How a Baseball Announcer Stays on Top of His Game

When he visited his family in Los Angeles recently, Paul Olden, the Cleveland Indians’ baseball announcer, had car problems that kept him stuck in a gas station between midnight and 2 a.m.

Though most people would have been bored and frustrated by the wait, Olden simply reached into his 1985 Pontiac Fiero and pulled out the sports sections from the five newspapers he reads daily to stay atop his game.

“Thank God I had my newspapers with me,” he said, noting that he always has been a dedicated sports fan, dating to when he whiled away his idle teen-age hours by reading baseball books in the Los Angeles Central Library.

Olden, a 1972 Dorsey High graduate, attended Los Angeles City College for two years. His teachers recall that he was a devoted student of sports. He did not earn a degree, taking a risk by leaving in 1974 to pursue his goal of major league broadcasting.

Set a Precedent

Last January, his gamble paid off when the Indians hired him as their play-by-play broadcaster. The team also set a precedent, because Olden is believed to be the first black without playing experience to be hired as a major league announcer; he is only the seventh black broadcaster among 128 in the major leagues.

Because he was hired just six weeks before spring training began, he had little time to prepare for his job. He hurried East and left his car in Los Angeles, first with his girlfriend, Penny Altman, a paralegal in the San Fernando Valley; then with his mother, Erlene, at the Village Green condominiums west of La Brea Avenue.

Preparing for Broadcast

On July 22, after visiting his mother’s home, Olden drove to Anaheim Stadium for the Cleveland-Angels game. Arriving three hours early, he was in the broadcast booth, preparing for the night broadcast by reading in the quiet.

When he finished the papers, he put his large, black flight case on the floor and pulled out a baseball score book, press guides for the Indians and Angels, a head set and microphone and notes clipped from sports publications.

With his papers spread on the table before him, he took a small tape recorder and headed for the field. There, in slacks and a dress shirt open at the collar, he tried to stay comfortable on the hot, windless day as he taped a pregame show interview with a player. He also paused to sit on the dugout bench and get an update on the players’ health from Doc Edwards, the 6-foot-2, 215-pound Cleveland manager and career baseball man.

An hour before game, Olden headed upstairs to eat. He likes to eat in the half hour before the game starts. In his new job, he receives the pregame meal the major league teams serve reporters in a dining room near the press box.

Normally, the meal offers reporters time to chat and swap information. But this night, Olden, who had worked in Las Vegas before moving to Cleveland, had scheduled interviews with a writer from the Las Vegas Sun and an announcer from a Las Vegas radio station. Olden gave one interview as he ate and another in the press box before the game.

Time to Relax

When he finished, he headed for the broadcast booth. As the game started, he leaned forward in his chair, his back rigid. Midway through the inning, his broadcasting partner, former Cleveland pitcher Herb Score, started tucking in scores and comments on the Angels’ pitcher. By the bottom of the inning, Olden was leaning back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his back and relaxing.

And why not? He had spent the early afternoon at his mother’s home. There, Erlene Olden, a one-time clerical worker for the federal government, fed him and showed off to visitors the large red scrapbook with all the newspaper stories about her son, whose father, a former minister and dry cleaning worker, died two years ago.

Olden’s nephew, Michael Pogue, 17, who will be a Dorsey High senior this fall, proudly told his uncle that he had posted stories about him on school bulletin boards.

Remarks by Campanis

Olden found the attention pleasing. He said it all was possible only because he took advantage of remarks by Al Campanis, the former Dodger general manager, about the capacities of blacks to be in baseball management.

When Campanis’ remarks created a furor a year ago, Olden realized baseball was in a period of self-examination. Last July and August he sent tapes, photographs and resumes to all major league teams.

“I figured I should take advantage of the atmosphere,” he said, adding, “The previous years I did not market myself as well. I was very selective as to whom I sent tapes. A lot of times job openings happened three weeks before I found out about them. This time I figured I’d cover everything.”

The tapes led to interviews for a Baltimore job, which Olden thought he had lost out on last January.

Well Prepared for Job

Two hours after he was rejected by Baltimore, WWWE, the Cleveland station that broadcasts the Indian games, called and offered him his current job, for which Olden said he felt well prepared.

When he left school, he had worked in the news department at radio station KLAC. He spent seven years broadcasting minor league sports in Spokane, Wash., and Las Vegas.

“I’m finally doing the job I always knew I could do,” he said at a noisy tavern near the stadium after the Cleveland-California game. “I’m not in awe of anything.”