Tom Hamilton Reflects on 35 Years as the Voice of Cleveland Baseball

Since 1990, Tom Hamilton has been the sound of summer in northeast Ohio. The Wisconsin native was already a seasoned broadcaster when he came to Cleveland to take a job with Herb Score in the radio booth calling games for the Cleveland Guardians, and he’s been there ever since.

Although Hamilton has also called college basketball and football games, he has had his greatest success and greatest recognition through his work for the Guardians, first at Cleveland Stadium and now “at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario,” as he intones at the start of each game.

Hamilton was inducted into the Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame and the Cleveland Press Club Hall of Fame and received the lifetime achievement award at the Cleveland Sports Awards. This year, he’ll be honored at the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum during induction weekend, July 25 through 28, as the Ford Frick Award winner, an honor given each year to an outstanding baseball announcer. “It hasn’t really sunk in,” he says of the recognition.

We talked with Hamilton about his start in Cleveland and what he’s looking forward to during induction weekend.

You came to Cleveland in 1990. Did you have any inkling of the success or durability you might have here?
Heavens no. This is a very unpredictable business. … One of the things I was so grateful for — and am to this day — is that Herb Score took me in and respected me as an equal, even though I never was his equal. Fans loved and respected Herb so much. Because of his acceptance of me, the fans accepted me. 

What are you looking forward to most when you go to Cooperstown for induction weekend?
I’m almost ashamed to say I’ve never gone through the Hall of Fame. The Indians played a couple exhibition games in Cooperstown in the 1990s, but I didn’t go to the Hall of Fame because I was always planning to take my boys in the offseason. … I think it’ll be neat to see [former Indians pitcher] CC Sabathia get in. He’s a great guy and I think the world of him. And I’ll get to see Jim Thome’s plaque. He’s another great guy.

You’ve had a varied career, covering football, baseball and basketball. Is there anything you feel like you haven’t done?
I’ve always loved radio, because it’s a play-by-play medium. In television, the camera does the play-by-play. I remember watching Merle Harmon and Fred Taylor doing the Big Ten game of the week and thinking, “Wouldn’t it be something to do that?” I know how fortunate I have been, and I feel like I’ve lived out my dreams.

For more information, go to mlb.com/guardians.

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