Gene Elston obit

Gene Elston, Astros’ original voice, dies at 93

 

He was not on the list.

Gene Elston, the quiet Midwesterner who taught thousands of fans the basics of the game as the original voice of Major League Baseball in Houston, has died at age 93.

Elston had been in declining health for several months and died peacefully, his son, Kim, said in an e-mail Saturday.

He broadcast Colt .45s and Astros games on radio and television from 1962 through 1986 and was selected as the 2006 winner of the Ford Frick Award from the National Baseball Hall of Fame for broadcasting contributions.

A native of Fort Dodge, Iowa, Elston was born on March 26, 1922. His first job in announcing was high school basketball in 1941. From there he progressed to minor league baseball starting in 1946. His first job in the major leagues was 8 years later in 1954, when he became the number two radio announcer for the Chicago Cubs, alongside Bert Wilson. In 1958, he moved to a national radio audience by announcing the Game of the Day on the Mutual Broadcasting System, with Bob Feller.

“He lived a full, vibrant life doing what he loved the most,” Kim Elston said. “His life should be celebrated for his love of life, his family, his accomplishments, his dogs and for his love of the game.

In 1961, Elston joined veteran radio broadcaster Loel Passe to announce the final season of Houston's minor league franchise, the Houston Buffs. With the expansion of the major league and the inaugural 1962 season of the Houston Colt 45s, Elston was chosen to lead the radio broadcast. (Passe stayed on as the color commentator with Elston until Passe retired in 1976.) The team changed its name to the Astros three years later, and Elston continued as their main announcer through 1986, when he ended his association with the Astros and joined Tal Smith Enterprises as a consultant and researcher.

“I’m sure, and I hope he realized it, too, that many, many Astros fans are just that, because of the way he had of putting them into a ballpark with words alone. Now, my hope is that there is a new voice sharing the duties in the press box at the Field of Dreams.”

Elston’s reserved eloquence was a reflection of his upbringing and training in an era where words, not pictures, told the story of the game.

“He never treated the game like it was a four-alarm fire and that you’ve got to come down to watch things burn,” said Curt Smith, author of “Voices of the Game” and the preeminent historian of baseball broadcasters. “He treated the listener with respect, and he assumed a certain body of knowledge by the viewer or listener.”

Elston carried the same style into the television era, most memorably with his succinct description during the telecast of Mike Scott’s no-hitter that clinched the National League West title for the Astros in 1986.

He said, “There it is,” as the final out was recorded, and then let the pictures and sounds take center stage.

“He was the most underrated play by play man I’ve ever listened to,” said longtime Houston broadcaster Bill Worrell. “He could paint a picture with very few words. I appreciated his style, and I appreciated him.”

On the Scott no-hitter, Worrell said, “Had he been on radio he would have said more to describe to the listener what was going on. But on television, he said what he had to say and laid out, and this was a time before people were told to do that sort of thing. It was perfect.”

It was, unfortunately, one of Elston’s final regular-season games as an Astros announcer. He was fired after the 1986 season by Astros general manager Dick Wagner but remained active through 1997 announcing the CBS Radio Network’s “Game of the Week.”

“I tried to put myself in the fan’s seat and to tell them what I thought they wanted to know,” he said in a 2006 interview. “I wanted to do the actual scene at the ballpark. I wanted to follow the ball. When the ball wasn’t moving around, I would do color aspects around the stadium.”

Of TV games, he said, “It’s easy if you put yourself in the fan’s place. You’ve got a picture in front of you. Don’t say what is going on. If a ground ball is hit to second base, say `Ball’s hit,’ and you don’t even have to say that.”

Elston was born March 26, 1922, in Iowa, and got his big break on radio calling Cleveland Rams football games in the late 1940s, He made his major league debut calling Cubs games on WIND in Chicago from 1955 through 1957 and then spent three seasons calling the Mutual Radio Network’s Game of the Day, which led to his hiring by the Colt .45s.

His Houston broadcast partners included Loel Passe (1962-76), Frick Award winners Harry Kalas (1965-69) and Bob Prince (1976), current Rays announcer Dewayne Staats (1977-84) and former Astros pitcher and manager Larry Dierker (1980-86).

He also swapped radio and television duties with Milo Hamilton in 1985 and 1986, but the two rarely shared the booth.

Kim Elston said his father’s memorial service will be private, and his ashes will be placed at the Houston National Cemetery.

The family has designated the Houston SPCA or the animal rescue group of their choice for memorials or, Kim Elston said, “just by taking the time to enjoy a baseball game with their son or daughter.”

Elston called 11 no-hitters, including Nolan Ryan’s fifth no-hitter, and Ryan’s son, Reid, the Astros’ president of business operations, expressed the ballclub’s condolences in a statement Saturday night.

“The memories he helped create are cherished fondly by the generations of Astros fans that he touched,” Ryan said. “We are deeply saddened by the passing of Gene Elston. Gene helped introduce baseball to Houston as a part of the original broadcast team of the Colt .45s when the franchise was born in 1962.

“For 25 seasons, he served as the lead voice of the Colt .45s and Astros and called many of the great moments in franchise history. On behalf of the entire Astros organization, I send my deepest condolences to Gene’s family members and to his many friends and fans.”