He Was Best When He Just Didn’t Make Sense

The popularity of longtime San Diego Padre announcer Jerry Coleman was validated recently when he was named this year’s winner of the Ford C. Frick Award, which honors baseball broadcasters. He’ll be presented with the award during Hall of Fame weekend this summer at Cooperstown, N.Y.

Coleman is so beloved by fans in part because of his verbal missteps. Here is a sampling:

* “There’s a deep fly ball ... Winfield goes back, back ... his head hits the wall ... it’s rolling toward second base.”

* “Johnny Grubb slides into second with a stand-up double.”

* “Rich Folkers is throwing up in the bullpen.”

* “That big guy, Winfield, at 6 feet 6 inches, can do things only a small man can do.”

* “Ozzie Smith just made another play that I’ve never seen anyone else make before, and I’ve seen him make it more often than anyone else ever has.”

* “I’ve made a couple of mistakes I’d like to do over.”

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Trivia time: Coleman, 80, has been with the Padres since 1972, and has been their voice for all but one season, 1980. What was his role with the team that year?

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A good sport: Coleman, a decorated Marine pilot in World War II and an outstanding infielder for the New York Yankees for nine seasons, handles the ribbing over his gaffes with typical dignity and class.

“I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about it,” he once told The Times’ Dave Distel, “but I don’t feel quite as dumb as they make me look.”

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A froggy day: Lon Simmons, the longtime Bay Area announcer who was last year’s Frick Award winner, spent three years in the mid-1950s at radio station KMJ in Fresno.

KFSR-FM, the Fresno State student-run station, put together a special on Simmons last year that included one of his early assignments for KMJ -- the Horned Toad Derby in Coalinga, Calif.

Among Simmons’ concerns that day was that he would end up with a frog in his throat.

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Career decision: Simmons, who attended Burbank High and was sports editor of the school paper, told a group of newspaper reporters at Cooperstown last year that at one point he was considering getting into sportswriting.

“I looked into it, but newspapers back then weren’t paying very much,” Simmons said.

“I guess they still aren’t,” he added, bringing laughs from the reporters.

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Looking back: On this day in 1965, Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics had 41 rebounds to go along with 20 points in a 106-98 victory over the San Francisco Warriors. It was the Celtics’ 61st win of the season, then an NBA record.

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Trivia answer: Coleman was the Padres’ manager in 1980, when the team finished 73-89, sixth in the National League West.

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And finally: Coleman, discussing why he accepted the offer to manage the Padres, then a fifth-place team, recently told the “Loose Cannons” on 570: “Anything would be better than sitting in the booth watching them lose.”

Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.