21 Facts About Chuck Thompson

Charles Lloyd Thompson was an American sportscaster best known for his broadcasts of Major League Baseball's Baltimore Orioles and the National Football League's Baltimore Colts.

Chuck Thompson was born in Palmer, Massachusetts, and moved with his family to Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1927.

Chuck Thompson began his broadcasting career in 1939 at WRAW-AM in Reading, working there until 1942.

Chuck Thompson's career was interrupted in October 1943, when he was drafted into the US Army.

In 1949, Chuck Thompson was hired by the Gunther Brewing Company to be WITH-AM's play-by-play voice for both the International League Orioles and the Colts, at the time a member of the All-America Football Conference.

The National Brewing Company had purchased the team's broadcast rights and hired Ernie Harwell as the lead voice, but still wanted Chuck Thompson to be part of the coverage.

Chuck Thompson agreed to work with Harwell on Orioles broadcasts on WCBM-AM and WMAR-TV in 1955.

Chuck Thompson returned to broadcast Orioles games on both radio and television.

Chuck Thompson resigned from the radio broadcasts after the 1982 season and the death of longtime broadcast partner Bill O'Donnell.

Chuck Thompson was the narrator of the official 1966 World Series highlight film jointly produced by both major leagues.

Besides his baseball-related achievements, Chuck Thompson called Colts football for many years, first on CBS television in the 1950s and '60s, and then alongside Vince Bagli on WCBM Radio from 1973 until the team's relocation to Indianapolis in 1984.

Chuck Thompson ended up broadcasting the first-ever sudden-victory overtime in professional football history.

Chuck Thompson called the 1959 and 1964 Championship Games for NBC and CBS, respectively, and regular-season NFL games for the Mutual radio network.

Chuck Thompson did baseball work for NBC, beginning with the Game of the Week in 1959 and 1960.

Chuck Thompson is particularly remembered for his flawed but endearing call of Bill Mazeroski's championship-clinching home run to end the 1960 World Series, for which he was the play-by-play announcer for NBC Radio.

Chuck Thompson came out of retirement in 1991 to work part-time on Orioles games for WBAL-AM when Jon Miller was away broadcasting ESPN Sunday Night Baseball.

Chuck Thompson received the Ford C Frick Award from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in 1993.

Chuck Thompson, who lived in Lutherville, Maryland, at the time, died at Greater Baltimore Medical Center on March 6,2005, after suffering a stroke.

Chuck Thompson explained the details in Curt Smith's Voices of the Game:.

Chuck Thompson was a great guy, very proper, and like any golfer, he had some real frustrations.

Chuck Thompson phased out the expression when the Vietnam War was protracted, although it was later picked up by North Carolina Tar Heels football and basketball broadcaster Woody Durham.