Houston Sports - Gene Elston

Gene Elston

Born: March 26, 1922

Sport: Baseball - Announcer (2006 Ford C. Frick Award - National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum)

Like many sports fans, I follow games and events on numerous media formats.  Although the modern increase in apps, websites, and regional TV networks has increased the ways games are consumed, the radio broadcast has remained a staple of sports coverage for over a century.  Baseball, long known as America's Pastime, has been especially associated with radio as the frequency of games and pace of play allowed for announcers to not only to explain how the action on the field would play out, but also tell stories, explain rules, discuss players, or provide other commentary.  Houston has been no stranger to quality broadcasters over the years, and this week we will learn about Gene Elston, the city's first play-by-play baseball announcer whose voice became synonymous with the team itself. 

The Astrodome and nearby Colts Stadium, where Gene Elston called Houston games

Born in the small town of Fort Dodge, some 80 miles north of Des Moines, IA, Gene Elston was very much like many other midwestern children.  His father ran a local grocery store and bar, and young Gene spent his time playing baseball, basketball, and football.  At the age of 18, immediately after graduating from the local high school, he was hired by the local KVFD radio station to call the school's basketball games, but he also got the opportunity to be in the booth when Chicago's two major league teams, the Cubs and White Sox, came to Fort Dodge in 1942 to play an exhibition game.  Although Elston would soon leave to serve in the US Navy during World War II, he had acquired a taste for broadcasting baseball at the highest level.  Upon finishing his tour of duty in 1944, Elston returned to Fort Dodge and continued broadcasting at KVFD.  In 1945 he became the color commentator for the Cleveland Rams of the National Football League, and a year later he moved to Waterloo, IA, to call games for the city's minor league baseball team, called the Waterloo White Hawks.  Continuing to work his way up the ranks, it took Elston three years to make it to Des Moines to work for the Western League's Bruins in the state capital.  By 1954, he had at last reached the major leagues, albeit as the #2 man for the Chicago Cubs, and four years later he made it to the national scene to call Mutual Broadcasting's Game of the Day alongside Hall of Fame player (and fellow Iowa native) Bob Feller.  His final rung of the ladder came in 1961 when Elston was chosen to be the primary play-by-play voice of a new expansion team based in Houston, TX.

Upon arriving in Houston, Gene Elston first called the final season of the minor league Buffaloes alongside Loel Passe, another veteran broadcaster who was 5 years older than Elston.  The tandem continued together after the major league team began, first known as the Colt .45s and later adopting the Astros name when they moved into the Astrodome in 1965.  Elston prided himself on being a consummate professional journalist, dutifully conveying the facts of the game to his audience, while Passe added unabashed fandom and a dose of southern idioms.  The pair were a daily part of the team's outreach to their new, growing fan base (coincidentally including a young boy growing up in the Houston suburb of Alvin named Nolan Ryan) as they worked together until Passe left the team in 1976.  Elston lasted until 1986 with the Astros organization and had numerous other partners during his tenure in Houston, including Harry Kalas, Bob Prince, Dewayne Staats, Larry Dierker, and Milo Hamilton.  In addition to calling the first professional game in Houston, a Colt .45s win over the Cubs, and the first indoor baseball game, an Astros win over the Yankees, some of Elston's other memorable moments at the microphone included Eddie Matthews' 500th home run, Nolan Ryan surpassing Walter Johnson as the all time strikeout king, and 11 no-hitters, culminating with Mike Scott's effort over the Giants to clinch the NL West title.  After the Astros' 1986 postseason run ended, so did Elston's 25-year run with the organization, but while he was no longer the voice of the Astros he continued to do what he loved.  Returning to the national airwaves, he called the CBS Game of the Week until 1995, and then broadcast NL playoff games from 1995-97 when he finally decided to retire.  After 47 years of broadcasting the game he loved, Elston wrote a book on baseball in 2001 called A Stitch in Time: A Baseball Chronology, 1845-2000.

Many radio broadcasters have etched their names into the psyche of local fan bases, and a few have become household names for national networks.  In 1978, the National Baseball Hall of Fame began honoring some of those individuals with the Ford C. Frick Award and induction to Cooperstown, starting with two men that first year and one per year ever since.  In 2006, Gene Elston's name was announced as that year's honoree, and the 84-year-old made his journey to accept the award in person.  He had already been named to the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame in 1993 and the Texas Radio Hall of Fame in 2002, but it was this honor that cemented his legacy.  Elston passed away in 2015 at the age of 93 in his adopted city that had embraced his voice and talent, and his ashes were placed at the Houston National Cemetery.  Gene Elston was posthumously inducted into the Houston Astros inaugural Hall of Fame class in 2019, and a plaque honoring him remains today on the team's Walk of Fame beyond the ballpark's left-center field wall.

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