Hall of Fame Sportscaster Lindsey Nelson Dies at 76

Lindsey Nelson, the Hall of Fame sportscaster whose soothing voice and brazen sports jackets were fixtures for generations of baseball and college football fans, is dead at 76.

Nelson, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease, died late Saturday night of a bacterial infection, said a spokeswoman at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

Nelson, a native of Columbia, Tenn., was the Cotton Bowl play-by-play announcer for 26 years.

He was the voice of Notre Dame football for 13 years and did NFL games for CBS in the late 1960s.

Nelson was one of three announcers hired by the expansion New York Mets in 1962 and stayed with the team for 17 years. The others, Ralph Kiner and Bob Murphy, are still with the team.

In 1985, Nelson teamed with Paul Hornung on college football broadcasts for Turner Broadcasting. He was inducted into the Sportscasters Hall of Fame in 1986.

Soccer

The U.S. national team defeated Nigeria, 3-2, in the opener of the U.S. Cup ’95 tournament before 22,578 at Foxboro, Mass. John Harkes, Marcelo Balboa and Cobi Jones scored for the United States. Balboa became the 26th player and the first American to play 100 international games. U.S. defender Alexi Lalas, who played in an Italian League match Saturday, played the second half.

Goals by Juninho, Ronaldo and Edmundo led Brazil to a 3-1 victory over England for the International Challenge trophy at Wembley, England. . . . Juventus of Turin added its ninth Italian Cup to its Italian league title, beating host Parma, 2-0, to win the two-leg final.

Miscellany

Rain washed out the men’s tennis final at the Beckenham Open in London and finalists Petr Korda and Andrew Richardson split the $12,000 prize money. . . . Mike Dodd and Mike Whitmarsh won by default at an AVP Pro Beach Volleyball tournament at Baltimore. Adam Johnson and Jose Loiola defaulted because Johnson suffered from muscle cramps. . . . Chann McRae and Jeanne Golay were crowned U.S. national road race champions as the 1995 national cycling championships concluded in Seattle. . . . Arthur Mercante became the first active referee enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame.