Wednesday, August 12, 1998

Requiem for a salesman of sunshine

By Bob Greene

I was a young newspaper columnist in Chicago, just getting started, really; Jack Brickhouse was one of the most famous men in town, the voice of the Cubs, the voice of the Bears. We went out one night.

This was in the middle of the 1970s. Brickhouse was 58 years old, in the prime of his career, not yet the thanks-for-the-memories broadcasting elder statesman he would eventually become, and he was in a strange mood. The world was changing, in ways that didn't particularly thrill him, and he said he felt like talking about it. We ate and drank and spoke late. He finished off a glass of Scotch and water, motioned for a refill, and said: "All right, look at me. Here is a guy who likes to drink, who sprinkles his language with an occasional swear word. If I went on the air and talked like we're talking now, I'd be yanked off within 24 hours."

Maybe so - but this Brickhouse, the Brickhouse I was seeing in the back booth of a downtown place that night, was in many ways far more interesting than the always-upbeat performer millions of sports fans were accustomed to on WGN television and radio. This Brickhouse was starkly realistic about life, perceptive about how his business was changing, aware of how the world saw him. He was riveting.

"Announcing is a form of self-hypnosis, in that we hypnotize ourselves into being ourselves, and yet stay within the do's and don'ts of broadcasting," he said. "Look, I know what some people say about me. I know what they think of me. A hometown rooter. The mail is so strange. Maybe they all think I'm a fairly shallow guy who simply has found a good, safe way to make a living and who plays it close to the vest. Mr. Smile, Mr. Nice Guy. A guy who does all this and probably feels a little hypocritical about it."

There was hurt in Brickhouse's voice. Sports broadcasting was in the midst of a big change. Announcers who were enthusiastic about the home team were, all of a sudden, the object of scorn. The new credo was "tell it like it is" - and Brickhouse knew people held him up as the opposite of that. It stung him.

"Hell, yes, I'm a fan," he said. "I'd be a pretty sorry case if I wasn't. This broadcasting is all I've ever done. It's all I've ever tried, really. I was a soda jerk once, and I washed dishes, and I filled bottles with gin at Hiram Walker's distillery, but what I do for a living is essentially all I've ever done. If I didn't enjoy going to ball games, then I'd be a pretty uncomfortable fellow.

"These people who want to nail any announcer who doesn't 'tell it like it is' ... I mean, are you really a journalist in that broadcasting booth? Is broadcasting a baseball game the same thing as covering a train wreck? A bank robbery? Am I there just to report the facts? I don't think so. First, it's entertainment. Only second is it news. It is an escape. It is a diversion. It's the fun-and-games department, and I don't think it's all that damned much important.

"Yeah, I admit it. I don't criticize the players I'm covering. I can't play that game. I can't knock people's brains out. I can't go out and hammer innocent people. If you want to shoot from the hip and the heart instead of from the head - well, you'd better think it out first, buster. A microphone or a camera gives you an awesome responsibility."

Was his enthusiasm for baseball games as limitless as it sometimes seemed to those of us who listened to him? Did he never become bored during a broadcast?

"I get so bored I can hardly stand it," Brickhouse said. "But this is where being a pro comes in. When you can stay alert, and on top of an audience even on a bad day, during a bad game, that's when you're a professional.

"I make myself get away from it. My biggest kick in the world is theater. I couldn't tell you how many trips to London I've made, just to go to the theater. I go to France. Over there, if I say 'baseball' to a French bartender, he doesn't know what I'm talking about. I take books with me. Poe, Shakespeare, Ellery Queen."

Brickhouse said his reluctance to knock ballplayers was based on a strong belief: "The way I look at it, any ballplayer I see out there on the field is one of the 600 greatest players in a world of 2 billion people. Each one of those 600 who are playing in the Major Leagues is entitled to my respect.

"I just wish people would take sports for what it is. It's not an important thing. It's not a serious thing. The future of civilization does not rest on who wins the World Series. There's so much sadness and unhappiness at the top of the news, on the front page."

There was sadness on the front page last week - a headline over a story saying Jack Brickhouse was dead at 82. He was a salesman of sunshine - which is not a bad way for a man to live his life.

E-mail: bgreene@tribune.com

Chicago Tribune