Herb Score Has Died: Former Cleveland Indians' Pitcher and Broadcaster was 75

When a pitcher whom sports writers had already measured for Cooperstown was driven from the mound by enemy bats, Dad would grumble: Herb Score. Now he was a pitcher. Too bad about him. Got hit by a line drive and was never the same . . .

Back then, there was no Internet as a source of instant baseball knowledge. From the backs of baseball cards, and the occasional library book and newspaper article, I learned that Herb Score's first two seasons were exceptional. He won sixteen games for the Cleveland Indians in 1955, along with the American League Rookie Of The Year award, and twenty in 1956. In both years, he led the league in strikeouts. Not until Fernando Valenzuela and Dwight Gooden arrived in the 80s did a pitcher record two equally outstanding initial seasons.

Then: May 7, 1957. A liner hit by New York Yankees third baseman Gil McDougald struck Score below the left eye. He missed the rest of the season; one in which he had already allowed only eighteen hits in thirty-six innings.

Herb came back, but his best year was a 9-10 1959. On April 18, 1960-the day after the Indians sent Rocky Colavito to the Detroit Tigers for Harvey Kuenn-they traded Herb to the Chicago White Sox for starting pitcher Barry Latman. He pitched little for the Sox and retired after the 1962 season.

In 1964 Herb became an Indians TV announcer. He would cover the Tribe on TV or radio for the next 33 years. He was there for The Rock's return to Cleveland, Frank Robinson's debut as baseball's first black manager, the exploits of "Super" Joe Charboneau, and Len Barker's perfect game. He also saw the debut of Sam McDowell, a flame-throwing lefty who burst onto the major leage scene with an intensity that resembled his own.

Along the way, he saw a lot of bad baseball. For most of his time in the booth, the Indians were closer to the bottom that the top of the standings. Someone once estimated that Herb Score had seen more home team losses than any fan or broadcaster in baseball history.

In 1973, fading Cleveland top-40 station WKYC became WWWE and added the Indians, and I heard Herb Score for the first time. Tribe games later moved to WKNR, that was inaudible for me in the daytime and in and out at night. Before XM and MLB Audio, AM radio was the only way to hear out-of-town teams. I would turn a radio this way and that, trying to get 1220 to stay tuned in, sometimes settling for the Indians' Canton or Youngstown stations. On whichever one that was listenable, Herb sounded like your father, or best friend, calling games and telling baseball stories in a gruff but soothing voice that sounded more his native New York than Ohio.

The Indians returned to 3WE in 1998, the year after Herb retired; the year after they won the American League pennant and took the Florida Marlins to extra innings in game seven of the World Series.

He never cited the injury as the end of his career. In 1958, he hurt his pitching arm. The next season, he changed his motion to prevent another similar injury. The change in delivery, and not effects of the line drive, he would say, threw off his game.

Herb Score died on November 11, 2008 at age 75. He had been confined to a wheelchair since suffering a stroke in 2002. Born in Rosedale, New York, he had become as much a part of Cleveland as the Terminal Tower or the Shoreway. In his obituary, his home town was the same one printed on his baseball cards: Rocky River, Ohio.

If there is a baseball Heaven, Dad has already told Herb Score several times about the year he hit .412 in semi-pro ball, when he was the best bunter in the league. Herb has slipped an arm around Dad and gently said: Not off my heat, you wouldn't.