Dear Mrs. Hamilton

Tom Hamilton’s mother passed away recently. The radio voice of the Cleveland Indians has taken some time off to be with his family, and is slated to return to the broadcast booth Friday. We wish him and his family all the best. While I never knew Mrs. Theresa Hamilton, I felt compelled to write her a letter, as her son has rightly become an Indians icon.

Dear Mrs. Hamilton,

I imagine that your family wants to maintain its privacy during this time, so I apologize for this. I don’t know much about you or your life, I’m sorry to say, so I’m ill-equipped to write any sort of eulogy.

All I really have to say is that you raised a hell of a son. Thank you for that. His voice is among the most significant in my life, and I really mean that. I can hear him in my childhood memories as readily as my parents and friends. All I need to do is replay one of his calls in my head, and suddenly it’s the summer of ’95 all over again. Imagining one of his wayyyyy backs is enough to inspire a happy tear.

I met him once, when I was maybe 10 years old. A friend of my dad’s managed to get us into the broadcast booth, and I shook Tom’s hand between innings. He was polite and kind, and gave me his autograph seconds before going back on the air. My dad and I got to sit right there high above home plate and watch him work, live. It was dusk on a comfortable summer evening, the sun ceding responsibility to the toothbrush lights towering over Jacobs Field.

I didn’t appreciate this nearly as much as I should have — as I said, I was 10, so the gravity of watching one of the greats at his craft didn’t set in. I may as well have been watching the president sign a bill or Walter Cronkite read the news, although I’m happier having a story about seeing Hammy — we often call him Hammy — calling a half-inning.

I’m not a parent, but I think I might be one day. I imagine that, once you’ve produced an offspring, your own work isn’t quite as important. I imagine that you just worry about your kid. I imagine that you want him¹ to do well, to learn the right things, to be polite. You want him to work hard and to find something that he loves. You want him to try his best and, ideally, to do well and maybe even make a difference. You want your kids to make the world a better place, so that their kids then have a better world to raise their kids.

If those are indeed the things that one thinks about as a parent, then Mrs. Hamilton, you did a heck of a job. I can say without a hint of doubt that Tom has made the world, if only a Cleveland-centric portion of it, a better place.

I know this because I can’t imagine a world with anybody else calling ballgames. I know this because his calls are conversational touchstones for my friends and I, all having been introduced to baseball by him. I would rather listen to Tom describe the action than see it with my own eyes. I know this because the best way to take in a Tribe game is not at the park or watching on TV, but on the radio in the car. Even if the living room is 20 feet away and I could be laid out on the couch with a beverage in hand, I’d rather feel my fingers tighten around the steering wheel as your son calls a home run. I’ve listened from the driveway even when I hadn’t driven anywhere.

Perhaps the best part yet is that your son seems to have become a fine father in his own right. Your grandsons Nick and Brad love baseball just like their old man,² and Tom even got to watch Nick play in Spring Training last year. He beamed with pride like a good daddy should, and in the same way that I imagine you listened to him call games. I’m not sure what your granddaughters Kelsey and Katie like to do, but I bet Tom is proud of them, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs1ZNT5V0a8

I don’t know if you liked baseball, but I’ll bet a truckload of Louisville Sluggers that you did. I’ll bet that you took Tom to Little League games and made sure his uniform looked just right. I’ll bet that you heard him in his room when he was little, staying up past his bedtime trying to catch a West coast game over the airwaves. I’ll bet that you recorded his first games on the radio. Tom was born in Waterloo, Wisconsin, but somehow he found his way to Cleveland.

Thank you for raising a fine son. Thank you for giving birth to the voice of the Tribe, and the voice of a thousand childhoods.

1. Or her. [↩]
2. Nick played at Kent State and is now in the minor leagues, while Brad is a catcher for the Golden Flashes now. [↩]