Ned Martin
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Edwin Martin III (August 9, 1923 – July 23, 2002) was an American sportscaster, known primarily as a play-by-play announcer for Major League Baseball's Boston Red Sox from 1961 to 1992.


Broadcasting career

Martin was born in Wayne, Pennsylvania, and grew up in
Upper Merion Township Upper Merion Township is a township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. The population was 28,395 at the 2010 U.S. Census. Located from Philadelphia, it consists of the villages of Gulph Mills, King of Prussia, Swedeland, Swedesburg, and port ...
, where as a youth he was a passionate follower of Philadelphia's two major-league teams, the Athletics and the Phillies. He attended
Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
and played varsity baseball until World War II interrupted his education. Martin joined the United States Marine Corps, where he was a combat veteran and took part in the
Battle of Iwo Jima The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945) was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and United States Navy (USN) landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army (IJ ...
. After the war, he returned to Duke to earn a degree in English literature in 1948. He worked in advertising before beginning his broadcasting career as the play-by-play voice of the
minor league Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in Nor ...
Charleston Senators for
WCHS (AM) WCHS (580 kHz) is a news/talk/sports formatted broadcast radio station licensed to Charleston, West Virginia, serving Southern West Virginia and Southwestern West Virginia. WCHS is owned and operated by West Virginia Radio Corporation. WCH ...
in West Virginia in 1956. After five years with Charleston, Martin was hired in the autumn of 1960 to succeed Bill Crowley as a member of the Red Sox' radio/TV team; he had filled in with the Bosox' broadcasting crew during a series in Baltimore during the 1960 campaign, effectively a successful audition for a permanent role.


Boston Red Sox

Martin called Boston Red Sox games on both WHDH radio and WHDH-TV from 1961 to 1971, on WHDH radio only from 1972 to 1975, on WMEX/WITS from 1976 to 1978, on WSBK-TV from 1979 to 1987, and on
New England Sports Network New England Sports Network, popularly known as NESN , is an American regional sports cable and satellite television network owned by a joint venture of Fenway Sports Group (which owns a controlling 80% interest, and is the owner of Boston Red So ...
cable from 1985 to 1992. He worked with fellow announcers or analysts Curt Gowdy, Ken Coleman,
Art Gleeson Arthur Levi Gleeson (September 29, 1906 – November 27, 1964) was an American baseball announcer. Gleeson was born in Sumpter, Oregon. He got his start calling games for teams in the California League games during the late 1930s and early 1940s ...
, Mel Parnell, Johnny Pesky, John MacLean, Dave Martin (no relation),
Jim Woods James McCarthy Woods (October 22, 1916 – February 20, 1988) was an American sportscaster, best known for his play-by-play work on Major League Baseball broadcasts. Biography Early life Woods was born in Kansas City, Missouri. When only f ...
,
Ken Harrelson Kenneth Smith Harrelson (born September 4, 1941), nicknamed "The Hawk" due to his distinctive profile, is an American former professional baseball All-Star first baseman and outfielder, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1963 to 197 ...
, Bob Montgomery, and Jerry Remy. He began his Boston career in a supporting role for #1 announcers Gowdy (through 1965) and Coleman (1966–1971). But, after the 1971 season, when WHDH-TV's owner, the ''
Boston Herald-Traveler The ''Boston Herald'' is an American daily newspaper whose primary market is Boston, Massachusetts, and its surrounding area. It was founded in 1846 and is one of the oldest daily newspapers in the United States. It has been awarded eight Pulit ...
,'' lost its television license, the Red Sox split their TV and radio crews, with Coleman and analyst Pesky working only on television with the Red Sox' new flagship, WBZ-TV. Martin remained with the Red Sox' radio team as its new lead announcer, initially working with MacLean, briefly, then Dave Martin in 1972 and 1973. Then, in 1974, he established a memorable collaboration with longtime MLB announcer Woods. Their five-year partnership included the Red Sox'
1975 It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 - Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...
pennant-winning season, and concluded with the
1978 American League East tie-breaker game The 1978 American League East tie-breaker game was a one-game extension to Major League Baseball's (MLB) 1978 regular season. The game was played at Fenway Park in Boston on the afternoon of Monday, October 2 between the rival New York Yankees ...
, which Boston famously lost on
Bucky Dent Russell Earl "Bucky" Dent (born Russell Earl O'Dey; November 25, 1951) is an American former Major League Baseball (MLB) player and manager. He earned two World Series rings as the starting shortstop for the New York Yankees in 1977 and 1978 and ...
's home run. Despite their relatively short time together, their chemistry and rapport were noted by national observers such as Roger Angell of '' The New Yorker'' and Bill Littlefield of National Public Radio. "The familiar quiet tones and effortless precision of the veteran Red Sox announcers, Ned Martin and Jim Woods, invited me to share with them the profound New England seriousness of Following the Sox," wrote Angell, owner of a summer home in Maine, in 1978. With Martin and Woods "on the radio, I was in the company of two favorite uncles, at once knowledgeable and mischievous. When they were on the job, I didn't mind rain delays. Sometimes I hoped for them," wrote Littlefield in 2013. However, the team of Martin and Woods was broken up after the 1978 campaign, when the Bosox' flagship radio station, WITS-AM, fired them, seeking more sponsor-friendly on-air talent. Both men moved to television: Martin to WSBK-TV as the television voice of the Red Sox, replacing
Dick Stockton Richard Edward Stokvis (born November 22, 1942), known professionally as Dick Stockton, is an American retired sportscaster. Stockton began his career in Philadelphia, then moved to Pittsburgh, where he worked as the sports director for KDKA-TV ...
, and Woods to national games on USA Network. During Martin's three decades with the Red Sox, he called the entire career of Hall-of-Famer
Carl Yastrzemski Carl Michael Yastrzemski ( ; nicknamed "Yaz"; born August 22, 1939) is an American former Major League Baseball player. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1989. Yastrzemski played his entire 23-year Major League career with the Bost ...
, and was behind the microphone for some of baseball's most memorable moments, including the final win of the Red Sox "Impossible Dream" season of 1967,
Carlton Fisk Carlton Ernest Fisk (born December 26, 1947), nicknamed "Pudge" and "The Commander", is an American former professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a catcher from 1969 to 1993 for the Boston Red Sox (1969, 1971–1980) a ...
's game-winning home run off the foul pole in Game 6 of the
1975 World Series The 1975 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's (MLB) 1975 season. The 72nd edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff played between the American League (AL) champion Boston Red Sox and the Natio ...
, Yastrzemski's 400th home run and 3,000th base hit in 1979, and Roger Clemens' first 20-strikeout game on April 29, 1986. Martin was known for his erudition and literary references during broadcasts (quotations from Shakespeare were not uncommon) and for his signature exclamation, ''"Mercy!"'', after an exciting play. Having spent 32 seasons with the club's broadcast team calling games on TV and on the radio, he described as many as 5,130 regular and postseason Red Sox games.


Legacy

Martin was inducted into the
Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame The Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame was instituted in 1995 to recognize the careers of selected former Boston Red Sox players, coaches and managers, and non-uniformed personnel. A 15-member selection committee of Red Sox broadcasters and executives, p ...
in 2000. On November 1, 2019, Martin was named as a finalist for the
Ford C. Frick Award The Ford C. Frick Award is presented annually by the National Baseball Hall of Fame in the United States to a broadcaster for "major contributions to baseball". It is named for Ford C. Frick, former Commissioner of Major League Baseball. Before h ...
as part of
2020 Baseball Hall of Fame balloting Elections to the National Baseball Hall of Fame for 2020 proceeded according to rules most recently amended in 2016. As in the past, the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) voted by mail to select from a ballot of recently retired p ...
.


Other assignments

Martin also was a
football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
announcer, covering the
American Football League The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. ...
's
Boston Patriots Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- most ...
in
1965 Events January–February * January 14 – The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years. * January 20 ** Lyndon B. Johnson is Second inauguration of Lyndo ...
, as well as
college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...
games for
Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
, Yale, and
Dartmouth Dartmouth may refer to: Places * Dartmouth, Devon, England ** Dartmouth Harbour * Dartmouth, Massachusetts, United States * Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada * Dartmouth, Victoria, Australia Institutions * Dartmouth College, Ivy League university i ...
. Nationally, Martin helped broadcast the
1975 World Series The 1975 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's (MLB) 1975 season. The 72nd edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff played between the American League (AL) champion Boston Red Sox and the Natio ...
on NBC television, four American League playoffs on
CBS Radio CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broadc ...
, and the 1977 Sun Bowl on CBS Radio.


Death

Ned Martin attended a memorial service for Hall of Fame slugger Ted Williams at Boston's Fenway Park on July 22, 2002, and was returning to his home in Clarksville, Virginia, the following day when he was stricken with a massive coronary on a shuttle bus at
Raleigh-Durham International Airport The Research Triangle, or simply The Triangle, are both common nicknames for a metropolitan area in the Piedmont region of North Carolina in the United States, anchored by the cities of Raleigh and Durham and the town of Chapel Hill, home to th ...
; he died there.


Quotes


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Martin, Ned 1923 births 2002 deaths American Football League announcers American radio sports announcers American television sports announcers Boston Patriots announcers Boston Red Sox announcers College football announcers Dartmouth Big Green football Dartmouth College people Duke Blue Devils baseball players Harvard Crimson football Major League Baseball broadcasters Minor League Baseball broadcasters New England Patriots announcers People from Clarksville, Virginia People from Delaware County, Pennsylvania People from Wellesley, Massachusetts Sports in Boston United States Marine Corps personnel of World War II United States Marines Yale Bulldogs football