Former Tigers broadcaster Beckmann dies

DETROIT -- Frank Beckmann, whose near-half century as a Detroit broadcaster included a decade calling Tigers games, passed away Saturday following a rare illness. He was 72.

Beckmann’s wife Karen told the Detroit News that he was in critical condition at an area hospice facility following a series of strokes. He also had been dealing with vascular dementia, a rare condition that impacts blood vessels in the brain.

“Frank Beckmann cared deeply about Detroit and Michigan,” the Tigers said in a statement Sunday morning. “His passion for baseball and sports will forever be remembered.”

Born in Germany, Beckmann grew up in the Detroit area and spent 48 years at local superstation WJR, which was the longtime flagship station for Tigers games. He started at WJR as a news reporter in 1972 and covered such stories as the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, a story that earned him a National Headliner Award. He began his play-by-play career with the Detroit Lions in 1978, and became the station’s sports director a year later.

Around that same time, Beckmann became the radio play-by-play voice of University of Michigan football, a role he held for over 30 years through the latter half of Bo Schembechler’s coaching tenure, plus Gary Moeller and Lloyd Carr.

Beckmann became the radio voice of the Tigers in 1995 at a challenging time. He followed Rick Rizzs and Bob Rathbun, who never overcame the image of replacing Hall of Fame broadcaster Ernie Harwell on the radio despite accomplished careers calling games elsewhere. Harwell rejoined the Tigers on television broadcasts in 1994, while Beckmann took over on radio a year later.

Despite less experience in baseball than other sports, Beckmann proved both adept popular, teaming with Lary Sorensen and Jim Price on WJR from 1995 to 1998. When Harwell returned to the radio side, Beckmann hopped over to television broadcasts, calling games over the air on WKBD-50 from 1999-2004. He worked with Hall of Famer Al Kaline for three seasons before Kaline joined the Tigers' front office.

“When I think of Frank, I don’t only think about his amazing voice but what a truly wonderful man he is,” former Tigers general manager Randy Smith tweeted on Saturday. “We shared a lot of laughs and glad to have him as a friend for over twenty years.”

Beckmann was on television play-by-play for the final game at Tiger Stadium in 1999. His thunderous call of Robert Fick’s eighth-inning grand slam fit the emotion of the crowd, and remains familiar to fans today.

Among Beckmann’s well-known phrases on broadcasters was “straight down Woodward” for a strike over the heart of the plate, a reference to the main street that goes through downtown Detroit and passes by Comerica Park.

Add in a fill-in appearance to call a Stanley Cup playoffs broadcast for the Detroit Red Wings, and Beckmann is believed to be the first broadcaster to call games for all four of Detroit’s major sports teams. He also created WJR’s popular SportsWrap, one of the first sports talk shows of its kind in the area, which still runs 40 years later. He hosted WJR’s morning talk show from 2004 until his retirement last year.

Beckmann earned nearly every local sportscasting award possible, including Michigan Sportscaster of the Year three times from the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. Beckmann was induced into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 2007, and received the Ty Tyson Award -- an award for excellence in sports broadcasting named after the Tigers’ first radio announcer -- from the Detroit Sports Media Association in 2010.