8 For the first two years the radio arrangement was that Hamilton did the majority of the broadcasting, picking his innings as he always did, with Munson playing a minor role and Johnson filling in as color. The booth arrangement for the telecasts, according to Atlanta Journal radio and TV columnist Dick Gray, was for Dean to do the first two innings, Hamilton the third and fourth, Dean the fifth and sixth, Munson the seventh and eighth, and Dean to finish the ninth. Later that year the Braves broadcast several games in color. Old Diz had been fired the previous year when the national Game of the Week changed networks, and now he was back with his famous malapropisms and grammatical errors. In June, the Braves added 18 TV broadcasts, bringing in Dizzy Dean. The far-flung Braves network, 36 stations broadcasting games across the US Southeast, 7 deserves some of that credit, and even though the Braves went into a nosedive in May, attendance remained at a very high level. The Braves drew tremendously that first season, almost 1,000,000 more than the previous season in Milwaukee. This broadcasting crew began the season with great popular acclaim and relatively few complaints. Clearly, Hamilton was the lead broadcaster, and he always let the other announcers know that. It was a natural for the Braves to choose as their color man Ernie Johnson, who was also a broadcasting executive for the Milwaukee Braves. Munson had been a veteran announcer at WSM in Nashville for 14 years. Many knew Munson as the broadcaster for Nashville’s Southern Association team and Vanderbilt University football and basketball games. Instead of the popular Hank Morgan, the Braves chose Larry Munson as Hamilton’s broadcast partner. No one has ever said Hamilton shied away from work by the time he came to Atlanta, he had broadcast, in addition to those White Sox games, Big Ten football and basketball, calling at least 250 games a year between 19. 5) Elson was impressed with the massive notes and information that the junior partner fed him. (“What made us a great team, I believe, was that some regarded me as ‘a Bob Elson with enthusiasm,’” Hamilton said. After a three-year stint with the Cubs, Hamilton became a nighttime rock ’n’ roll disk jockey for four years in Chicago, until the White Sox and WCFL (a 90-station network) called him to work with boyhood hero Bob Elson, Milo’s favorite broadcast partner. Said Caray to Hamilton: “Kid, don’t worry about your mike being on because I am the announcer here.” 4 It was the beginning of a lifetime mutual enmity, and Milo lasted only one year with Caray – this time – because Caray preferred a baseball player, Joe Garagiola. Louis basketball, he obtained a secondary position (very secondary) with the legendary Harry Caray in the Cardinals’ booth. However, because of his connections with Anheuser-Busch while doing St. When the Browns moved to Baltimore, Milo lost the job to Ernie Harwell. Louis Browns in 1953, working with Dizzy Dean and Buddy Blattner. Hamilton broke into major-league broadcasting with the St. After graduation he spent three years in or near Davenport broadcasting minor-league baseball, local high-school sports, Golden Gloves boxing matches (including 16 matches in one day), and re-creating games, including basketball games involving the Quad City Black Hawks, precursor many years later of the Atlanta Hawks. 2 Hamilton, from Fairfield, Iowa, began his career with the Armed Forces Network on Guam in 1945 and took a degree in radio speech at the University of Iowa. Hamilton was well known in Atlanta since local station WGST had been broadcasting these games for the past four years. In November of 1965 the Braves announced that well-known journeyman Milo Hamilton, a broadcaster for the Chicago White Sox, would be the Braves’ main announcer. In addition, Morgan had other duties at WSB (a 50,000-watt clear-channel station with the slogan “Welcome South, Brother.”) 1 This, however, was not to be as the Braves management declined to hire Allen, and Allen himself had been reluctant to move from New York. Fans naturally expected the famous former Yankees announcer to come to the Braves in 1966 and many wanted Crackers announcer Morgan to be his broadcasting sidekick. During 1965 Milwaukee games were announced back to Atlanta by Mel Allen and Hank Morgan, with Ernie Johnson as color man. Because of lawsuits in Milwaukee, the Braves’ move to Atlanta was delayed a year until 1966, but Atlanta Stadium was completed a year early and exhibition games were scheduled to whet the interest of the new Braves fans. Atlanta Crackers broadcaster Ernie Harwell famously had such a reputation in the 1940s that he was traded to a major-league team for a catcher. When the Atlanta Braves began broadcasting in April of 1966, Atlanta area listeners had a long history of baseball radio.
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