The Globe Gazette
Mason City, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa
Saturday, September 28, 1940, Page 16

Long before Pat Flanagan's name and voice became familiar to the nation's radio listeners residents of Mason City knew him well. For before he entered radio, Pat was a chiroparactor with offices for two years in the First National bank building here.

As one of the nation's outstanding baseball broadcasters, Pat Flanagan has been describing games for WBBM-CBS listeners since 1927 when the station first began broadcasing baseball. At the present he is teamed for the baseball broadcasts with John Harrington. Pat also does a regular sports review, has been going spot news of "special events" work on WBBM for years and is heard as a newscaster.

Mason Cityans will remember him as an affable and able man who easily made friends and kept them. He was active in the affairs of the Clausen-Worden post of the American Legion and his fine top tenor voice was often heard carrying the high ones for the "Rusty Hinge" quartet as it was originally constituted.

Pat made a great many friends here and he still has a warm spot in his heart for Mason City, as many of his listeners can testify. More than once he has mentioned the names of friends from here in his running chatter during a baseball or football broadcast.

Born in Clinton, April 11, 1893, Pat was christened Charles C. Flanagan. He attended public schools in Clinton, worked his way through college by means of a B.S. degree from Grinnell in 1913. During college he sang in the glee club and did choir work. [illegible - Track?], tennis, basketball and football were among his college activities.

After graduation, he became physical director of the Y.M.C.A. in Clinton. From there he went to Fond du Lac, Wis., and then took charge of sports at the Hyde Park Y.M.C.A. in Chicago. As physical director Flanagan taught boxing, swimming and jiu-jitsu.

When the World wawr broke out Flanagan went to France with the medical detachment of the 33rd infantry of Chicago. Upon his return, Pat entered the insurance business but gave it up to study chiropractic at the Palmer school in Davenport. He attended classes and taught at the Palmer school from 1921 to 1926.

His entrance into the field of announcing was accidental. Having joined the staff of station WOC, operated by the Palmer School of Chiropractic, as a salesman, Pat was drafted one night when the regular announcer was caught on a turnstile bridge and did not get to the station in time to broadcast. The Flanagan pinch-hitting assignment brought instructions for him to quit selling and begin announcing.

On June 11, this year [1940], Pat began his 18th year in radio. He joined the staff of station WBBM and the Columbia Broadcasting system in Chicago in 1927. When the station began baseball broadcasts Pat became the first baseball announcer and has been at it since that time.

He broadcasts 154 big league baseball games each year and the Chicago city series each fall and spring. His first network appearance on CBS came in the broadcast of a Minnesota-Northwestern football game in the fall of 1928.

Despite his lengthy expericnce, Pat still cannot face a microphone without his mouth becoming dry and moisture in his palms. After the first sentence and he takes a second breath, Pat gets down in his description of a game or event.

Pat was married June 30, 1930, to Hazel Elinor Rieman in Chicago. They met at a party and were introduced by frends.

Thin and angular, with a shock of graying hair, Pat is slightly over six feet tall and weighs 170 pounds.

In addition to his regular schedule of sports and news broadcasts, Pat makes a trip every spring to the training camps of major league baseball teams in the south and Pacific coast areas. During the current season, Pat made special recorded broadcasts from each training camp, which were later used on WBBM. He averages more than 2,500 letters a week, and had one week during which he received 15,000.

CHICAGO - Several current and former Chicago Cubs broadcasters are among the nominees for the Ford C. Frick Award. The award is presented annually to the broadcaster who has made a major contribution to baseball. Jack Brickhouse won it in 1983, and Harry Caray won it in 1989.

. . . .Voters should base their selections on four criteria: longevity; continuity with a club; honors, including awards and national assigments, such as the World Series and All-Star-Games; and popularity with the fans.

. . . Among the past Cubs broadcasters who are Frick nominees are:

. . . . Pat Flanagan: He was with the Cubs from 1929-43, and was one in a group of talented Chicago broadcasters that changed the way teams reached their fans over the radio. Flanagan was one of the first to recreate road games from a Western Union ticker. Primarily a Cubs fan, Flanagan was behind the microphone for both Chicago squads on WBBM. He covered the first All-Star Game from Comiskey Park in 1933.

[Pat was with WJJD from 1941 to 1943.]

Photograph courtesy of Globe-Gazette

Transcription and note by Sharon R. Becker, May of 2014