Herb Carneal passed away earlier this month but another legend he shared a radio microphone with in the 1960’s and 1970’s has been gone for almost 30 years now. Halsey Hall and Herb worked together on Minnesota Twins games, forming a broadcasting duo that some believe will never be equaled.
Herb was the low-key, smooth delivery play-by-play guy giving listeners a clear and concise description of the game action. Halsey was the color man and we should write color with a cap C. The loveable Halsey always was ready with a story, witty comment or baseball insight.
Just looking at Halsey, or listening to him, made you feel good. He had the appearance of anybody’s overweight grandfather. He often had a smile on his face, a cigar or green onion in his mouth, and greeted you with, “Hi, kid.”
Halsey had been a sportswriter and sportscaster in Minneapolis for many years before the Twins started playing here in 1961. Over the years he had accumulated so many experiences and stories that I would look forward to rain delays during Twins broadcasts when Halsey had even more air time.
Even the other team’s broadcasters sought Halsey during a rain delay. “If you had 30 minutes to kill there was nobody better,” said Dave Mona who covered the Twins for the Minneapolis Tribune in 1968-69.
The Halsey wit was captured in Stew Thornley’s 1991 book, “Holy Cow! The Life and Times of Halsey Hall” (Nodin Press, Minneapolis). Halsey was fearful of flying in airplanes and was famous for this quip: “I’d like one chance to Chicago, please.” He adored baseball including stories about the minor league Minneapolis Millers and their rickety old stadium, Nicollet Park: “Every time a foul ball hits the roof, all the toilets flush.”
Mona likened Halsey as a story teller to “an early Garrison Keillor” and recalled that before and after games other writers and broadcasters would gather around him. “Halsey would hold court,” Mona said. “He’d be eating his scallions and drinking whatever beverage they were serving in there. Both before and after the game, as long as there was a crowd, he’d stick around.”
“He was as funny a man as I’ve ever been around,” Herb Carneal said several years ago. He and many others thoroughly enjoyed telling stories about Halsey, not just hearing them. One of Herb’s favorites, and Mona’s, was a day the Twins were playing the White Sox in Chicago. Halsey was smoking his cigar and flicking ashes on the press box floor. The ashes made contact with paper on the floor and set off a small fire. Halsey’s sport coat, hanging on a chair, also caught fire.
“Players came out of the dugout, everybody in the stands turned around because there was a substantial amount of smoke coming out (of the press box) and after the game the players wanted to know what happened,” Mona said. “Jerry Zimmerman (Twins catcher), who was never really that good with a quote, had the best line…‘Halsey Hall is quite a guy. He can turn an ordinary sport coat into a blazer in nothing flat.’”
Halsey’s trademark expression was, “Holy Cow!” When something out of the ordinary happened during a game he would let loose with it. Halsey historians claim he was using the term on radio before broadcasters Harry Caray or Phil Rizzuto made the expression better known across America to millions of baseball fans.
What else would you expect from an original?