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Chuck Thompson, 83; Voice of the Baltimore Colts and Orioles

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From the Baltimore Sun

Chuck Thompson, whose familiar radio voice painted the picture of Baltimore sports for more than half a century, has died. He was 83.

Thompson died Sunday at Greater Baltimore Medical Center in Towson, Md., after suffering a stroke Saturday.

Thompson -- known for his catch phrases, “Ain’t the beer cold!” and “Go to war, Miss Agnes!” -- went to Baltimore in 1949 to broadcast the games of the International League Orioles and never left.

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He called Oriole games for the better part of five decades and served for 30 years as the play-by-play announcer for the Baltimore Colts.

He was forced to stop doing play-by-play of Oriole games in 2000 because of macular degeneration, which made it impossible for him to read documents or follow the ball.

In 1993, Thompson received the Ford Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame, which, while not technically signifying induction into the hall, is the highest honor a baseball announcer can receive.

Born in Palmer, Mass., and brought up in Reading, Pa., Thompson broke into broadcasting in 1939, when he was 18, calling the games of Albright College for WRAW radio in Reading for $5 a game.

After serving as an Army sergeant in Europe during World War II, he went to work for WIBG radio in Philadelphia.

Thompson broadcast his first major league baseball game in 1946, when the Philadelphia Phillies’ regular announcers were delayed getting to the radio booth because they had been honored on the field between games of a doubleheader and the elevator operator wasn’t there to bring them back.

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“The next thing I knew, Whitey Lockman was coming to the plate to start the second game and I just started talking,” Thompson told the Baltimore Sun in 1993.

A few days after he broadcast the Navy-Missouri football game from Baltimore in 1948, the Gunther Brewing Co., which owned the broadcast rights to the International League Orioles, offered him the job of replacing Bill Dyer.

To sweeten the offer, Gunther threw in the job of broadcasting the pro football games of the All-America Football Conference Colts.

When the St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore in 1954, the National Brewing Co. acquired the team’s broadcast rights and Thompson was temporarily out of a job. But before the next season, an agreement was struck to allow Thompson to call Oriole games.

In 1957, a dispute between National Brewing and Gunther Brewing -- which was still his employer -- forced Thompson to leave the Orioles to call Washington Senator games.

During those years, he also was hired by the NBC television network to call its “Game of the Week.”

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Thompson returned to broadcasting the Orioles in 1962.

He is survived by his wife, Betty; a son, Craig; a daughter, Susan Perkins; a brother, Fred; and eight grandchildren. His first wife, Rose, died in 1985, and another daughter, Sandy Kuckler, died of cancer about four years ago.

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