In today’s Sun-Times, Ron Rapoport (who knows something about crotchety old men) takes us through former Cubs’ announcer (and undeserving Ford Frick Award winner) Milo Hamilton’s new book. In the excerpts of the book that the Sun-Times ran today, Milo continues to insist he’s not the kind of guy to be mean-spirited and then he tells all kinds of stories in which he’s incredibly mean-spirited.
Milo saves most of his venom for Harry Caray. I don’t think any of us are really under the impression that Harry was a back-slapping, always happy guy. He was prone to dramatic mood swings during games while he was on the air. What we know from years of listening to him was that there were two extremes to Harry. The Network-like “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” Harry and the manically happy Harry. We loved both of those guys. They made for great TV (or radio).
Milo claims that Harry told him “Well, kid, if I were you, I’d leave town,” at Harry’s welcome to the Cubs’ press conference. First of all, how old was Milo in 1981? He couldn’t have been much of a “kid.”
And while (if true) it is shitty if they didn’t tell Milo what the press conference was for and he walked into it and saw Harry being hired, how clueless do you have to be to just assume a press conference is for you unless they tell you it is?
These things have been festering in Milo for 25 years (though he’s been saying nasty things about Harry ever since he died) but they come out all covered in bile now.
Milo said this about Harry.
”He rode managers. He rode players. It didn’t matter. He treated everyone the same way,” Hamilton writes. ”In short, he was a miserable human being.
You know who you left out of that, Milo? The fans. Harry didn’t treat the fans like crap. Whether it was a put on or not, Harry’s greatest talent was communing (and communicating) with the fans. He was on our side. He wasn’t on management’s side, he didn’t care about insulting the players or the manager.
It’s the skill that every other cookie cutter broadcaster (like you) always lacks. It’s why you can’t understand why Harry could walk around town like a rock star, while you walked around and people mocked your awful toupee.
Whether it was true or not, Harry gave the impression he was a passionate fan with a microphone. It’s what we remember him for, and it’s why there’s a statue of him in front of Wrigley Field.
You go to other parks with statues in front of them, like Miller Park which has them for Robin Yount and Hank Aaron, and after they’ve been up a while nobody looks at them. Robin was a great player and Milwaukee adores him so much they’re excited that he’s going to sitting in the Brewer dugout this year, doing much of nothing. But they file past his statue now like it’s a lamp post.
The only people who still stop to look at the Jordan statue in front of the UC are tourists stopping to take their obligatory picture of it.
The Harry statue is different. Maybe it’s because of the creepy “fans” the guy sculpted towards the bottom and you can’t take your eyes off them, but probably not.
But you go by that Harry statue before any game…hell, right now…and you’re likely to find a Cubs fan leaving an open Budweiser for him.
Milo’s paranoia is startling. I know Jim Dowdle wasn’t the easiest boss anybody ever had, but do we think this is really true?
Hamilton’s relationship with Caray and Dowdle reached its low point at the start of the 1982 season when he was hospitalized with a recurrence of leukemia. Dowdle visited him at Northwestern Memorial, ”almost as if he was dropping in to see if I was really that ill, if perhaps I was faking it,” Hamilton writes. ”I could sense that from his body language. Can you imagine anyone being that inconsiderate?”
You know what it really was Milo? He felt obligated to stop by and see you because you were sick, but that doesn’t mean he actually liked you. What his body language was saying is, “I wish I was anywhere but here with this assbag.”
And Milo tops himself with this:
Caray’s response to his illness, Hamilton says, was to say on the air that he never had missed any games and he ”couldn’t understand how a guy can take time off during the season.” Later, he boasted to a reporter that he never had missed an inning in his career, ”unlike some other broadcasters I know.”
”You can imagine the temptation for me later on, when that sonofabitch suffered a stroke in 1987, to say something bad about him,” Hamilton writes. ”But I didn’t. It’s not in my nature.”
“It’s not in my nature.”
Huh?
I think it’s very much in your nature. You thought enough of it to cram it into your autobiography.
What Milo should really admit though is why he devoted so much of his book to Harry.
Because it’s the only thing anybody was going to be interested in.
And all these years I thought that because the March 1987 issue sold well among Canadians and NHL fans, I was big in the Great White North.
Has Mark McGuire every held a news conference that contained good news for Cubs fans?
More proof that Milo Hamilton’s an assclown. After a Cubs-Astros game in Houston this past August, my wife and I waited outside the players exit to catch a glimpse of the Cubs buss. After a long wait, we almost gave up. Then a burgundy 1997 Toyota Camry pulls up near the collection of fans. Inside: Milo Hamilton. He summons a kid over to him and hands him a stack of signed Milo Hamilton trading cards and instructs the kid to hand them out. He pulls away and everyone laughs. I’ve never seen anyone with more of a unecessary ego. Oh, and he’s a freaking terrible, senile announcer.
… is the best nickname for an assclown ever.
As the resident, knuckle-dragging Sox fan, I feel the need to defend Harry. When I was eight or nine, my father lucked into “box” seats at Wrigley for a Cubs/Phils doubleheader. Our “box” was right next door to Harry’s booth. Between games, not only did Harry come over and introduce himself and think us for coming, but he proceeded to order a round of drinks for everyone involved. I think that Andy’s column is right on the money – Harry might have been an occasional assclown to the baseball people, but he sure as hell knew he was delivering his product to. Makes you wonder how the 2004 Cubs would have reacted to his style, when they had problems with Chip of all people.
And that Janet Gretsky picture is hot.
should say “even I feel the need to defend Harry.”
Whoops. Just got the intranets in my trailer.
Milo was a preposterously inept successor to Jack Brickhouse. He is baseball’s answer to the low-wattage shill of college sports – Brent Musberger. All of the emotion he conveyed was contrived. With Brickhouse and Caray, there was never any doubt that the ballpark was the place they would be even if they weren’t broadcasting the game. Hamilton was an even cheaper version of Shelly Levine (“Glegarry Glen Ross”) who cared about baseball like Shelly cared about real estate in Florida.
Milo is the despicable uncle who, when we were 14, gave us a shiny penny, waited for us to admire it, and then mocked our Dads for being cheap dimwits. He has always felt deserving of love, but doesn’t know that you have to give it to get it.
This was the case in 1982, when Milo felt betrayed, not by the Triburne Company, but by fans who derided him, but loved Harry. His issue is with us, but even Milo is smart enough not to think, write, or say that.
After Bob Prince left the Pirates, and Milo rode in on his swaybacked mule to save the day, fans loathed him just as they did in Chicago. Only in a milquetoast baseball city like Houston could fans find tolerance for a minor league talent with soul of bitter bile.
I coined him “Penis de Milo” a couple of years ago in a Desipio post, if I recall.
test
You want to rag on ballplayers, fine. But no dissing Harry. He’s our guy.
Milo always was a little douche anyways. Brickhouse, Milo, Harry, what doesn’t fit in that picture??
Wrigley Field, a sunny summer day, a budweiser, the wind blowing out and Harry Caray!
The Dowdle story is the best one though…what the hell? He was able to discern from Dowdle’s body language that Jim didn’t believe he was sick? Did Dowdle check all the monitors to make sure they were plugged in? Pull out Milo’s IV?
I’ve visited many people in the hospital, and had a stay myself, and one thing that is fairly obvious to me is that other than doctors and nurses, almost nobody really feels comfortable being there.
Dear Heaven (aka Pollyanna):
As opposed to Harry who never forgot the thing of max importance: the fans, you forgot something important, too.
A white flag with a blue “W”.
Anything less and it’s a waste.
Dowdle was the basis for the character of Greg House.
Milo gives us Grumpy old men a bad name. In fact, Milo is a bad name.
What’s wrong with Milo?
The problem with Kornheiser is that not only is he not a former player; he’s not even a broadcaster. He’s also not funny or insightful. He’s a shrill idiot. I probably wouldn’t have watched anyway, but now I definitely won’t.
Do you ever work?
IR 11 is why we make fun of you.
I’m surfing the intranets from ma outhouse!
Also don’t forget about a Sosa homer, hot chicks in skimpy clothing and then the rush to Murphy’s after the game!
dont you write about stories that matter anymore?
Chip you’re a pussy! Milo you’re a first class asshole!
Sorry that gives pussies and first class assholes a bad name. You two are pitiful!
D*cks f*** p***ies…but d*cks also f**** a**holes.
woo woo i’m back woo woo
to let you know woo woo
that milo ain’t worth dog shit woo woo
woo woo and joe morgan too woo woo
Did anyone see what the Nationals offered me? I think my career is over.
I am the number of pages of mindless drivel and homoerotic man-love that are needed to discuss Adam Dunn in any context on NSBB