Through all the losing the Baltimore Orioles organization has endured during the past decade, there have been two constant voices of optimism: Jim Hunter and Fred Manfra.
The Orioles? radio and television play-by-play men have seen the good ? like 1997?s wire-to-wire domination of the American League East ? and the bad. In Thursday?s second edition of “Lunch with Legends,” a Q&A session between fans and local sports notables at the Sports Legends Museum at Camden Yards, Hunter and Manfra said they are anxious for victories again.
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Manfra is entering his 15th year broadcasting Orioles games, while Hunter will call his 11th season. The duo will get their first glimpse of the team when they broadcast March 1. Both work for the Peter Angelos-operated Mid-Atlantic Sports Network and the Orioles? radio broadcasts, now heard on 105.7-FM WHFS.
“I hope this will be a year that Jim and I can smile at the end of season and not say, ?Wait ?til next year,?” Manfra said.
“Yeah, we don?t want to say that anymore,” Hunter added.
Their lifelong passion comes through in their voices, both on the air and in person. Manfra grew up in East Baltimore as a fan of legendary broadcaster Chuck Thompson. Manfra called the Wiffle Ball action he played with his neighborhood friends. His buddies would eventually get irked and yell, “Why don?t you just shut up? Play the game!”
“Fortunately for me, unfortunately for them, I kept it up and wound being a sports broadcaster,” Manfra joked.
The 1964 Patterson High graduate has had a wide-ranging career, calling radio broadcasts of the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, the NBA Finals and the Stanley Cup.
Hunter?s father was a television producer of Yankees games, and the spirit of broadcasting worked its way into him.
“I?ve been around broadcasting my whole life, and I gravitated toward the announcers,” Hunter said.
Both men were impressed with the free-agent acquisitions of the Orioles this offseason.
“I?m thinking third,” Manfra predicted for the Orioles? AL East finish in 2007.
“I think we?re going to surprise and contend for second,” Hunter said. “I don?t know if we?re going to get there. [But] I think the Red Sox are going to implode.”
