Byrum "By" Saam: Philadelphia Sports Broadcaster (1914–2000)

Byrum Fred “By” Saam, sports broadcaster, was born in Fort Worth on September 11, 1914, and was the eldest son of Mattie Lau (Byrum) Saam and George William Saam, Jr., who was the director of physical education at the Fort Worth YMCA. His younger brothers were George Jr. (born in 1917), who died at age two, and Robert Douglas Saam (born in 1924).

Saam attended Fort Worth Central (later Paschal) High School, where he played football and basketball before appendicitis interrupted his senior year. He began his sports announcing career as the public address announcer at Central High School football games. Saam graduated in 1932 and worked as a local radio sports announcer. In 1933 he attended Northwestern University’s summer coaching school before enrolling at Texas Christian University (TCU). As a student at TCU during the same period as Sammy Baugh, Saam played basketball and broadcast Southwest Conference football games over the Southwest Broadcasting System and CBS.

In 1936, while still an undergraduate at TCU, he was offered a job as a sports announcer at WCCO in Minneapolis. While working there (for $50 per week), he completed his bachelor’s degree at the University of Minnesota in 1937 and broadcast the school’s football games. In 1936 he added baseball to his resume with play-by-play commentary for the Minneapolis Millers of the American Association.

In 1937 Saam made his debut in Philadelphia, the city where he spent the rest of his career. Recruited by N. W. Ayer and Son, a major Philadelphia advertising agency, he began by broadcasting local college football games for the Atlantic Refining Company, a major sponsor of sporting events, including Major League Baseball. In 1938 Saam was hired to broadcast home games for the city’s American League franchise, the Athletics. The following year he began broadcasting home games for the National League franchise, the Phillies, while continuing to work for the Athletics. Both teams played at Shibe Park, and Saam continued working all major league games played in Philadelphia through 1949.

During this period both teams typically finished at or near the bottom of their respective leagues. Saam did not witness a winning team until 1947, when the A’s finished at 78–76. His first year chronicling a winning Phillies team did not occur until 1949, when the Phillies were 81–73 in the National League.

After the 1949 season, the teams initiated live broadcasts of road games, so Saam had to cast his lot with one team or the other. He chose to remain with the A’s, who reverted to type with a last-place (52–102) finish in 1950, while the youthful Phillies, popularly known as the Whiz Kids, won the pennant. Saam remained with the Athletics through 1954, when the team moved to Kansas City. He then went back to the Phillies, with whom he spent the rest of his career.

From 1955 through 1961 the Phillies never had a winning record. In 1964, when the Phillies appeared guaranteed to win the National League pennant, they collapsed at the end of the season and finished second. From 1965 to 1974 the Phillies were never serious pennant contenders. In 1975, however, they showed signs of improvement and finished ten games above .500. Nevertheless, because his vision was deteriorating due to cataracts, Saam decided to retire after the 1975 season.

Ironically, the next year the team finished first in the National League East Division. Though Saam was no longer a member of the broadcast team, the Phillies brought him out of retirement to experience the division-clinching game on September 26 in Montreal and to broadcast post-season games against the Cincinnati Reds, the National League West Division winners.

In his thirty-eight seasons of play-by-play broadcasting, Saam described nineteen last-place finishes and eleven seasons of 100 or more losses. During Saam’s tenure with the A’s (1938–54), they amassed 1,553 losses. The Phillies lost 1,057 games during his first tour of duty (1939–49), and 1,784 during his second (1955–75). The low point was likely 1961 when the Phillies won just forty-seven (of 155) games and suffered a record twenty-three-game losing streak. It all added up to 4,394 losses. Saam likely called more losses than any other baseball broadcaster before or since. Throughout, he was noted for maintaining his professionalism and evenhandedness no matter how dismal the prospects of the teams for which he was working. His signature phrase was “rolling along,” a segue connecting the inning just finished and the inning about to begin.

Saam’s efforts were rewarded when he received the Ford C. Frick Award, which entitled him to a plaque in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. He was honored alongside inductees Joe Morgan and Jim Palmer during Hall of Fame ceremonies on August 5, 1990.

Although Saam specialized in baseball, he was also a familiar radio voice for other Philadelphia area sports teams. He broadcast college football (Villanova, Temple, and Penn) as well as professional football (the Philadelphia Eagles), minor league hockey (the Philadelphia Ramblers of the East Coast Hockey League), and National Basketball Association games of the Philadelphia Warriors (until the franchise moved to San Francisco in 1962). In 1993 Saam was inducted into the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia Hall of Fame.

During Saam’s tenure, he described thirteen no-hitters, including Jim Bunning’s perfect game in 1964. Aside from his regular-season duties, he got post-season experience broadcasting the World Series for NBC Radio in 1959 and 1965. He also worked the 1948 NFL Championship Game, as well as post-season college football, including the Cotton Bowl, Sugar Bowl, and Liberty Bowl. Perhaps the most distinctive achievement he witnessed as a broadcaster occurred during the Philadelphia Warriors’ March 2, 1962, contest against the New York Knicks. In that game the Warriors’ Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points, which remains the individual record for points in one game.

Saam was married to Anne Fitzpatrick from 1939 until her death in 1986. The couple had three children—son Byrum Jr., and daughters Barbara and Carol. Byrum Saam died in the Philadelphia suburb of Devon on January 16, 2000, as the result of a series of strokes. He was buried at Calvary Cemetery in West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.