. Army in Burma during World War II. He returned to Quincy for one of his first jobs in radio at WJDA-AM, where he covered high school sports.
Coleman got his start as a play-by-play man with the NFL's Cleveland Browns in 1952 and held the post through 1965, calling every touchdown ever scored by legendary running back Jim Brown. Coleman became the Cleveland Indians TV voice in 1954 and worked the booth for ten seasons through 1963. In his first year with the Indians, Coleman called their record-setting 111-win season and their World Series loss to the New York Giants. While in the Buckeye state, Coleman also handled radio work for Ohio State University football.
In 1966, Coleman learned that Curt Gowdy would be leaving his broadcasting post with the Red Sox. "A light went on inside my head," Coleman would later recall. He immediately phoned Red Sox General Manager Dick O'Connell to express interest in the job and he was hired a week later, joining Ned Martin and Mel Parnell. The trio called the action WHDH-AM radio and WHDH-TV, rotating in three-inning shifts between the radio and television booths. Coleman would work the first three innings on TV, switch to handle radio alone for the middle three frames, then return to the TV booth for innings seven through nine. Martin would work the opposite route, while Parnell remained in the TV booth throughout the game. A year after his arrival, Coleman broadcast the 1967 World Series between the Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals) for NBC television and radio.
While in Boston, Coleman continued calling football games, this time on the collegiate gridirons. He handled play-by-play at Harvard University for 10 seasons, including the 1968 Harvard-Yale game, which featured an incredible Crimson comeback from a 16-point deficit to tie the Elis at 29-29.
In 1969, Johnny Pesky replaced Parnell on the broadcast staff. In 1972 WHDH lost TV broadcast rights and Coleman, who had the highest salary among the Sox' broadcasters, was fired in a cost-cutting move. He and Pesky became a TV-only duo in 1972 after WBZ-TV took over the Red Sox television rights, while Martin remained in the WHDH radio booth with new partner John MacLean.
After the 1974 season WSBK-TV took over the Red Sox television rights. Seeking to attract more advertising, the station decided to go with a younger pair of announcers in Dick Stockton and ex-Sox outfielder Ken "Hawk" Harrelson. Coleman left Boston to work on the Cincinnati Reds' television crew for the 1975 through 1978 seasons, including two World Series championship campaigns. He maintained his home in suburban Norwell, Massachusetts, flying to various cities to handle roughly 45 games a year, mostly away from Riverfront Stadium. He worked alongside color man and ex-Reds shortstop Woody Woodward, who would go on to become GM of the Seattle Mariners.
Coleman returned to Boston in 1979, teaming with former Red Sox third baseman Rico Petrocelli on WITS-AM radio. The following year, veteran broadcaster Jon Miller replaced Petrocelli, as Miller and Coleman began a three-year radio partnership. Miller left after the 1982 season, concurrent with WRKO-AM 680 and WPLM-FM 99.1 taking over as flagship stations for the Red Sox radio network.
Replacing Miller was Joe Castiglione, and he and Coleman worked together for seven years until Coleman's retirement after the 1989 season. During that stretch, the pair broadcast the Red Sox' 1986 World Series loss to the New York Mets and two Red Sox American League Championship Series in 1986 and 1988.
Throughout his career Coleman took on extra broadcasting assignments. They included two years calling Boston University football, three years calling high school football games on Boston's South Shore, two seasons calling Akron Goodyears basketball, and two more seasons calling University of Connecticut and Fairfield University basketball games for Connecticut Public Television. He also called NFL games for NBC-TV in the early 1970s.
Coleman authored five books on sportscasting, and was one of the founding members of the Red Sox Booster Club and the BoSox Club. He was also intimately involved with the Jimmy Fund, serving as its director for six years from 1978 to 1984.
Coleman became ill in early August 2003 and died August 21 at Jordan Hospital in Plymouth, Massachusetts from complications of bacterial meningitis at age 78. He was buried at Massachusetts National Cemetery in the Cape Cod town of Bourne (Plot Section 36, Grave 211)
Survivors included his former wife Ellen; sons William and Kenneth R. "Casey" Coleman Jr.; daughters Susan, Kathleen and Kerry; and three grandchildren. Casey Coleman, who followed in his father's footsteps calling Cleveland Browns games during a 30-year sports broadcasting career of his own, died November 27, 2006 of pancreatic cancer at age 55.
Ken Coleman's Calls
"They usually show movies on a flight like that." - Ken Coleman's signature home run call.
"Fly ball to deep left...Yastrzemski is going hard...way back...way back...and he dives and makes a tremendous catch! One of the greatest catches I've ever seen by Yastrzemski in left field! - Ken Coleman on WHDH-TV, calling Carl Yastrzemski's ninth-inning over-the-shoulder catch of Tom Tresh's deep fly ball to left field at Yankee Stadium. The catch preserved a no-hit bid by rookie Red Sox pitcher Billy Rohr, making his first major league start on April 14, 1967. The no-hitter was broken up two batters later by Elston Howard.
"This is truly a love story...an affair 'twixt a town and a team...a town that had waited and waited for what seemed an Impossible Dream." - Coleman, introducing a television special that aired on WHDH-TV celebrating the the 1967 Impossible Dream Red Sox club. The audio track for the special was later released as an LP record album on the Fleetwood label.
"Deep to right field...Number 44!" - Coleman on WHDH-TV, calling Yastrzemski's 44th home run of the 1967 season at Fenway Park in the next-to-last game of the regular season on September 30. Yaz tied Harmon Killebrew for the American League home run lead that year and won the Triple Crown, the last major leaguer to do so.
"STRIKE THREE! Roger Clemens has broken the Major League record for strikeouts in one game! He now has 20! - Coleman on WPLM-FM, calling Roger Clemens' record-setting 20th strikeout in one game at Fenway Park on April 29, 1986, against Phil Bradley of the Seattle Mariners.
"Here's the pitch... there's a fly ball to left field... [Brian] Downing is going back... back... back... it's GONE! IT IS GONE!!! Dave Henderson has homered! And the Boston Red Sox have taken the lead!" - Coleman on WPLM-FM, calling Dave Henderson's dramatic 2-run home run off reliever Donnie Moore of the California Angels in the top half of the 9th inning in Game 5 of the 1986 American League Championship Series in Anaheim on on October 12, 1986. Moore was one strike away from clinching the Angels' first trip to the World Series. The Red Sox went on to win the ALCS in 7 games.
"Stanley ready, he throws and the pitch is inside, it gets away from Gedman... And the tying run is home! The tying run scores! And down to second base goes Knight! 55,078 fans go wild, as the Mets, with 2 outs and the bases empty, in the last of the 10th, have tied it up!" - Coleman on WPLM-FM, calling the wild pitch by Bob Stanley that scored Kevin Mitchell to tie Game 6 of the 1986 World Series on October 25, 1986.
Quotes
"Back in those days, announcers weren't the instant experts or hammering critics that you often see today. We didn't have trash-talk radio. The players were my friends." -- Ken Coleman, in his book Talking on Air: A Broadcaster's Life in Sports.
"He got to hear the words 'We have turned the corner in the fight against cancer.' That certainly wasn't the case when he started here in 1978." -- Former Red Sox second baseman and Jimmy Fund director Mike Andrews, who served six years under Coleman before succeeding him as director.
"Some people say it was soothing. It was part of the landscape of summer in Boston." -- Ken Coleman's son, William.
"He always said the Red Sox were his love, and the Jimmy Fund his passion. Ken loved poetry and had a great sense of drama. He caught great moments as well as anyone I've known in broadcasting." -- Red Sox broadcaster Joe Castiglione.
"Ken was the Forrest Gump of broadcasting. Wherever he went, championship games followed." -- Bernie Corbett, who worked a season with Coleman covering Boston University football.
"He was a great announcer. He should be in the Hall of Fame. The first thing that strikes you with him was his voice, and he had a voice as good as any of them." -- Johnny Pesky, who shared the broadcast booth with Coleman from 1969-74.
"This is one of the greatest upsets of all time. Ken Coleman, at whose feet I studied and learned the art of broadcasting, asking me about the business." -- Howard Cosell, while being interviewed by Coleman prior to a game at Fenway Park. Cosell had heard Coleman's broadcasts of Browns games and had great respect for his work. When Cosell was a lawyer trying to get into broadcasting, Coleman would lend him advice and answer his questions.
Books by Ken Coleman
- So you want to be a sportscaster?, 1973, Hawthorn Press, 170 pages.
- Diary of a Sportscaster, 1982, Literations Press, 165 pages (coauthored with Dan Valenti).
- Grapefruit League Road Trip, 1986, Penguin Publishing, 208 pages (coauthored with Dan Valenti, foreword by Peter Gammons).
- The Impossible Dream Remembered, 1987, Penguin Press, 288 pages (coauthored with Dan Valenti).
- Talking on Air: A Broadcaster's Life in Sports, 2000, Sports Masters Publishing, 256 pages (coauthored with Dan Valenti).
Trivia
- Veteran broadcasters Joe Castiglione and Jon Miller have both credited Coleman for recommending them to Red Sox officials for spots in the team's radio broadcast booth. Miller came aboard in 1980 while Castiglione began his tenure of more than a quarter-century 1983.
- Whenever he was home, Coleman maintained a year-round routine of taking a swim in the Atlantic Ocean every day until he died.
- Over the winter following the 1988 season, Coleman suffered a heart attack at age 63. He recovered after he changed his diet and quit smoking. "All those years I smoked, and now if I see someone doing it, they seem to look so stupid," he laughed.
- Coleman and Ned Martin were avid fans of Frank Sinatra's music, recalled Jon Miller. "Ned had a Walkman with plugs for two headsets and sometimes they'd be listening to Sinatra on a flight home and break into song together. It wasn't broadcast quality."
