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VOICES OF THE GAME: Collector’s sports collection features shrine to Hall of Fame broadcasters
When Jason Hyman was a kid, he religiously listened to Atlanta Braves games on the radio.
It wasn’t necessarily to hear the exploits of Chipper Jones, David Justice or Greg Maddux. It was to hear the melodious and dulcet tones of broadcasters like Ernie Johnson, Skip Caray and Pete Van Wieren, and later Joe Simpson and Don Sutton.
The love affair with broadcasters now borders on a fetish and into a lucrative business for the 44-year-old resident of Dayton, Ohio.
While some people’s furnished basements are turned into a wine cellar, Hyman’s is a baseball cellar, 2,200 square feet of baseball history.
His basement is not only a shrine to baseball broadcasters, but his baseball memorabilia collection is a mini-Cooperstown.
It runs the gamut from 10 signed Mickey Mantle baseballs to a corner dedicated to major league umpires to a niche for baseball writers who have won the Hall of Fame Spink Award to 200 signed bats, 2,200 signed baseballs and much, much more.
How about a ball signed by Connie Mack or one signed by Pie Traynor or Cy Young?
“The Cy Young ball goes for about $15,000,” said Hyman, who keeps a supply of surgical gloves for visitors to put on before handling his priceless items.
His love for baseball began with his father, Steve, a third baseman/catcher who signed with the San Diego Padres in the late 1960s.
“He never made it to the big show because he broke his ankle at two separate points in spring training,” said Hyman. “But he made some friends in Miami … Charlie Hough, Kurt Bevacqua and Eric Soderholm, all off the same American Legion team.
“My dad caught Charlie Hough when he was learning to throw the knuckleball,” Hyman added. “Through the years he also became good friends with Ron Blomberg and other guys. In the 1980s, when sports card shows started becoming popular, my dad and his friends began doing the shows, selling at the shows.”
Fast-forward to the 1990s when he was 13 or 14 years old. Hyman and his now 41-year-old brother, Jared, who shares Jason’s obsession with memorabilia and card collecting, sat at the shows with his father and visited flea markets to find hidden gems. That’s when he began collecting. And the rest is Hyman History.
“On Saturdays while we were driving, my dad would put Larry Munson and the Georgia Bulldogs on the car radio,” said Hyman. “Hearing Larry Munson was my first introduction into broadcasting. I loved listening to him.
“Transcend that into baseball and come February and March, Skip Caray, Ernie Johnson and Pete Van Wieren would come on and you’d hear those voices you hadn’t heard in four months.”
And that’s when he began collecting broadcasters memorabilia. As one descends the steps to his basement, there is a landing halfway. That’s where Hyman’s shrine to broadcasters resides.
There are 15 old-style stand-up microphones signed by Hall of Fame broadcasters, winners of the Ford C. Frick Award.
“I have baseballs signed by 45 of the 46 Hall of Fame broadcasters,” he said. “Every big-time play or historic event in a game comes with a broadcaster’s call. You have Joe Carter’s World Series home run for Toronto that ruined my Atlanta Braves.
“You’ve got Toronto broadcaster Tom Cheek screaming, ‘Touch ’em all, Joe. You’ll never have a bigger one than that.’ You have Joe Buck’s call of Mark McGwire’s record-breaking home run. You’ve got Skip Caray and Pete Van Wieren screaming, ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,’ when the Braves won the World Series.”
Hyman smiled broadly when he mentioned the famous Russ Hodges call on Bobby Thomson’s “Shot heard round the world” home run in the 1951 playoff between the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants: “The Giants win the pennant, the Giants win the pennant, the Giants win the pennant.”
Hyman then pointed to a wall on which was displayed a signed 8-by-11 black-and-white photo of Hodges.
He recalls Milo Hamilton’s call of Henry Aaron’s 715th home run to break Babe Ruth’s record and said, “You had the Southern California voice of Vin Scully calling it on the other side because they were playing the Dodgers.”
Vin Scully? Oh, yes.
“I have a plethora of Vin Scully awards,” he said. "I have a program from the second game he called as a professional.” A Brooklyn Dodgers game? Nope, it happened to be a Yale-Harvard football game. And he has a ticket from the first pro game Scully called … from the roof of Fenway Park.
But the most expensive and coveted piece of Scully memorabilia owned by Hyman is Scully’s ESPN Espy Icon award and the lanyard he wore the night of the presentation.
As he talked about his broadcasters collection he fished out some baseballs signed by legendary broadcasters Red Barber, Mel Allen, Scully, Jack Brickhouse, Ernie Harwell, Jaime Jarrin, Tony Kubek, Harry Caray, Bob Murphy and Hawk Harrelson.
“Bob Costas is the broadcaster I look up to the most,” he said. “Bob Costas is, by far, my favorite. His delivery, the way he brings the game, the personal stories. He loves Mickey Mantle, still carries Mantle’s baseball card in his wallet and spoke at The Mick’s funeral.
“I actually got to meet him in Cooperstown and that was … I was speechless. I didn’t know what to say or do,” Hyman said. “I never got to meet Vin Scully and that would have been the ultimate.”
There is a portion of one wall that has baseballs signed by every living Hall of Fame baseball player and some who are deceased.
His collection is international, too — a No. 42 Tokyo Yomiuri Giants uniform signed by the Babe Ruth of Japanese baseball, Sadaharu Oh, who hit 868 home runs.
There is a unique case containing baseballs, of course, but they are signed by famous non-baseball players, including dozens of legendary athletes (Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, Emmitt Smith), Hollywood celebrities (Burt Reynolds, James Earl Jones) and historical figures (John Glenn, Chuck Yeager).
There were 200 ceramic casts made of Willie Mays’ hand and glove. Hyman owns No. 37. And he owns a ceramic cast of Stan Musial’s hands holding a bat.
Riverside Drive in Dayton was renamed Mike Schmidt Parkway in honor of the Dayton-born Hall of Fame third baseman with the Philadelphia Phillies. Hyman rummaged in a corner and came up with a green street sign that reads, “Mike Schmidt Parkway.”
“I plan to take that to him and get him to sign it,” said Hyman, who prefers his memorabilia to be signed to increase the value.
HALL OF FAME ANNOUNCERS
Awards won by broadcasters are in Hyman’s collection. He has a plaque presented to pitcher Herb Score, not for his magnificent pitching career with Cleveland, but for “25 years of excellence as a broadcaster” for the Indians. He has a couple of Ernie Harwell’s awards, some awards originally owned by Jack Brickhouse, some trophies presented to Bob Uecker and Bob Wolff.
There is a complete collection of Joe Garagiola’s media passes from regular-season games, All-Star games and World Series games. And it includes a key to the city of St. Louis and keys to several cities that honored Garagiola.
Scorebooks used by broadcasters and sportswriters are part of Hyman’s vast collection. He has scorebooks from Garagiola, Dave Van Horn, Mel Allen and Joe Nuxhall, plus a scorecard signed by Bob “Gunner” Prince.
He has the 1988 scorebook scribbled in by Nuxhall, the Cincinnati Reds radio icon, that includes Tom Browning’s perfect game against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Hanging on a wall in the broadcasters portion is a signed photo of Jackie Robinson, not in a baseball uniform, but in a suit and tie sitting behind a microphone. “He was part of baseball’s Game of the Week as a broadcaster,” said Hyman.
Tickets to historic games are among his collection. He possesses a ticket to the game when Aaron tied Babe Ruth’s record with his 714th home run on Opening Day, 1974 in Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium. It was Hall of Fame broadcaster Marty Brennaman’s first game behind the microphone for the Reds. The ticket is signed by Brennaman and Aaron.
Hyman owns an unmatched collection of personally prized possessions and one of his most cherished is a complete collection of broadcaster Dick Enberg’s on-air wardrobe. He also has an Enberg scorebook and several of his plaques and trophies from professional awards, including his National Sportscasters Hall of Fame award, presented to Enberg in 2009.
From a box of credentials, Hyman pulled out Enberg’s 2014 baseball winter meetings media credentials, held in San Diego. Significance? “On the back, in Enberg’s hand-writing, was inscribed, ‘Winner of the 2015 Ford C. Frick Award.’ Presumably, it was announced at the winter meetings and he wrote it on his credentials,” said Hyman.
VINTAGE BASEBALL MEMORABILIA
Everywhere one looks, there is vintage baseball history and some of it is tucked where it can’t be seen.
Hyman leaned under a table and pulled out something and said, “This is some cool stuff, the type of stuff I get ahold of. This is a 1940 World Series press pass worn by Rosie Rosewell. And here is a baseball signed 20 times by Gene Elston, the first voice of the Houston Astros. He was practicing his autograph. It’s crazy. Look at it. Signed all sorts of different ways.”
When he rummages at yard sales, flea markets and auctions, he purchases baseball uniforms.
“Some of them I have no idea what they are,” he said. “I had no idea, they just looked old.” He held aloft one and on the front it said, “Six Corners Merchants.” And on the back is says, “Delaney’s Drug Store.”
Hyman called the baseball Hall of Fame to see if it had any information on the jersey. The eventual response was stunning.
“They told me it was the very first team they had seen, youth league team, where the town’s merchants backed the team. They researched it and, in their opinion, it was the very first traveling youth team backed by a town.” The town was Six Corners, Mass.
Famous boxing/baseball writer Bert Sugar wrote a book entitled, “Baseball Hall of Fame,” and on page 14 is a picture of the uniform from 1955 that Hyman donated to the Hall of Fame. He names Hyman as the owner of the historic uniform.
Hyman is a regular donator to the Hall of Fame, so much so that his picture occupies a spot in the Cooperstown baseball museum.
“That’s what started me as a collector of unique baseball items and now I am a lifetime member of the Baseball Hall of Fame,” he said. “I’ve donated more than 60 items to the Baseball Hall of Fame.”
Before departing the basement/museum, one must stop in the Cinema Room, where there is a 113-inch TV screen and five black leather La-z-Boy recliners on two tiers.
“This is where my friends and I sit to watch baseball movies like ‘Field of Dreams,’ ‘Bull Durham,’ ‘Major League,’ ‘A League of Their Own,’ and many, many more,” said Hyman.
In addition, he has news reels of broadcasters to watch: Jack Buck, Harry Caray and his personal favorite, Bob Costas.
“This is kind of cool,” he said, extracting a carefully wrapped document. “This is a letter from J.G. Taylor Spink of The Sporting News to Chicago White Sox owner Charles Comiskey, informing him that he has hired Ring Lardner to write for him.” It was written in 1910.
Then a quick stop in the bathroom where four LeRoy Neiman sports paintings hang on the wall, all signed by Neiman. The paintings, all signed by the subjects, are of Ken Griffey Jr., Joe DiMaggio, Tony La Russa and Mark McGwire.
“On the McGwire painting, he also signed that it was historic home run No. 62, the distance the ball traveled and where it landed,” said Hyman.
A stop is necessary in front of his bat collection. Many are on display racks on one wall and he said, “Including the most important bat I could have signed in my entire life. It is signed by my wife, Brooke, my daughter, Jillian, and my son, Ari.”
His wife’s opinion of his collection? “It’s fine, as long as he clutters up the basement and not the rest of the house.”
How does Hyman capture all the memorabilia. His nose is constantly close to a computer screen, scanning for items for sale. He also attends auctions, particularly when a famous baseball person dies and his memorabilia is available.
“I just go and make my bids and tell myself, ‘I’m going to get that stuff,’” he said. And he usually does. His overstuffed basement is proof.
— Hal McCoy is a longtime baseball beat writer who covered the Cincinnati Reds for the Daytona Daily News. He was the 2002 winner of the Baseball Writers Association of America's J.G. Taylor Spink Award for contributions to baseball writing. Jason Hyman has a display honoring McCoy.
Hal McCoy
