If Milo's on, it must be baseball season

I did a road trip to a baseball game Tuesday and tuned in the Houston Astros' broadcast against Atlanta on XM radio.

Milo Hamilton sounds as good as ever.

Milo has been calling major league games for more than 50 years. During my grade-school years, he was the No. 2 man on White Sox broadcasts with Bob Elson. In the days before Atlanta got the Braves, many stations across the South carried White Sox games. One was WMRB in Greenville, so there's probably a pretty good chance Milo was working the first game I ever heard on radio.

When the Braves came to Atlanta, Milo came on board as the lead announcer. He's bounced around some since then, but has been a fixture on Astros games for several years.

I got the chance to interview Milo in the late 70s or early 80s when he was in Greenville to call a DePaul-Furman basketball game for WGN. He had been Jack Brickhouse's sidekick on Cubs telecasts for a few years. Brickhouse was stepping down (well, he may have been pushed) and there were reports Harry Caray was jumping from the White Sox to the Cubs.

One thing that I think comes through in his broadcasts is that Milo is confident of his abilities. In the interview with me, he expressed no doubt that he would be the Cubs' lead announcer the next season.

We all know how that worked out.

Still, I've always enjoyed Milo's calls. From "hotter than a depot stove" to "Holy Toledo, What a play," he does a great job of colorfully conveying the game action.

XM is worth its cost just for the chance to list to folks like Milo, Vin Scully and Bob Uecker call games.

Enjoy them while you can.