Jack Brickhouse

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Jack Brickhouse (January 24, 1916 – August 6, 1998) was an American sports broadcast announcer. Known primarily for his enthusiastic coverage of Chicago Cubs games on television from the late 1940s until the early 1980s, he received the Ford C. Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983.

He covered national events from time to time, including the World Series, even though his Cubs never got there. The voice on the audio track of the famous Willie Mays catch in Game 1 of the 1954 Series at the Polo Grounds belongs to Brickhouse. He was doing the game on NBC television along with the New York Giants' regular broadcaster, Russ Hodges.

Brickhouse also covered many other events, sports and otherwise, such as professional wrestling. Prior to the Chicago White Sox getting their own TV network, he often did Sox games as well. And for many years he covered the Chicago Bears on radio, in an unlikely and entertaining pairing with famous Chicago gossip columnist Irv Kupcinet.

Born in Peoria, Illinois, Brickhouse began his broadcasting at the age of 18 at Peoria radio station WMBD in 1934, and retired in 1981. Following brain surgery on March 3, 1998 to remove a tumor, he died in Chicago, Illinois from cardiac arrest at age 82. This sad event came amidst the excitement of the Sammy Sosa-Mark McGwire home run race, and was a double-whammy in that the Cubs had lost their other broadcasting icon, Brickhouse's successor Harry Caray, during the off-season. They were cut very much out of the same cloth, as it were: extroverts, shameless "homers" who made even the poorest games seem exciting.

One stylistic technique Brickhouse employed, though, was arguably superior to Caray's: he tried to let the pictures speak for themselves. Caray, a radio broadcaster by training, tended to describe the game on TV as if he were doing a radio broadcast. Brickhouse was sparer with his descriptive prose; not as spare as Vin Scully of the Los Angeles Dodgers, certainly, but talking in quick bursts rather than long sentences, knowing that the great camera work of WGN-TV and of producer Arne Harris would tell much of the story.

Instead of over-describing the action, "Brick" was more likely to add "flavor" to what was obviously happening, with almost child-like enthusiasm. He would pepper his play-by-play with various old-fashioned expressions, such as "Whew, boy!" after a close play that went the home team's way, or "Oh, brother!" when it went the other way, or "Wheeeee!" when the team would do something well.

He was best known for his famous expression of "Hey-hey", which he reportedly used everywhere... when the baseball team hit a homer, when the football team scored a touchdown, or even when he was taking tricks in a card game. But it was that home run call that stuck in fans' memories, and that phrase now vertically adorns the screens on the foul poles at Wrigley Field.

Some examples of Brick's calls:

May 15, 1960; pitcher Don Cardwell, in his Cubs debut, is trying to get the last out of a no-hitter, against the Cardinals; the batter is Joe Cunningham; the left fielder is Walt "Moose" Moryn...

"Watch it now ... Hit on a line to left ... Come on, Moose! ... HE CAUGHT IT! Moryn made a fabulous catch! ... It's a no-hitter for Cardwell! ... What a catch that Moryn made, what a catch he made!"

December 15, 1963; Bears defensive back Dave Whitsell makes a key play that wins the game over Detroit, and clinches the Western Conference for the Bears...

"Here's the pass... picked off by Whitsell! ... HE'S GONNA GO! ... HE'S GONNA GO! ... TOUCHDOWN! ... HEY-HEY!"

May 12, 1970; Atlanta's Pat Jarvis pitches to "Mr. Cub", Ernie Banks...

"Jarvis fires away... That's a fly ball, deep to left, back, back... HEY-HEY! He did it! Ernie Banks got number 500! The ball tossed to the bullpen... everybody on your feet... this... is IT! WHEEEEEEE!"