Ain't the Beer Cold, Miss Agnes? Bob's Backstop for March 7, 2005

A sound travels forever. Once spoken, it exists forever, traversing the vastness of the cosmos, becoming part of the universe. This is a fact that should give many of us pause. For a chosen few, it means that their gifts never pass away.

Chuck Thompson is one of those rare instances.

A humble, self-effacing man, Chuck's mellow tones and folksy delivery engaged countless people over the decades of the fifties, sixties, and on through the nineties. I always smiled when I'd turn on WBAL to discover that Chuck was doing the color for that afternoon's game.

Television is made to order for football. Baseball is the game of radio. Chuck Thompson excelled at calling games in both sports, and in both mediums, as well...but it is radio baseball where his voice, his calls, his humanity, shines like a beacon among the mystic chords of our memories.

I never had the opportunity to meet Chuck, so I can't recount a personal tale, as I could upon the death of Rex Barney. I can't point to the legacy of his sons, or recall seeing him on the field, as I could when I wrote of Cal Senior's passing.

With Chuck, it's more of a voice than an image. I do recall seeing him on Opening Day a number of times, standing out on the green expanse of the Camden Yard field alongside Jon Miller or Jim Hunter, sharing emcee duties. But that's not how I will remember him.

It's the catchphrases, the excitement tinged with professionalism, the neighborly approach, the clarity of expressed thought, the occasional word painting...this is how I will remember him most, alongside many others who were more honored that I to have heard him growing up, sitting on the front or back porch, eating watermelon at the picnic table, or huddled under the covers with the transistor late at night, Chuck's voice fading in and out with the signal.

It was ironic that Chuck was forced to stop working Orioles games because his vision had become impaired to the point of being legally blind. He was philosophical about it in his interviews. Unlike Monet, whose paintings of his lily pond became more angry in tone as the painter's skills eroded late in life, Chuck just took what he had, and made the most of it.

We were all fortunate that this was his daily approach for countless years of broadcasting. Take what you have, and make the most of it.

And did he!

Chuck, we know that you and Miss Agnes are celebrating another Colts or Orioles' win today with a cold one. And that's how it should be, and will be forever. Your voice, your work, is with us not only on recordings, and in the minds of many, but the words themselves are still out there, moving towards the edges of the universe, and whatever is beyond.

There is comfort in that, somehow, and comfort in knowing that we all got to know you in some small fashion. You're a good man, Chuck Thompson, and Baltimore is lucky to count you among it's prized possessions.