TOM HAMILTON, the "Voice of the Indians," will enter his 23rd season of calling Cleveland Indians baseball games on radio in 2012. In his 22 seasons since 1990, Hamilton has called 68 postseason games for the Tribe from 1994-99, 2001 and 2007, including all six (6) games from the 1995 World Series and all seven (7) games from the 1997 World Series.
Hamilton will be joined in the booth with Jim Rosenhaus to provide commentary for all162 regular season games and 20 spring training contests on WTAM News Radio, 1100 on the AM dial and the Indians Radio Network.
Tom came to the Indians after spending three seasons as a broadcaster for the AAA Columbus Clippers, the top farm club of the New York Yankees. Previously, Tom worked in Milwaukee, Appleton, Watertown and Shell Lake, Wisconsin.
Some of his broadcasting credits include the University of Wisconsin football games, University of Colorado basketball games, the Appleton Foxes minor league baseball games and work for ABC radio. He is a five-time recipient of the Ohio Sportscaster of the Year Award (1997, 2000, 2001, 2004 and 2006). During the off-season, Tom does television basketball broadcasts for the Big Ten Conference on ESPN and the Big Ten Network. In honor of his 20th season with the Indians, Tom was given the Cleveland Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame Award for 2009.
Hamilton is a native of Waterloo, Wisconsin. He resides in Avon Lake, Ohio with his wife, Wendy. The Hamilton's have four children: Two boys, Nicholas and Bradley, and two girls, Kelsey and Katie. Nick is a sophomore at Kent St. University where he is a member of the baseball team.
2012 marks the sixth season for JIM ROSENHAUS and the first season he will partner with Tom Hamilton on the Indians Radio Network. Rosenhaus has spent the past five seasons as a contributing member of the Indians Radio Network, including roles as play-by-play announcer and host of the pregame show, Indians Warm-Up and weekly show, Tribe Talk, on the Indians Radio Network and indians.com.
Rosenhaus joined the Indians prior to the 2007 season after spending 11 years as the play by play voice of the AAA Buffalo Bisons. In 2011, Rosenhaus was inducted into the Buffalo Baseball Hall of Fame for his play-by-play work with AA Buffalo Bisons. In addition to his baseball broadcasting work, Rosenhaus spent 11 years as the voice of University for the Buffalo men's basketball team.
In the baseball off season, Jim also works various televised events (high school football playoffs and high school basketball) for SportsTime Ohio.
Jim resides in Bay Village, Ohio with his wife Carole and sons Nathan and Cole.
The first local telecast of an Indians' game took place on May 15, 1948 as Cleveland met the White Sox in an afternoon game at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The game was telecast on WEWS-TV, Cleveland's only TV station at the time. The announcer was Van Patrick.
Former Tribe center fielder RICK MANNING returns for his 23rd season as color commentator for Indians baseball telecasts, now on SportsTime Ohio and on WKYC-TV.
He began his professional baseball career with the Cleveland Indians as the #1 selection in the 1972 June draft. The first 8 1/2 years of his 13-year major league career were spent in Cleveland (1975-1983) where he won a Gold Glove in 1976 for his fielding prowess. Manning was also selected as the BBWAA "Good Guy" award winner for the 1980 season.
Rick and his wife, Sue, reside in Scottsdale, AZ. He has two children, Kyle and Jessica, and two grandchildren.
MATT UNDERWOOD begins his sixth season in the TV booth calling the play-by- play with partner Rick Manning on SportsTime Ohio and WKYC- TV. He spent seven seasons as a member of the Tribe radio broadcast team and 13 seasons, from 1994-2006 as host of Indians Warm Up, the pre-game show heard on the Cleveland Indians Radio Network. He also hosted the Emmy Award winning TV pre-game show for Indians baseball for nine seasons from 1998-2006.
Matt spent 17 years in various capacities with local ABC affiliate WEWS-TV5. He continued that relationship for six years in a part-time role after joining the Tribe radio broadcast team for the 2000 season. He served as the station's sports director from 1997-2000 and was nominated for an Emmy Award twice. In addition to anchoring the 6pm and 11pm sports, he also hosted the weekly half-hour show, Sports Sunday. Underwood also co-hosted a daily talk show on SportsRadio WKNR (1993-94).
Matt makes numerous appearances on behalf of Cleveland Indians Charities and has served as the Chairman for the Nev Chandler Charity Golf Classic, raising money to fight cancer in honor of his late mentor.
The Ashland, OH native graduated from Baldwin-Wallace College in 1990. Matt currently resides in Avon Lake with his wife, Shelley. They have two children, Max and Devan.
AL PAWLOWSKI is slated to provide the play-by-play with Rick Manning for approximately 10 games on SportsTime Ohio this year. He joined SportsTime Ohio in 2007 and currently serves as the host of Tribe pre-game show Indians On-Deck and is the co-host of The Tribe Report on STO.
A graduate of John Carroll University where he played baseball, Al also is the current play-by-play radio broadcaster for the Cleveland State men's basketball and does freelance play-by-play work for ESPN, where most recently, he called two Little League World Series games in August 2009.
Prior to joining STO he served as the radio/TV play-by-play broadcaster for the Cleveland Crunch/Force for seven seasons from 1998-2005 and was the Indians in park host/reporter at Jacobs Field from 1999-2006.
Al resides in Sagamore Hills with his wife Jessica.
The equivalent of Hall of Fame induction for broadcasters and sportswriters is the Ford C. Frick Award and the J. G. Taylor Spink Award, respectively. Three individuals have been honored for their coverage of the Indians. Tribe play-by-play voice Jimmy Dudley received the Frick award in 1997. And Gordon Cobbledick (1977) and Hal Lebovitz (2000) have been honored with the Spink award.
