Final Rest Stops: Sportscaster Charley M. “The Coach” Eckman kept local sport fans roaring for more than 40 years

Charley Eckman, the high-octane, cigar-waving radio and TV sportscaster, referee, National Basketball Association coach whose brash on-air antics delivered in a raspy rat-a-tat machine gun voice that often defied accepted rules of English grammar and kept local sports fans roaring for 40 years was, needless to say, anything but conventional.

Gifted with a rubbery-face and a head full of wavy heavily oiled black hair that was streaked with gray and combed straight back, Eckman was known for intoning his trademark dismissive line “call a cab” when anything annoyed him.

If something really annoyed him he’d intone, “No, make that two cabs.”

It was said that Eckman used the expression so often that it quickly became a cliche and solidified his standing with fans.

There were two other phrases that he used: “Ain’t no way, José, “You can’t beat them cherries,” or “It’s a very simple game.”

Born in a Stricker Street rowhouse in southwest Baltimore, as a youth he worked as a batboy for the International League Albany Senators when they played at old Oriole Park.

A talented basketball player, by the time he was 16, Eckman was refereeing amateur  basketball games five, six nights a week for 50 cents a game at places such as Cross Street Market and Fourteen Holy Martyrs Roman Catholic Church while attending City College from which he graduated in 1938.

Drafted by the Army in 1942, he later transferred to the Army Air corps but washed out of pilot training, and spent the remaining war years in Yuma , Arizona, as a physical training instructor while continuing to ref basketball games.

Discharged after the war, he worked briefly for Westinghouse, the Glenn L. Martin Co. and Crown, Cork and Seal before becoming an umpire with the old Tri-State Baseball League.

In 1947, he was hired because of his flamboyant arm-waving style by the Basketball Association of America, forerunner of today’s National Basketball Association, and by 1954, was one of the country’s top referees.

In 1951, he officiated at the first NBA All-Star game in Boston.

He was hired that year by industrialist Fred Zollner to coach the Fort Wayne Pistons.

He won two Western division titles, tied for a third, and was named Coach of the Year after only one season with Fort Wayne.

Fired by Zoellner in 1959, Eckman returned home and lost his bid for a seat in the House of Delegates.

Gov. Milard J. Tawes appointed him a judge of the Anne Arundel County Orphans’ Court.

“Orphans’ court ain’t about orphans, it’s about wills,” explained Eckman to reporters.

In 1965 he joined the staff of WCBM after being given some wire copy to read as a test.

“He was sensational,” said Fred Neil who was the station’s news director at the time of Eckman’s death in 1995 for his Sun obituary.

“He was an entertainer who never forgot what he was there to do,” he said.

Harry Shriver, radio executive and former president and general manager of WFBR, hired Eckman away from WCBM in 1970.

The irrepressible Eckman eschewed scripts much to the  consternation and worry of station staff, preferring to scratch down a few ideas on a matchbook cover or an envelope.

Ad-libbing, occasionally he’d forget a sponsor’s name. He also had to promise the president of a Baltimore bank that he’d no longer refer to the bank’s money as “scratch.”

He did radio spots for Joe Louie’s Chinese restaurant in Anne Arundel County and immortalized one of its specialties, shrimp toast, which he dubbed “shrimpie toast.”

Not averse to sharing a few cold beers with friends, Eckman was delighted when WFBR landed the National Brewing Co. account.

Jettisoning the ad copy that had been prepared for him to read, Eckman did his  usual ad-lib schtick: “How about it coach? You thirsty? Well, you know what to do about it, don’tcha? Get over there to your favOHrite waterin’ hole for a nice, big, frosty glass of everyone’s favOHrite beer, National Bo. Mmmm-mmmm.”

He could be comically unmerciful at times as when a listener called his radio show inquiring if a certain horse had won the third race at Pimlico, and he responded on-air.

“Ain’t no way, sweetheart. Whatsamatter, honey, your old man have a fin on King Flame?”

After retiring from WFBR in 1987, Eckman could be heard on WCBM, and was often a guest on a Home Team Sports talk show. He was also a panelist on WJZ-TV’s “Square Off” and announced games for the Baltimore Blasts.

His longtime friend and coach Kenny Cooper told The Sun at his death, “He was like Will Rogers, he never met a person he didn’t like. He lives and dies for the city of Baltimore and the state …. He lived life to the fullest and now he had nothing left in the gas tank.”

He was 73 at his death, and is now calling cabs from Loudon Park Cemetery where he rests next to his wife of 53 years, the former Wilma Howard.