Broadcasters by Year 1924 2006

By Wikipedia

Ken Coleman was a radio and television sportscaster for 34 years (1954 - 1989). 

Coleman broke into broadcasting with the NFL Cleveland Browns (1952 - 1965), calling every touchdown that Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown ever scored. He also began his baseball broadcasting career in Ohio, calling Cleveland Indians games on television for ten seasons (1954 - 1963). In his first year with the Indians, Coleman called their record-setting 111-win season and their World Series loss to the New York Giants.

In 1965, Coleman got a job with the Boston Red Sox, replacing Curt Gowdy. He broadcast the 1967 World Series (which the Red Sox lost to the St. Louis Cardinals) for NBC television and radio. From 1975 to 1978 Coleman worked for the Cincinnati Reds. In that four-year span, he broadcast two World Series winners (1975, 1976).

Coleman returned to Boston in 1979. He broadcast the Red Sox' 1986 World Series loss to the New York Mets and two Red Sox ALCS (1986 and 1988). Coleman remained in the Red Sox radio booth until his retirement in 1989.

Additionally, he wrote books on sportscasting, was one of the founding fathers of the Red Sox Booster Club and the BoSox Club, and was intimately involved with the Jimmy Fund, which raises money for cancer research.

He had the routine of taking a swim in the Atlantic Ocean every day (including the winter) until he died.

He was the father of Cleveland sports and newscaster Casey Coleman. Coleman was inducted to the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame on May 18, 2000. He died at 78.

Quotes

"Fly ball, left field...Yastrzemski is going hard...way back...way back...and he dives and makes a tremendous catch! One of the greatest catches I've ever seen!" - Ken Coleman, calling Carl Yastrzemski's over-the-shoulder catch of Tom Tresh's deep fly ball to left field at Yankee Stadium, preserving a no-hit bid by rookie Red Sox pitcher Billy Rohr, making his first major league start in April, 1967

"This is truly a love story...an affair 'twixt a town and a team...a town that had waited and waited for what seemed an Impossible Dream." - Coleman, introducing a television special that aired on Boston's WHDH-TV celebrating the 1967 "Impossible Dream" Red Sox

"Deep right field...Number 44!" - Coleman, calling Yastrzemski's 44th home run at Fenway Park, tying him with Harmon Killebrew for the American League lead and giving him the Triple Crown, in the final game of the regular season on October 1, 1967