Gil Stratton, RIP

[GA Russell]

For the 1960 and '61 football seasons, my family lived in Seattle. NBC carried the Baltimore Colts games (with Chuck Thompson announcing) and the Pittsburgh Steelers games (with Lyndsay Nelson). They started at 10:30 am pacific time.

CBS carried the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers games, which of course were in the afternoon. Gil Stratton announced those.

The NBC games were always good. The CBS games were always boring. I never blamed Stratton for that. The 49ers and the Rams were both pretty bad in those days. But the CBS games were so often boring (and in those days as a kid I would watch just about anything!) that in '61 I tried the ABC broadcasts of the San Diego Chargers with Charlie Jones announcing. Those Charger games were great, and I quickly became an AFL fan for the duration.

Stratton was also a radio actor in the 50s, known as Gil Stratton, Jr. I never knew who Gil Stratton, Sr. was. I heard him often when listening to radio shows was a hobby of mine.

You will notice that the obit says that Stratton was also a Coast league umpire in the 50s. I never knew that!

Excerpted from the LA Times:

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-...0,7894390.story

Gil Stratton, 86, a Southern California sportscasting fixture

File photo In addition to sportscasting, Stratton's career included a stint in the Army Air Forces as well as acting roles. He appeared in the film "Girl Crazy" with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, singing "Embraceable You" in duet with Garland. The voice of the Rams and TV and radio anchor who said, 'I call 'em as I see 'em,' dies at home in Toluca Lake. 1:09 PM PDT, October 12, 2008

Gil Stratton, a longtime presence in Southern California sportscasting as the voice of the Rams, as the host of horse racing from Santa Anita and as an anchor on Channel 2 news and KNX 1070 Newsradio, died Saturday of congestive heart failure at this home in Toluca Lake, according to his wife Dee. He was 86.

A former Pacific Coast League umpire, Stratton's signature line, "I call 'em as I see 'em," became familiar to generations of Southern Californians during his 17-year tenure on "The Big News," the trailblazing KNXT, now KCBS, broadcast in the mid-1960s that also featured Clete Roberts, Jerry Dunphy, Ralph Story and Bill Keene.

In his sportscasting career, he covered the Summer Olympics from Rome in the 1960s, hosted the feature horse race on Saturdays from Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar, and worked as an announcer for the Rams, when they played in the Memorial Colisieum.

A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Stratton was born June 2, 1922. He attended Poly Prep in Brooklyn and earned his bachelor's degree from St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y. He started his acting career as a teenager and, at the age of 19, appeared on Broadway in the George Abbot production "Best Foot Forward" and also worked as a radio actor. Two years later, he appeared in the film "Girl Crazy" with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, singing "Embraceable You" in duet with Garland.

Stratton joined the Army Air Forces during World War II, being inducted on stage in Chicago after a performance of "Best Foot Forward," and was trained at the gunnery school in Las Vegas. But he spent much of his time umpiring service ball, a skill he had picked up while going to college. Years later, he would remember calling Joe DiMaggio out on a third strike at a game in Westwood and having the Yankee Clipper remark to him, "It was a little low, wasn't it son?"

After the war, he settled in Southern California and picked up his acting career, appearing in films including "Stalag 17" with William Holden, "The Wild One," which starred Marlon Brando, and "Monkey Business," with Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers and Charles Coburn.

He also did a wide variety of classic radio broadcasts, and when he wasn't working behind the mike or the camera, he made a living, often behind the plate, as an umpire for Pacific Coast League games for nine years in the 1950s.

[Jazzmoose]

I know your post says he appeared in Stalag 17, GA, but I just discovered today who he played: Cookie, the sidekick and narrarator. Always nice to have a face to go with the name!