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Friday, August 09, 2002

By Lori Shontz, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Richard Bingham, a Pirates baseball broadcaster for three years in the 1950s, died Monday in Severna Park, Md., after a long illness. He was 79.

When Mr. Bingham spoke, he spoke carefully. During his days as a baseball announcer, he reminded Pirates pitcher Nellie King of a professor. In later years, he gently corrected his four children, wanting everything from their pronunciation to their subject-verb agreement to be like his -- precise.

But he was vague about one thing -- his relationship with Bob Prince, his broadcasting partner with the Pirates from 1955 until Mr. Bingham was fired before the 1958 season.

"[Prince] was hard to get along with, and I know my dad was sometimes hard to get along with," said Mr. Bingham's son, Rich. "You get those guys together for three years, that was about all they could stand of each other. I mean that in a nice way."

The elder Bingham was born in Parkersburg, W.Va., to a family that logged the woods around Blackwater Falls and the Canaan Valley. During the Depression, his mother was unable to care for both him and his older brother, Charles, so Mr. Bingham was raised by his aunt.

He idolized his older brother, an accomplished pianist. Charles did a 15-minute show every Saturday afternoon on local radio, and Mr. Bingham wanted to be a part of it. He became his brother's singer/announcer.

He won a state oratory competition in high school, and the prize was a scholarship to West Virginia University, which he refused because his mother and aunt wanted him to stay closer to home. Instead, he attended Marietta College for two years before entering the Naval Air Corps in 1942.

He spent his entire tour of duty training to fly a variety of airplanes, including the PBY4, B-24 and the Privateer. He was discharged as a lieutenant junior grade, and for the rest of his life he indulged his love of flying by building and flying model airplanes.

After leaving the service, Mr. Bingham combined his love of broadcasting with his love of baseball, a sport he played until the age of 14, when he was hit in the face with a ball and injured. He moved to St. Petersburg, Fla., and began broadcasting Grapefruit League exhibition games.

During the regular season, he called games played in other areas of the country. Mr. Bingham would drive north until his short-wave radio picked up the signal from, say, New York. He would listen to the play-by-play, then give his own to his Florida listeners.

"Lots of times he would lose the communication for whatever reason," said Mr. Bingham's daughter, Barbara Strouse. "So he would have a guy fouling back 30 [pitches] before the communication came back. Or they would have a 'rain delay.' "

His career eventually took him to Chicago and New York. Mr. Bingham knew Harry Carey, Mel Allen, Vin Scully. "Anybody that's old in broadcasting," Richard said. "They were all of the same ilk."

The Pirates hired him in 1955, after longtime announcer Rosey Rosewell retired and Prince became the lead announcer. Mr. Bingham did not have a particularly high profile during his tenure with the Pirates, but he was known for his authoritative radio voice.

"Dick never quite fit the mold," said King, who went on to become an announcer himself.

Termination is an occupational hazard in broadcasting, and it happened to Mr. Bingham after three seasons as Prince's sidekick.

"I don't think their personalities meshed well," King said. "That can happen."

Mr. Bingham then turned his off-season career as a real-estate agent into a year-round job. He eventually opened his own agency, Bingham Realty. He retired in 1972, three years after a heart attack made him decide he should spend more time on the golf course and less in the office.

He and his wife, Elizabeth, moved to Florida in 1972. He continued to work part time in radio and in real estate, playing golf five times a week. He was proficient enough to shoot his age when he was 72.

Survivors include his daughters, Barbara Strouse of Columbus, Ohio, and Beverly Knepshield of Denver; another son, Robert of Columbus; a sister, Marjorie Nichol of St. Petersburg, Fla., and 12 grandchildren.

Lori Shontz can be reached at lshontz@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1722.